 As part of Georgia’s efforts to protect its valuable water resources and ensure long-term sustainability, the state recently enacted a Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Plan, a blueprint to shape water management now and in the future.
The Plan’s is designed to protect the water while balancing the needs of its growing economy; use good scientific information when making policies, and provide local communities the flexibility and authority to manage their water resources.
Under the Plan, Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division will make integrated water-permitting decisions based on water quantity and quality needs of the state, both now and in the future. Local planning councils will use the assessments to determine how best to manage their regional water needs.
The plan divides the state into 10 water planning regions and recognizes one existing water planning district, the Metro NGA Water Planning District, based largely on watershed boundaries in the northern half of the state and aquifer boundaries in the southern half of the state.
Regional water planning councils, made up of 25 local citizens, represent a broad diversity of stakeholder interests and locally elected officials. The councils will create water development and conservation plans for their region which could include enhanced water conservation, reservoir development, better allocation, and water utility pricing.
Georgia Power played an important role in the planning, with company executives serving on the State Advisory Council, providing oversight and guidance to EPD, six Basin Advisory Councils and a Technical Advisory Council that provided input to the plan.
One water-related topic that is of major importance, particular to the metro Atlanta region, is the Tri-State Water Issue. In this dispute, Georgia, Alabama and Florida disagree over the use of water coming out of two basins: the Alabama Coosa Tallapoosa and the Appalachicola Chattahoochee Flint. More.
A federal judge’s recent ruling on the role of Lake Lanier in the Apalachicola Chattahoochee Flint basin, which supplies 70 percent of the region’s drinking water, requires that the disagreements among the three states be worked out within three years.
Georgia is responding with a variety of solutions to conserve, capture and control:
Conserve
- Increase conversation measures
- Increase reuse
- Repair leaks to existing infrastructure
Capture
- Build new regional reservoirs
- Raise existing reservoirs
- Identify quarries
- Evaluate aquifer storage and recovery
Control
- Evaluate interbasin transfers
- Return of treated wastewater
- Invest state resources in the Conserve and Capture measures
- Update water control manuals
Georgia will continue to work with local leadership, as well as elected officials in Florida and Alabama, to find workable solutions for issues impacting our natural resources, while recognizing the needs of region’s thriving economy.
For more information on Georgia’s water initiatives, contact us at econdevga@southernco.com.
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