Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Planning (Water Plan) with Water Quality and Quantity

2008 Water Plan Policy Position

ACCG Natural Resources and Environment Committee

August 14, 2007

Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Plan– With water quality and quantity issues affecting all 159 Georgia counties, ACCG fully supports the development of a comprehensive statewide water management plan (Water Plan). Notwithstanding this, ACCG recognizes that each county has unique economic and environmental circumstances and there can be no “one size fits all” solution to these complex water quality and quantity issues. To equitably ensure the long-term success of the Water Plan in addressing the critical water management objectives of minimizing water withdrawal; conservation; maximizing returns; and meeting in-stream, off-stream and assimilative capacity needs while supporting economic growth, ACCG:

• Urges the Governor to budget and the General Assembly to appropriate and establish a constitutionally-dedicated source of funding that will be used to successfully conduct the initialand ongoing water quantity and water quality assessments, data compilation, and regional planning administration. Without comprehensive, frequently-updated and science-based data, and state funding to support these endeavors, the Water Plan will be incomplete and cannot succeed.
  
• Discourages EPD from basing water permitting decisions on Water Plan components, especially conservation and consumptive use measures, until the necessary water assessment data has been collected, compiled, and carefully studied. Existing and near-future requests should be expeditiously processed using existing rules and policies;
  
• Urges that Regional Water Planning Councils be selected by means other than the EPD Director’s sole authority;
  
• Urges that Regional Water Planning Councils’ voting bodies be composed of a majority of local elected officials as they are responsible for implementing regional planning efforts, ensuring compliance with other state and federal clean water requirements, and ultimately are accountable to the communities which they represent;
  
• Urges that a binding dispute resolution process be established to resolve conflicts certain to arise within, between and among Regional Water Planning Councils in developing Water Development and Conservation Plans (WDCPs);
  

(over)

• Urges that the Governor, Water Council, EPD, DNR, General Assembly and other stakeholders call on Georgia’s Congressional delegation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expeditiously develop and implement up-to-date Water Control Plans, per the Corps’ existing regulations, for its reservoirs in the state so that Georgia and its downstream neighboring states can know with certainty the expected yields of these reservoirs and their watersheds. Without this information, any Georgia Water Plan will be incomplete;
  
• Urges that conservation measures and other required Water Plan management practices apply to neighborhood and community water systems as well, and that agriculturaluses be subject to water conservation measures included in the plan such that all water users share equal conservation responsibilities; and
  
• Encourages local governments to pay close attention to the link between land use and water resource management and to consider impacts on water resources during the development and implementation of their land use plans. This is particularly important when the impervious surface starts to approach 10 percent in any local jurisdiction.