ACTION ALERT
Help Amend House Bill 237, SUPPORT Senate Bill 180!
You immediate action needed!!!
From the Georgia Water Coalition -
House Bill (HB) 237 is moving to the House floor the morning of Thursday, February 27. The Georgia Water Coalition will
need all hands on board that day at the Capitol to pull legislators off of the floor in an effort to get amendments to
the bill. No prior experience is necessary! Please contact Crystal Jackson (at The Georgia Conservancy) by email or
phone (404-876-2900 x24) to let us know if you will be able to help out.
So, the Center for a Sustainable Coast suggests - Whether or not you make it to the Capitol in Atlanta, if you want to
have a say in our state's water future, we strongly urge you to take a moment to call your or fax your legislators to
oppose HB237 and to support SB180. A summary of the problems with the house bill and the advantages of the Senate's
alternative appears further down this message.
We also suggest that you call your local representative in the House to state your opposition to HB237 as written!
Amendments are needed to make it consistent with Senate Bill 180 - (1) eliminate interbasin transfers, (2) provide
for watershed planning councils, and (3) prohibit selling or trading of water permits.
If you need to find your local representative's telephone or fax number, you can go the state website @ www.legis.state.ga.us,
or call the House information line at 404-656-5082. Senate information is at 404-656-0028.
PLEASE CALL US IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, AND LET US KNOW IF WE CAN HELP! (912-638-3612)
Contacts to be called or faxed in support of SB180, the Georgia Water Planning Act:
Senator Rene Kemp (Sponsor) - Phone, 404-656-0070;
Fax, 404-657-1806
Senator George Hooks (Co-Sponsor) - Phone
404-656-0065; Fax, 404-651- 6768
Charley Tanksley (Co-Sponsor) - Phone, 404-651-7738;
Fax, 404-651-6767
Basic message to convey:
"I (we) strongly support Senate Bill 180 because it protects the public interest in water as a public resource, and it sets
a framework for local representation in water planning by watershed through a Council of Citizens. I (we) strongly oppose
any attempt to allow the trading or sale of water permits, or to make water a commodity for sale to the highest bidder.
I (we) therefore oppose HB237 unless it is amended to be consistent with SB180."
Highlights of HB237 and SB180:
**The House bill (HB237) would allow Atlanta to move water from river basin to river basin to feed its economic growth,
at the expense of communities downstream.
**The House bill would not allow local people, local government or local organizations to have any meaningful role in
water planning, a step that assures that the wealthier parts of the state continue to prevail in the allocation of this
most precious resource, at the expense of the less fortunate.
**The feature of the House bill that is perhaps most dangerous of all to the interests of coastal Georgia is a provision
to allow the trading of water withdrawal permits. This would mean that outfits like Durango Georgia Co., after closing
their paper plant in St. Marys, would be given the right to sell a 29 million gallon-per-day withdrawal permit. This
would be a totally unjustified and unfair allocation of public resources, yet made perfectly legal IF this
ill-conceived bill (HB237) is adopted.
***SB 180, which Senator Kemp and his colleagues have put forward, is a moderate and fair measure that seeks to firmly
and permanently establish the right of Georgians to use as much water as they may reasonably need, the same way we have
done it for generations. This bill may not be perfect, and we welcome ideas for improving it, but it is far better
legislation that the House bill.
**SB 180 affirms the continuance of the common law, the system of riparian rights our forefathers brought from England,
so that property owners have the right to use the water on, beside or beneath their land for appropriate uses. But
unlike the house bill, SB180's approach does not allow the exploitation of water by a few at the expense of the many.
**The idea that someone could buy the water out from under a piece of property, so that subsequent owners would have no
right to the water found there is a radical departure from our tradition of property rights, in which the water runs with
the land where it is found.
**The bill's cosponsors want to assure that their constituents are represented in the water planning process, and not allow
those decisions to be made entirely from offices in Atlanta. We have provided that each river basin will have a
Council of Citizens, selected by their legislators, to make the plan for their river basin. These plans would be combined
into a state water plan. What could be fairer that?
The environmentally responsible alternative, Georgia Water Planning Act of 2003 (SB 180) can now be found at
www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/fulltext/sb180.htm
The Atlanta Journal Constitution recently published commentary clarifying distinctions between the two
approaches, posted immediately below -- Senate bill a better choice for protecting state's water
Guess who the House Natural Resources Committee protected first when it started amending a key water bill?
Constituents who have to live on polluted creeks and lakes? Public officials trying to conserve an important resource?
Families who want to know that it's safe to swim and fish in and drink from Georgia waterways?
No. At best, those folks got only a polite nod. In fact, no member of the committee even dared to propose amendments suggested
by environmental groups to House Bill 237. State Rep. Bob Hanner (D-Parrott), the bill's chief sponsor and the chairman of the
committee, says he is not open to any major changes in the legislation.
However, when it came down to the needs of special interests, it was a different story. In a recent subcommittee
meeting, Rep. Tom McCall (D-Elberton) asked whether members understood what he correctly called "the kaolin amendment" and
"the Budweiser amendment."
Apparently they did, because those changes, granted at the request of mining, brewing and bottled-water
industries, were approved without controversy.
While they were nothing more than the grandfathering in of existing industry practices, the speedy approval they
received is symbolic of the larger problem with HB 237: It is a special interest, top-down bill.
The bill, based in part on almost two years of work by a Joint Water Plan Study Committee co-chaired by Hanner,
gives ultimate authority for a water management plan to eight bureaucrats instead of to local communities in the state's 14
river basins.
It also allows the private buying and selling of water rights -- which belong ultimately to the people -- and it purposefully
dkirts the state's designated environmental policy body, the state Board of Natural Resources.
A competing bill, introduced Tuesday in the Senate with strong bipartisan sponsorship, would create a bottom-up
planning process, giving considerable responsibility to local river basin councils. Unlike the Hanner bill, Senate Bill
180 protects the public interest in water.
Overall, the Senate's approach promises to give the people, not the bureaucrats, the final say in how our most precious
resource is managed.
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