Durango Water Permit Sale
Press Release
Southern Law Environmental Center
"Conservationists to court:
Don't let Georgia water be sold to highest bidder"
June 30, 2005
In a formal objection filed today with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the
Southern District of Georgia, several major state conservation groups
argued that selling the water withdrawal permit from the closed Durango
Georgia Paper Co. paper mill in St. Marys to the highest bidder is
against Georgia law. The six groups - The Georgia Conservancy, Georgia
Wildlife Federation, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, Center for a
Sustainable Coast, Altamaha Riverkeeper and Satilla Riverkeeper - said
auctioning off the mill's water rights could set a dangerous precedent
of allowing Georgia's waters to be bought and sold.
The Durango mill went bankrupt in December 2002. On June 17, 2005, the
bankruptcy court ordered an auction to sell the mill's assets - and
included the Department of Natural Resources permit allowing Durango to
withdraw 44 million gallons per day from a groundwater reservoir for its
paper-making operations. The auction is scheduled to take place in
Florida in December. The permit sale is subject to approval by the DNR,
which has said publicly it would not honor the permit if auctioned
separately from the whole mill.
While the groups are encouraged by the state's position, they aren'T
taking any chances and have filed their objection in order to remove the
water withdrawal permit from the auction, as well as to establish legal
precedent to thwart any similar attempts to auction off water permits in
the future.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the groups,
said in its brief to the court that Durango's water withdrawal permit
stipulates that the water can only be used for a paper mill. According
to the brief, state and common law dictate that the permit can only be
used on land where the water is located, and cannot be sold separately
from the mill.
"Letting the Durango water permit be auctioned off to anyone with enough
money, at an auction that is not even in Georgia, would be bad for our
citizens and for Georgia's precious water resources," said Ciannat
Howett, SELC Atlanta Office Director. "It's just not sound policy - as
the Legislature acknowledged in 2003 when it defeated water permit
trading - to allow our water to be sold on the open market," Howett
said.
"Challenging this court order is a logical extension of the conservation
community's work to keep water a public resource," said Jim Stokes, the
Georgia Conservancy President. "This is too important an issue for us to
let this case continue without voicing our objections."
"On its face, the permit cannot be auctioned off as a separate asset. It
is not like a piece of equipment," said Jerry McCollum, President of the
Georgia Wildlife Federation. "We just want to keep the current law in
Georgia in place, meaning that water withdrawal permits stay with the
land and are not allowed to be sold."
The six groups, along with SELC, are members of the broad-based,
statewide Georgia Water Coalition, whose core philosophy is that water
in Georgia is a public resource, not a marketable commodity. The goal of
the Coalition is to find a sustainable solution to Georgia's water
crisis that addresses the needs of agriculture and business and
contributes to public health, while maintaining the integrity of
Georgia's natural systems.
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