ARC takes issue with water report

ATLANTA - Atlanta's Regional Commission moved swiftly to refute an out of state engineering firm's study that claimed the state won't be able to meet water demands in seven years.

"Although population has increased by roughly 900,000 people in the last decade, the water use has decreased by greater than 20-percent in that same period of time," said Katherine Zitsch, Manager of the Natural Resources Regional Division at ARC.

Zitsch said they're predicting a 10- to 20-percent increase in use in next seven years, not a nine-fold increase.

"The planning district has done plenty of documents that carry us through 2040, and in that document we have outlined both the needs for the 15 counties and 92 cities through 2040, as well as the sources."

Zitsch was responding to the Burns and McDonnell Engineering firm's Southeast office report released Monday.

"I do have concerns with the information that has been presented in the graphic and believe that we have the adequate supply we need, speaking for the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, to meet our needs through the future and certainly past 2020," Zitsch said.

Despite the assurances, the ARC is still urging people to conserve water where they can. It's part of a program called "My Drop Counts-dot-Org."

Hall County is among the counties participating in that initiative.