EPD chief: State has to manage water to sustain growth

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Posted 3:46PM on Thursday, July 15, 2004

CAMILLA - Georgia has to make managing its water a top priority to continue the growth that has made it an economic and agricultural powerhouse of the South, the state's top environmental official said Thursday. "For many decades the state has benefited from tremendous growth, population growth, economic growth, but we have entered a time now that as a consequence of that we are beginning to manage our water resources in an unsustainable way," said Carol Couch, director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. "We can't continue the current practices of how we use and treat water and continue to hope to double the population, sustain our economic vitality in agriculture and bring in the industries we want," she said. Couch is visiting Mitchell, Decatur and Miller counties on Thursday and Friday to discuss water issues with farmers, many of them dependent on irrigation systems to sustain their crops during dry spells, such as the 1998-2002 drought that cost them millions of dollars. Couch said the state has the ability to manage water, it just hasn't been a high priority. But with the four-year drought and prolonged "water wars" with neighboring Alabama and Florida, Georgia lawmakers approved a bill in March that authorizes EPD to develop a statewide management plan to assure adequate supplies for municipalities, industries and farmers. Each region will develop its own plan and those will be considered in setting statewide water policies. EPD will present the statewide plan to the Legislature in 2008. Farmers are already calling for an end to the moratorium on drilling irrigation wells into the Floridan Aquifer, a major water source in southwest Georgia, and some are concerned that the installation of mandatory water meters on their wells is a first step toward water rationing. "When you start saying 'allocation,' it scares me to death," farmer Bubba Johnson told Couch. But she assured him the state is not considering a "lock down" on water in the Flint River Basin. Johnson, a chicken and alligator farmer who also grows cotton and peanuts, said long-term studies are needed to fully understand the water needs of farmers during dry and wet years. "We know we're facing change and we accept that as long as we're involved in the decision making," said Johnson, president of the Mitchell County Farm Bureau. Couch's visit was arranged by state Rep. Richard Royal, D-Camilla, who has championed farm issues in the Legislature. On Thursday morning, she addressed about 25 farmers and researchers at the University of Georgia's 130-acre C.M. Stripling Irrigation Research Park, then she left to visit farms. Scientists at the research center are fine-tuning the water requirements of various crops, including corn, cotton and watermelons using buried soil-moisture sensors and state-of-the-art irrigation systems. Couch said $4.5 million worth of EPD-funded research and the involvement of farmers has moved Southwest Georgia ahead of the rest of the state, except metropolitan Atlanta, in water management, and she promised that agricultural needs will be considered in the state's water management plan.