Paying a Truer Price for Water

Tiered Billing Structure in ’08?

originally published November 7, 2007

On Halloween Day outside the state capitol, members of the Georgia Water Coalition gave Atlanta-area leaders a “report card” on water efficiency and conservation in the metro area. For the most part, metro Atlanta got poor marks, and the report included a look at the conservation-pricing schemes of the metro area’s various utilities. According to studies by the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, 92 percent of water customers in metro Atlanta are served by a system with some sort of tiered rate structure - designed, in theory, to encourage conservation via pricing - but it’s not clear that all of those structures are set up in a way that actually increases conservation.

What does that matter to Athens? District 7 Commissioner Kathy Hoard made note publicly at the end of the Mayor and Commission’s Oct. 25 drought management work session that a proposal for a conservation rate structure for water will be coming to the full Commission early in 2008. That proposal started in the ACC Water Conservation Committee, which Hoard chairs, but it hasn’t yet seen the light of day in a public sense.

In essence, a conservation rate structure would charge normal rates for customers using water at normal levels. Customers whose use went into higher tiers, based on volume, would not only be charged more by volume, but would be charged a higher rate per gallon: thus the economic incentive to conserve, as the cost per unit of high use increases.

The effectiveness of such a price structure, though, depends on how it’s set up. Just west of Atlanta, the Douglasville-Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority will be adjusting its existing conservation rate structure as of Dec. 1 to more effectively conserve water. Rather than having higher rates kick in at the threshold of 10,000 gallons per month per household, the “break point” will now be at 6,000 gallons per month, says Pete Frost, the system’s director. (6,000 gallons per month equates roughly to the figure cited recently by ACC officials as a general guideline to the consumption of a two-person household: 198 gallons per day.)

Although Douglas County citizens are already part of the 92 percent of metro Atlantans already served under a tiered structure, the new arrangement will bring Frost’s system into line with published recommendations of the metro water planning district. That, so far, is a rare feat.

“I would venture a guess that there probably is one or two communities in the district that actually do have the recommended structure,” Frost says.

Will it be done right in Athens? The details on the plan aren’t out yet. The local water conservation committee worked on a rate structure at length, but the committee fizzled about a year ago without coming to consensus on a plan.

Commissioner Hoard says the committee reached “an impasse,” in part because it tried to deal with both residential and commercial users at once. She says separate residential and commercial conservation rate structures will be brought to the full ACC Commission perhaps as soon as January. The proposal might have come forward faster, Hoard admits, but she says, “It would not have come in time to impact where we are today.” And, she says, the ongoing water shortage helps politically to point out the need for a new pricing system. She expects it to be “much more readily accepted than it would have been last year.”

Chris Butts of the local family-owned nursery Charmar Flower & Gift Shop serves on the water conservation committee. “We wrestled with that for more than a year,” Butts recalls. “We would have that policy if that committee had been able to work as a true, open committee.” But the policy ideas brought forward there by county management couldn’t be agreed upon, he says, and their impact on the “green industry” seemed too harsh. He worried that they would serve primarily to gather more revenue for the local government.

Charmar, meanwhile, will be closing permanently, having been hit hardest of all local nurseries, it seems, by the effects of the outdoor watering ban enacted locally in mid-September (and soon after that, for all of North Georgia).

Charmar, which opened on Gaines School Road in 1971, is different from many other garden centers in that it grows its own stock, which has compounded the problem there. (Even though it is still legally able to water that stock, the market for it has vanished.)

“Other people may be fortunate enough to cancel their orders for fall,” Butts says.

Butts and his family had already been considering either closing or relocating the business, he says, and the property has been for sale for over a year.

“And as soon as the full ban came about,” he says, “it took about a full week of looking at those sales plummet.”

What role did that have in the decision to close?

“It decided a timetable for us and made a decision - where we had multiple choices it took away those choices,” Butts says. He adds, “Anyone that thinks we’re just using this as an excuse, I would invite to come have a talk with me.”

As for a conservation rate structure, Butts says, “It’s proven in different parts of the country. It’s a vital step.”

He is still a member of the water conservation committee, though the full committee group has not met recently. “I will continue to serve on that committee if we don’t end up being a rubber stamp for the policy,” Butts says.

Ben Emanuel

ben@flagpole.com

Athens’ Landfill Fills Up

While Drought Grabs the Headlines

originally published November 7, 2007

Late on the night of Oct. 2, as the monthly voting meeting of the Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Mayor and Commission wound down, the officials present took a few minutes - as they always do at the end of a meeting - to discuss items not on the night’s agenda. The person who had the most to say that night was ACC Manager Alan Reddish, who spoke at some length with the general aim of getting everyone on the same page of the still-developing drought management plan. Twice during that long speech, Reddish meant to say the word “reservoir,” but instead said “landfill.” The second time, he caught himself. “I keep saying landfill when I mean reservoir,” Reddish apologized.

“Same problem,” Mayor Davison interrupted.

“Same problem,” Reddish agreed, before going on with more details of the water shortage plan.

The landfill issue may not be exactly the same problem, but it is next in line for the Mayor and Commission to address. The ACC municipal solid waste landfill - operated by agreement with, and straddling the county line with, Oglethorpe County - is at around five years’ capacity by conservative estimates. What to do?

“For the most part, there’s two options,” says ACC Solid Waste Director Jim Corley. “Either you continue to be in the landfill business,” or you “export” the trash to a landfill elsewhere that will take it. That is, either the local landfill is expanded, or the county builds what’s known as a “transfer station” where trash is collected for loading onto large trucks. The Mayor and Commission will be briefed on the details of both options at their work session on Nov. 13.

Corley says a landfill at the receiving end of a new transfer station would probably not be too far away, though he points out that existing “regional” landfill capacity in Northeast Georgia is currently at about 10 years. (Also perhaps pertinent is the fact that Taliaferro County Commissioners went to jail for a night in 2003 to keep a private company from building a thousand-acre landfill in their county.) The transfer station option is expensive, too: costs for landfill space are compounded by new costs for transport. An expansion of the local dump, he says, would probably provide about 30 years’ capacity there at current rates of trash production. The “most logical place” to expand, Corley says, would be on the north side of the landfill (in Oglethorpe County), adjacent to the currently active cell.

What about recycling? Corley says a group of recycling-related goals will be coming forward at some point, per a Commission request to meet goals for fiscal year 2008. And although Athens’ curbside-pickup recycling program led the state when it was created and continues to be successful, its current 1200-ton-per-month rate can’t keep up with the 400 tons of trash going into the landfill daily, Corley says.

“If we doubled our recycling tomorrow based on what we’re doing right now, it would add a month to the next five years.”

The ACC Recycling Division, meanwhile, has found itself walking a fine - but important - line with regard to community-wide water conservation. Noticing that residents and water-conscious restaurants have been turning to disposable containers to save wash water, ACC Waste Reduction Administrator Suki Janssen put out a press release recently “encouraging the temporary use of environmentally-preferred disposable products and single-use recyclables until the water situation has improved.” Single-use recyclables are simply aluminum cans and glass or plastic (numbers one and two), narrow-necked bottles. Compostable disposables can be found through websites like www.treecycle.com, and tree-free disposables at sites like www.worldcentric.org.

“I agree it’s saving water,” Corley says (and that’s “doing the right thing”), “but you’ve got to look at the big picture.”

Janssen says “we’re willing to sacrifice during severe drought,” but calls the use of disposables “a Band-aid,” and only a temporary solution. “We’re willing to help out a little bit, but we’ve all as citizens got to do our part for both water conservation and waste reduction,” she says, adding, “We certainly can’t sacrifice one resource for the other.” Plastic and paper cups, plates and cutlery are not recyclable here, she says.

Also, Janssen says, recyclables need only minimal rinsing. At an extreme, she’s learned of citizens using the dishwasher to clean recyclables. “Not necessary!” she says. “We’d appreciate a rinse,” she says, for purposes of sanitation and to keep away pests, but water should not be overused. Food residue on glass and metal materials, for example, will be vaporized during the very hot recycling process. She says aluminum foil with food on it can just be folded with the food inside; the food will be vaporized soon enough at a temperature of 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ben Emanuel

ben@flagpole.com

A Homecoming of Sorts

Sam Lane Visits Athens Six Months After His Injury

originally published November 7, 2007

Twenty-two year-old UGA student Sam Lane came back to Athens last month, just shy of six months after he was hit by a car while riding his bike down Prince Avenue on a Friday evening in April. Lane, who subsequently spent part of the summer in a coma and has been recovering in the company of his family in Jackson, MS, returned to Athens for a show by his friends in local band Psychic Hearts (he used to be their road manager and booking agent), and returned again for several days around Halloween. The latter visit included a reception at Athens Regional Medical Center during which he was able to meet, for the first time, the Intensive Care Unit staff who cared for him in the early days after his accident, when he remained unconscious.

Lane suffered brain damage in the accident (he was not wearing a helmet), but his surprisingly good recovery now has him walking slowly with a cane and speaking at length, albeit in a strained voice, but with his intellect and easygoing wit impossible to miss. He plans to begin taking transfer courses, to round out his UGA English degree, at Millsaps College in Jackson as soon as January. He hopes to move back to Athens next summer and graduate with his bachelor’s degree in December 2008.

“I already realized, it’s like I’ve got to get back to Athens, you know?” Lane says. He explains that although his family is in Jackson, the presence of many close friends here in Athens makes it like home, too. “Being displaced from all that… coming back to Athens is like the same excitement as going back home,” he says.

And the Psychic Hearts show? “It was fantastic because, you know, those shows were a big part of my life for like a year.”

Lane is still undergoing physical therapy, as well as what he calls “life” therapy, to help him readjust to school, work, and other activities. He’s most excited to - probably at some point next year - be able to go backpacking and to get back on a bike. “It definitely pushes me to get back to things and use my bike to get around - and ride more carefully, for sure,” he says. He adds, “I’m for sure willing to wear a helmet…When I see somebody riding without a helmet, I’m like, ’I know what you’re thinking, man, and I know what I would have said six months ago when somebody told me to wear a helmet, but seriously: You need to wear a helmet.’“

Lane is not unaware of the impact his widely-known accident - which occurred the day before the Twilight Criterium as he rushed to meet up with a Critical Mass riding group, and which was witnessed by group of riders on a Courteous Mass ride - had on Athens’ cycling community at large.

”I’m glad it’s, like, getting the safety out there…If there’s a silver lining, it would be people just riding their bikes with more awareness, and to have more bike lanes - just a safer community to be riding in.“

Ben Emanuel

ben@flagpole.com

Grit Owner Dies at 42

Funeral Services Planned for Tuesday, Nov. 13

originally published November 7, 2007

Ted Hafer, owner of The Grit, passed away on Friday, Nov. 9 after falling from the College Avenue parking deck in downtown Athens. Athens-Clarke police are reporting that foul play was not a factor in the incident, but say they have not ruled the cause of death to have been either an accident or suicide. Hafer was 42.

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. this Tuesday, Nov. 13 at Bridges Funeral Home, 3035 Atlanta Highway, in Athens. An additional memorial service is being planned for later this year, most likely after Thanksgiving, though a date has not yet been determined.