Athens-Clarke Weighs In On State Water Plan

originally published January 9, 2008

At their Jan. 2 meeting, Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Commissioners took their last opportunity before the start of Georgia’s 2008 legislative session to approve a resolution indicating their feelings about the direction of the statewide water management plan; that plan is scheduled to hit legislators’ desks when they report to the Capitol on Jan. 14. The resolution, similar to those passed by several other local governments around the state, mainly urges legislators to keep local governments in mind in deciding on a plan (since, as it says, water management policies “will fall on local governments and public water providers to implement”). It also, though, takes specific issue with two late-in-coming changes to the plan which have received a good deal of criticism statewide since emerging in December: one which puts in jeopardy local government representation on regional water-planning districts, and another which neglects to draw the boundaries of those districts based on hydrological watersheds (as all previous drafts of the plan did).

“The statewide water plan has already had more costume changes than Madonna, and I don’t think that’s going to change in the coming months as we get into the legislative session,” District 9 Commissioner Kelly Girtz said before commissioners unanimously approved the resolution. “This has been the most amorphous, here-there-and-everywhere document under the sun - and none of [the plan’s multiple drafts were] fun to read.”

Just how many more costume changes there will be, though - as well as the extent of them - remains an open question. At press time, the consequences of a state Water Council meeting planned for Jan. 8 were unknown, though indications were that a different map of water-planning districts might be approved. Changes on that scale may not be enough, though, to placate the various interests statewide which have in recent weeks been displaying growing opposition to the plan as it stands. Those include rural politicians showing an increasing wariness of the thirst of the metro Atlanta area, and environmentalists who have - throughout the plan’s multi-year development - asked that the plan be based on the geography of river basins (in addition to providing funding for scientific assessments of those basins). Environmentalists also ask that the plan have the power of state law, because as currently configured, it may not even have power over the already-existing Metro North Georgia Water Planning District, which governs water policy in the greater Atlanta area. They have pushed, too, for substantive regulations on transfers of water from one river basin to another, which the Athens-Clarke resolution also references.

A local government resolution, of course, has no real power to influence legislative decisions, but the Athens-Clarke resolution is part of a wider move to protect both local communities and the environment in what promises to be a heated, complicated debate in the General Assembly.

Ben Emanuel

ben@flagpole.com

Nakanishi Keeps Promise to Phase Out Dangerous Chemical

originally published January 9, 2008

A year after installing a first phase of new equipment to reduce health hazards from its manufacturing process, Nakanishi Manufacturing Corporation announced that it had at last eliminated the chemical trichloroethylene (or TCE, as it is commonly known) from the degreasing process at its Winterville plant. In a letter dated Dec. 21, 2007, Nakanishi President Kunio Kanaeda told concerned community members that the company - which manufactures retainers for ball bearings at its factory on Voyles Road in northeastern Clarke County - had succeeded in replacing TCE-dependent equipment on its production line.

Although its TCE emissions were permitted by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD), Nakanishi had faced pressure in recent years from neighbors along nearby Pittard Road and from local environmental health advocates to eliminate its releases of TCE, which is considered a probable human carcinogen. Activists had raised concerns in part about the safety of students, teachers and staff at Coile Middle School, which is located in sight of the factory across the intersection of Voyles Road and Moore’s Grove Road. In the fall of 2005, dozens of activists participated in a march and rally outside Nakanishi’s factory, and later that fall the Clarke County Board of Health considered weighing in on the matter and asking Nakanishi to discontinue its use of TCE for the benefit of its neighbors. Later, a limited study conducted by UGA public health students under Dr. Jeff Fisher found only low levels of the chemical in ambient air near the plant; in addition, a public statement from the company in March of 2007 said that its TCE emissions have been below state-permitted levels in recent years. (In general, though, TCE is a chemical still in flux from a regulatory perspective.) The March letter from the company also stated that Nakanishi intended to eliminate TCE by the end of the calendar year, which it has now succeeded in doing.

The solvent TCE was used as a degreasing agent at the plant, and the company had argued in the past that - though similar industrial operations had found alternatives - its proprietary manufacturing process was greatly aided by the use of the chemical. But according to the Dec. 21 letter , in the summer of 2006 the company ordered a test unit for a vacuum degreasing process using a non-air polluting degreaser. After installing that unit in December of 2006, the company saw its TCE usage drop by about 40 percent. In late June of 2007, the company began testing a second unit and found it, like the first one, to be effective enough to warrant permanent use. “With the installation and qualification of the second unit, we have now eliminated the need of TCE in our degreasing operation,” Kanaeda wrote. His letter continued, “The process chemistry we now use in the vacuum degreasing units does not emit any hazardous air pollutants.” The company’s air-emissions permit on file with Georgia EPD will be adjusted, and TCE removed from the list of chemicals therein, Kanaeda wrote.

Ben Emanuel

ben@flagpole.com

Unhappy Commissioners Move Toward Landfill Expansion

originally published January 9, 2008

“We don’t like to dig holes and dump trash in [them],” Commissioner Elton Dodson said at the Jan. 2 Mayor and Commission voting meeting, before commissioners set the stage for a major landfill expansion. The county should expand its recycling efforts, said Dodson and other commissioners - but no one argued that a landfill would no longer be needed. The present dump, on Lexington Road bordering Oglethorpe County, will run out of space within six years, county staffers say. It must be expanded for another 30 years of operation - involving an adjacent 79-acre tract whose owner doesn’t want to sell - or be closed permanently. A 10-county effort to site a regional landfill failed in 1998 because none of the counties would accept the new landfill. If Athens-Clarke’s existing dump isn’t expanded, then local trash will have to be shipped, expensively, out of the county.

And while seven of the nine commissioners present voted in favor of a cooperative agreement with Oglethorpe County - which will acquire the tract and then sell it to Athens-Clarke (the land is in Oglethorpe County) - they were uncomfortable with the choices.

“We came to the conclusion that we will not recycle our way out of our need to maintain a landfill,” said Commissioner Doug Lowry. Even the “very aggressive” recycling strategy that some commissioners say they want wouldn’t extend the landfill’s life by much: doubling the county’s recycling rate would extend it only 11 months, ACC Manager Alan Reddish told them. The ACC Solid Waste Department has compiled a list of ways to increase recycling - and commissioners will discuss them in February - but no one from that department was present in the council chamber at last week’s meeting, and despite much talk of expanding recycling, there was little discussion yet of how to do it.

Despite suspicions of some neighbors that the dump is responsible for their health problems, ACC Solid Waste Director Jim Corley says there is no evidence for it. The landfill has polluted the groundwater in the dump’s immediate vicinity, he acknowledges, but only the landfill’s own drinking water well was directly affected. Neighbors who were using wells were then hooked up to city water. The 1992 agreement detailing those water hook-ups also promised residents that the dump would not ever be farther expanded. However, that agreement is not legally binding, ACC Attorney Bill Berryman told commissioners last week - even though it was signed by Athens-Clarke’s then-CEO Gwen O’Looney. “I believe that agreement exceeded its authority,” Berryman said, because state law does not allow the government to limit its own future actions.

Ramping Up Recycling?

To see commissioners eager to increase recycling makes this “an exciting time” for county recycling administrator Suki Janssen. Athens’ curbside recycling pickup - which in 1988 was the first such program in Georgia - helps the county claim its 26 percent recycling rate (that figure includes composting yard waste). The county can accept fluorescent bulbs, batteries and electronics at its recycling facility on Hancock Industrial Way, Janssen says; and at the landfill itself, items accepted for recycling include hardback books, electronics, thermometers with mercury in them, and - once a year in the fall - leftover pesticides and paints that shouldn’t be dumped into the landfill. Paper, cardboard, cans and certain plastics (look for a “1” or “2” inside the embossed recycling symbol) can be recycled at any of eight county drop-off dumpsters or by curbside pickup. Some businesses (like Merial Corporation, Burton and Burton, and Lindsay Group) are big recyclers, Janssen notes, and local schools also participate. At the dump, jail inmates sort out mixed loads of materials that come in with a lot of clean recyclables in them. But Janssen prefers to see people sort their own recyclables: “I guess I feel that people need to own up to their waste.” But even loads of properly sorted recyclables must be sorted again by a private contractor (in partnership with the county) to separate paper from cardboard and bottles from cans. That’s a labor-intensive process that significantly reduces what the county earns from the sale of the materials.

One thing that encourages recycling, Janssen says, is the money people save on trash pickup. Though that savings varies by hauler, residents aren’t charged quantity fees on recycled items. Just changing to clear trash bags for downtown pickup has increased recycling, she says, because a lot of downtown trash is mostly recyclables. And she dispels the “urban myth” that recyclables don’t really get recycled by pick-up crews. It may look that way, she says, because some trash trucks have divided recycling compartments that are only visible from the rear.

So can recycling be increased? “We have a laundry list for the Mayor and Commission to look at,” Janssen says, referring to the waste-reduction strategies scheduled to come before commissioners next month. The easiest way to reduce landfilling, though, may be by composting organic waste. “That’s the largest chunk,” she says. The county could start with sewage sludge and food waste from businesses and schools, she says. Other suggestions detailed by the ACC Solid Waste Department include required recycling of cardboard or electronics; an experimental “green bin” program downtown to collect food waste; sorting out more recyclables from the “waste stream” at the dump using inmate labor; increasing the dump’s “tipping fee” (the disposal charge per ton) from $34 to $42; giving credits to private haulers when they deliver more recyclables; and a “swap shop” at the dump for donations of reusable goods.

John Huie

jphuie@athens.net