A Sept. 5 called meeting of the Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority never veered into incivility - local governments rarely act as badly as state legislators sometimes do - but it did suggest that water rights, even local ones, might increasingly become contentious. The four-county authority met to write a letter to Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division, raising concerns about a new reservoir that’s being planned by the fast-growing city of Jefferson (in Jackson County, between Athens and Interstate 85). None of the elected officials or staffers on the Basin Authority (which built and operates the larger Bear Creek Reservoir shared by Clarke, Jackson, Oconee, and Barrow counties) disputed that the Jefferson area will need more water. But Clarke County representatives, especially, questioned what Athens Mayor Heidi Davison called a “patchwork” approach to water planning, and one that didn’t submit to the intentions of the Basin Authority.

“Jackson county’s share of the Bear Creek Reservoir was designed to include Jefferson as well” based on future population estimates, noted Bill Martello, a consulting engineer for Athens-Clarke County. “It was decided that the county governments would represent the municipalities,” ACC Deputy Manager Bob Snipes said. “This would seem to be additional [water] supply, above and beyond that number.” Indeed, Snipes said, Jackson County is not even using all of its allotted water from Bear Creek Reservoir - so why does it need more water from another source? “We all could have planned ahead and tried to claim a larger share of future water supply,” Snipes said. “Is the Authority the entity that is charged with trying to do regional water planning in this whole area, or is it not? That was my understanding of what the Authority was created to do.”

But while the Basin Authority may expect cities like Jefferson to buy Bear Creek Reservoir water from their respective county governments - rather than building an independent city reservoir and making water withdrawals from, in Jefferson’s case, the North Oconee River - it lacks the “authority” to require them to. (The referee in such disputes is the state EPD, which issues permits for such water withdrawals from rivers.) “We have seven water entities in Jackson County. They all do their thing,” said Jackson representative Pat Bell. So the Basin Authority - over the objections of two Jackson County members - could only write a letter to EPD asking whether it would allow Jefferson’s Parks Creek Reservoir to go forward, given that Jackson County is not even using all of its allocated water from Bear Creek, and asking for details on flow protections guaranteed to Athens (which withdraws drinking water farther downstream on the North Oconee River).

“This is a project that’s been going on for almost 10 years,” said Jefferson mayor Jim Joiner, who attended the Basin Authority’s meeting. And indeed, in 2000 the Basin Authority supported Jefferson’s reservoir plans in a letter to EPD (subject to several conditions, all of which are being met). So why doesn’t Jefferson just buy Bear Creek Reservoir water through Jackson County? “Because we can treat our own water a lot cheaper than we can buy it,” Joiner told Flagpole. Could the Jefferson reservoir serve a larger area, embracing regional needs instead of going it alone, asked Athens’ Snipes? “There are only a limited number of [site] footprints that meet these kind of needs,” he said. In any case, Jackson engineer Elton Collins warned, the authority should decide how to handle such cases. “Somebody’s got to build more reservoirs,” he said, and other cities - perhaps in Barrow County - may be next.

John Huie

jphuie@athens.net