The state Board of Natural Resources will vote this week on whether to change a 32-year-old rule meant to protect Georgia's cleanest lakes and rivers from poorly treated sewage.
Environmentalists say the change will weaken the rule and make it easier for communities and industries to discharge treated wastewater into high-quality waterways. Cities and counties, which own and operate most of the state's sewage treatment plants, say the revision is necessary to prevent expenses that would do little to improve water quality.
State environmental regulators are recommending the change. They call it a fix to bring the state rule in line with the federal Clean Water Act. The board, which meets today and Wednesday in Valdosta, is expected to approve it.
"There's some discrepancy between the [state] and the [federal] rules that needs to be cleared up," said James Walters, chairman of the Department of Natural Resources board's Environmental Protection Committee.
Both the federal and state rules for water protection recognize a difference between high-quality lakes and rivers and those that are already polluted. The bottom line: It's harder to get a permit to discharge into an unspoiled waterway.
To get a permit, dischargers must prove an economic or social need and must meet all the legal requirements. But Georgia goes a step further. It also requires the "highest and best practicable [level of treatment] under existing technology."
The proposed change would strike that additional step so that the state rule mirrors the federal one.
"Is 10 yards a first down, or is it nine yards?" asked David Word, assistant director of the state Environmental Protection Division. "You can't have two rules. . . . The [state] rule has internally conflicting requirements."
It took a landmark decision last year by the Georgia Supreme Court to point out the problem to the EPD. The court ruled that the state would have to strengthen a discharge permit for Gwinnett County, setting the bar higher for the county to discharge up to 40 million gallons a day of treated sewage into Lake Lanier.
The ruling sent shock waves through the small community of professionals who manage wastewater treatment facilities. The court had invalidated the state's strictest discharge permit for the state's most advanced wastewater plant, the F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center, which cost $750 million. Some water managers questioned how other, less affluent communities could hope to get additional wastewater capacity and continue to grow if they had to surpass even the rigorous standards set for Gwinnett.
"You would break a lot of small communities if you tried to impose that level of treatment," said Jack Dozier, executive director of the Georgia Association of Water Professionals.
The court interpreted the rule much more strictly than the EPD had been enforcing it, the EPD and wastewater officials said. They also said the state is already doing enough to protect rivers and streams by setting pollution limits as part of the discharge permits.
But Gilbert Rogers, an associate attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the EPD wants to backpedal.
"We think it's a step back in terms of water quality protection for Georgia," Rogers said. "The Supreme Court gave Georgia a good direction to go in as far as improving water quality and enforcing the laws as they are on the books."
This is cache, read story here