Statement for Town Hall Meeting on Water Management
Savannah
July 13, 2006
Local and State Planning Coordination
Coordination of state water permitting with local government comprehensive planning (required under existing state law, the 1989
Georgia Planning Act) is essential if state water management is to be effective. This will also act as a powerful incentive for
local officials to actually use their adopted plans in making land-use decisions. Land use is a major factor in both water quantity
and quality. Without coordination of land use with water permitting (withdrawal + discharge), we cannot succeed in achieving rational
and responsible water management.
Further, basin planning being done statewide should be carefully incorporated into future revisions of both the state water management
plan and local comprehensive plans. EPD should work with DCA in preparing procedures and planning standards for achieving this coordination,
create incentives for implementing plans accordingly, and consistently monitor related activities to achieve adaptive management objectives.
Finally, in the coastal region, the Governoršs coastal planning initiative must reflect the various water management planning issues that have
been identified, and all recommendations of the coastal planning advisory committee should thoroughly reconcile development objectives with
those for the responsible management of water and other vital coastal resources.
Desalinization
Until we have environmentally responsible sources of power, desalination is antithetical to sustainability. Energy production is the single
largest source of greenhouse gases and various other environmentally catastrophic impacts, including mercury contamination and respiratory disease.
As an energy-intensive process, desal is therefore often misunderstood and poorly evaluated, since the implications of energy conversion are usually
neglected.
Because existing methods for estimating prices still exclude many "external" costs, such as air and water pollution, adverse public health impacts,
and loss of critical ecosystem functions, any attempt to compare relative costs for alternative water supply using such methods is fatally flawed.
This means that the real cost differential between desal and conventional sources of water supply are undoubtedly far greater than they are claimed
to be when using conventional methods of analysis.
Just as energy costs are grossly under-evaluated in analyzing desal, they are also falsely represented in the costs of distribution. When all costs
are included, producing and distributing potable water via desal would be just another example of shifting real costs onto other groups, including
future generations who would suffer the burden of environmental consequences.
All of the above says nothing about the implications of population growth and land disturbance that would be "supported" by providing desal water to
the Atlanta urban complex as proposed. In addition to moderating population growth, attention needs to be given to distributing Georgiašs growth in
achieving more accountable and responsible use of natural resources, rather than trying to engineer solutions
(based on arbitrarily truncated analysis), which will create still more difficult problems.
~ David C. Kyler
Executive Director
Center for a Sustainable Coast
Saint Simons Island, Georgia
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