You can still oppose HB 1146, the rich man’s private water system bill.

You’ll be on the same side as the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG), the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA), and the Georgia Association of Water Professionals (GAWP), all of whom oppose HB 1146.

You can use this Protect Georgia alert to oppose HB 1146:
https://protectgeorgia.org/

Or use this information to contact your Georgia state senator:
https://wwals.net/about/elected-officials/georgia-senate/

Last days to oppose GA HB 1146, the rich private water system bill. ACCG, GMA, and GAWP all oppose HB 1146.

Here’s an excerpt of what GAWP wrote:

This bill will benefit a private water supplier, at the expense of an existing and effective water policy that works everywhere in the State. While the bill has been explained to me to be limited in geographic scope, as it is currently written, it could affect the entire groundwater zone south of the Fall Line, not just the coast nor the area near the Hyundai project. Further, the precedent it sets to bypass approvals that protect the environment and consumers can set up a troubling situation for other Georgia communities.

ACCG, GMA, GAWP oppose HB 1146, private water systems

Here’s what HB 1146 would add to Georgia state law (emphasis added):

§12-5-108. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, a person to whom the division has delegated authority to provide water for consumptive use within the coastal aquifers of the state may obtain a permit from the division for consumptive use of water or expansion of existing services and facilities for consumptive use of water without a letter of concurrence from any local government or other public entity which has the power to provide water for consumptive use, provided that the following conditions are met:

(1) Said local government or other public entity lacks the capability or permitted capacity to provide the water service requested in writing by a person seeking such service within a period of 18 months from the date of such request; and

(2) Said person with delegated authority has the capability and permitted ground water capacity to provide water service as requested by such person seeking such service within a period of 18 months from the date of such request.

(b) This Code section shall stand repealed on January 1, 2029.

That’s right, HB 1146 could apply to the entire Floridan Aquifer, which after all is a “coastal aquifer” because it extends between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

Floridan aquifer study area in Revised Hydrogeologic Framework of the Floridan Aquifer System 2016-03

They could vote on HB 1146 any time until midnight tomorrow, which is Sine Die, the end of the legislative session. So contact your state senator today!

Floridians, ask your friends and relatives in Georgia to do this.

Two other bills unfortunately already passed, HB 1172 about navigable streams and passage, and SB 132, the fake mining moratorium.

But you can still send your comment opposing the strip mine too near the Okefenokee Swamp, by April 9th to GA-EPD:
TwinPines.Comment@dnr.ga.gov

See the GA-EPD web page or
https://wwals.net/issues/titanium-mining

Suwannee River Basin the WWALS map of all public landings in the Suwannee River Basin.

HB 1172 navigable streams and passage

After three votes in the Senate yesterday, HB 1172, the “legislature hates the public trust doctrine” bill passed. It includes, “The General Assembly further finds that, by the common law, the citizens of this state have an inherent right to use for passage and for hunting and fishing all navigable streams from low-water mark to low-water mark. The General Assembly further finds that the public retained the aforementioned rights right even where private title to beds of navigable streams originates from a valid grant, but in such cases, the public’s right is limited to only using such navigable streams for passage and for hunting and fishing.”

What if you capsize and have to pull over on the riverside to drain your boat? What if there are shoals, and you have to push against one of them? What if you want to do water quality testing? None of those things are permitted by this law.

Plus there is still no definition of which streams are navigable, and the 1863 definition is still in the law, even though it has nothing to do with how people currently use rivers and creeks.

I predict more lawsuits.

And I wonder what those senators who changed their votes were offered.

SB 132, the fake mining moratorium

The fake mining moratorium bill, SB 132, appears to have passed the Senate yesterday:

Votes

Date	Vote No.	Yea	Nay	NV	Exc
03/02/2023		35	20	1	0
03/26/2024		167	4	4	5

The legislature has finally put the replacement bill text online. Here it is:

12-4-85. (a) Beginning on July 1, 2024, and continuing until June 30, 2027, the division shall accept no applications for new permits for surface mining utilizing dragline mining for heavy mineral sands in areas for which no prior surface mining permit has been obtained; provided, however, that the three-year period shall not be tolled or extended for any reason; and provided, further, that, after such period has expired, the deadlines specified in subparagraph (c)(1)(A) of Code Section 12-2-2 for acting on any permit application formerly subject to such period shall be strictly enforced and shall not be extended for any reason.

(b) This Code section shall not prevent the modification of permits already issued by the division or the granting or modification of permit applications originally submitted to the division pursuant to this part on or before June 30, 2024.

Among the numerous problems with this bill:

• Anybody can apply for a mining permit that does not use a dragline. For example, Chemours has five TiO2 “heavy mineral sands” mines in Florida and two in Georgia, none of which use draglines.
• The prohibition on extending the moratorium deadline is bogus, since the legislature could pass another moratorium bill with slightly different prohibitions.
• The three year deadline will not affect the expansion plans of the current “demonstration mine” application, since it will take more than three years for them to complete mining that site, even if mining start is not delayed by stays due to lawsuits.
• The prohibition on extending the deadlines for acting on permit applications is also bogus, because once again the legislature could pass another bill extending them.

So this bill is a fig leaf that lets legislators say they did something to protect the Okefenokee Swamp by providing a period to gather data from the present mine application. Which could have happened just as well without this bill.

You can still send your comment opposing the strip mine too near the Okefenokee Swamp, by April 9th to GA-EPD:
TwinPines.Comment@dnr.ga.gov

See the GA-EPD web page or
https://wwals.net/issues/titanium-mining

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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