Water everywhere
One of the things the Athens-Clarke County Commission is asking the Georgia General Assembly to consider next year is a restriction on the amount of water that can be drawn from wells and rivers. It's not likely to pass, but it's something that ought to be addressed.
Currently, the limit is absurdly high and almost flat-out unfeasible to reach by residential use (my recollection is that it's more than 100,000 gallons per day). This means that while individuals and businesses who rely on municipal water are bound by restrictions during times of drought, those who pull from wells or rivers are not.
While the logical counterargument to this is that these are 'private' sources of water, they really aren't. A well connects to a larger aquifier that is shared by other folks and flows back to a larger body of water. A river or stream that runs through one's backyard also flows to the backyards of others. Withdrawing large quantities of water from those sources has a definitive and detrimental impact on downstream supplies, and considering how out of whack the existing restrictions are, it makes sense to adjust them appropriately.
Currently, the limit is absurdly high and almost flat-out unfeasible to reach by residential use (my recollection is that it's more than 100,000 gallons per day). This means that while individuals and businesses who rely on municipal water are bound by restrictions during times of drought, those who pull from wells or rivers are not.
While the logical counterargument to this is that these are 'private' sources of water, they really aren't. A well connects to a larger aquifier that is shared by other folks and flows back to a larger body of water. A river or stream that runs through one's backyard also flows to the backyards of others. Withdrawing large quantities of water from those sources has a definitive and detrimental impact on downstream supplies, and considering how out of whack the existing restrictions are, it makes sense to adjust them appropriately.
posted by Jmac at 8:59 AM
3 Comments:
I intended to blog on this when I first saw the Commission agenda for this month, but never got around to it (predictably, the Unified Government's wish list is heavy on more power for the government and new taxes for me).
While I can see the point of some kind of reasonable limit on withdrawals from rivers and streams, I'm concerned over the bit about private wells, especially residential ones.
I am not connected to the county's water system and stand no reasonable chance of ever being connected. If my well runs dry, is the county going to send the water truck out to my house? Not a chance. So why should the folks down at City Hall dictate how much I can draw?
I know, I know - for the greater good, that's why. I understand your point about aquifers and such, but that kind of reasoning about land use, water use, etc., pretty much reduces the concept of private property to a meaningless one (as I would argue has already happened to a great extent in the green belt).
... but that kind of reasoning about land use, water use, etc., pretty much reduces the concept of private property to a meaningless one (as I would argue has already happened to a great extent in the green belt).
But if you're drawing water from what you acknowledge is a commonly shared source, how is not open to some sort of regulation (either via private or public means)?
If you owned a private pond that was replenished by rainfall, that's one thing. But by tapping into a well, you're tapping into an aquifer that is shared by many other people, which means your withdrawals have an impact on their supply too.
I understand your point, but I still have reservations.
The problem is that when it comes to charging me taxes and fees or regulating my actions and my property, I'm just the same as the folks in Five Points or Cobbhan (just to pick on them some more), if not more so, but when it comes to providing me services I am emphatically not the same, those annoying provisions in the Charter be damned.
The relationship we "general services" residents have with the Unified Government is horribly one-sided, as the burden of all of those progressive collectivist policies that benefit the urban core keep falling on the rural individual property owner.
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