Citizen Georgia:

Water is a top issue for upcoming 08 county commission races. October 30, 2007

Editor’s Note: In contested primaries, we will do our best to show all candidate’s points of view.

Take Gwinnett County for example, where Lorraine Green is taking on Charles Bannister for County Commission Chairman.  From the tip line, we received an email entitled, “Water Issues Highlight Need For Real Leadership” which directed us to Green’s website and a video of why she is running for Chairman.  She is pummeling Bannister’s leadership on this issue. It would be interesting to hear his point of view. From her blog,

Green Outlines Water Management & Conservation Plans

The question is what are we going to do about water? Today? Tomorrow? Twenty years from now?

The citizens of Gwinnett County understand the severity of the current water crisis, and they are willing to do their fair share in this time of need – they always are. But, citizens need to hear from their elected leaders what it is that they can do –and why they should participate.

In the short term, I propose the following programs be enacted:

· Offer a rebate program to homeowners to replace pre-1993 plumbing fixtures with modern water saving fixtures;

· Require all apartment units and institutions to install ‘water-savers’ on all faucets. Flows can be reduced over 50% by implementing these simple $2 devices;

· Require emergency water reduction plans by all government operations;

· Perform immediate audits on all high-volume users to find sources of wasted usage;

· Institute a penalty on all high-volume users who do not show a reduction in usage;

· Empower our police officers to cite water violators immediately;

· Authorize immediate cutoff to repeat violators.

These programs would be paid for by fines on violators.

These remedies are only short-term fixes to what is in actuality a long term problem.

This crisis is the result of poor planning, or simply a lack of planning by Georgia state officials and the Georgia legislature. Today all of Georgia is feeling the pain from that lack of planning. Our current chairman was in the Georgia legislature for much of the last 20 years. He was part of the group who turned a blind eye to the dozens of papers, professionals and scientists who warned this day would come and did little to avert it. Today businesses and our local environment are hurting because of this lack of planning. We must have a plan for the future water needs of our county. It’s no longer about delivering water; it’s about conserving water.

You can read more from her blog here.