By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher
JAN. 29, 2021 | With Gwinnett County getting its drinking water from Lake Lanier, any modification in policy regarding that water is significant. However, a new agreement announced this week for water supply isn’t as significant as it may have first appeared.
The new agreement is between the Corps of Engineers, which controls the lake’s water, and the State of Georgia. Both Gwinnett and Forsyth counties, plus the cities of Buford, Gainesville and Cumming, have an agreement directly with the Corps for water supply. The new agreement is between the Corps and the state for water. Essentially, the local water systems will now deal with the state instead of the Corps for water allocation.
Gwinnett’s original allocation was included in legislation in 1946 led by Sen. Richard Russell.
When Buford Dam was opened in 1950, the Corps flooded the Chattahoochee basin, and covered up water intake facilities into the river that the cities of Buford and Gainesville used to pull drinking water from the river. As the Corps did not pay the two cities for the water plant land (Buford had 40 acres for its site on the river), the Corps granted both cities water rights indefinitely. Buford’s original intake was two million gallons of water per day (mgd), while Gainesville originally had 10 mgd.
Later Gwinnett County gained an intake into the Lake when Secretary of the Army Bo Callaway signed such an agreement in the early 1970s, which former Commission Ray Gunnin pushed. He and then Chairman Bill Atkinson went to Fort McPherson for Callaway’s signature on the water intake document.
About the current modification, Philip Beard, chairman of the Buford City Commission, sees no need for the new document. “We have a contract for the water. It’s just more lawyers getting involved.”
He added: “Someone came up with the idea that local government needed to pay for the storage of water in Lake Lanier. They took our land and small water plant, covered it up with water, and made a deal to give us water a year free. Now our allocation is two million, but the water is still free. Now they want to charge us for the storing the water in the lake that is free to us. That will be a substantial cost for a big system like Gwinnett.”
Beard says Buford currently uses 1.6 mgd of water. Gwinnett County’s average usage is currently 73 mgd on an annual average, says Tyler Richards, head of the Gwinnett Water Department. The county’s permit allocation for withdrawal from the lake is 150 mgd.
With Gwinnett using 73 mgd, there’s another consideration: Gwinnett recycles wastewater, and returns it to the lake an average of 35.6 mgd, cleaner than when it is pulled from the lake. So far the state Environmental Protection Division does not give Gwinnett any credit against its daily allocation.
We’ve learned of the passing of Jackie Joseph, long an advocate for Lake Lanier. She was 89 and died January 20. She was president of the Lake Lanier Association, and for 30 years was a spokesman for improving the lake. She and her late husband, Bob Joseph, once had a radio station in Buford.
The Association spent nearly $500,000 putting riprap, or heavy rocks, around the islands dotting the 38,000-acre lake. The rocks were placed along heavily eroded areas, which had turned into sheer cliffs exposing red dirt and sediment.
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