Georgia's plan to adopt new water quality standards in Savannah Harbor could have far reaching -- and potentially expensive -- effects on Augusta and 63 other cities and industries that use the upper Savannah River for wastewater assimilation.
During a public hearing Thursday in Evans, state regulators told about 40 stakeholders that improving oxygen levels in the harbor will place more scrutiny on all upstream users and also could result in the reallocation of the river's resources.
"It could mean a totally new slicing of the pie," said Elizabeth Booth, the director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division's Watershed Protection Branch.
She said 95 percent of the river's wasteload comes from Georgia sources, while just 5 percent comes from South Carolina, which shares the river as a state boundary.
In the future, South Carolina might want a larger share, and complying could require Georgia users to reduce discharges or invest in better technology.
The proposed changes were made necessary by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ruling that water in the harbor is deficient in dissolved oxygen. Georgia authorities were directed to develop an enforceable standard that also could protect water quality.
Dr. Booth said the proposal, which goes to the state Natural Resources Board in December, calls for a daily average of 5 parts per million and not less than 4 parts per million with various exceptions that could be made relating to "natural" dissolved oxygen levels and determinations of impacts on aquatic life.
Because wastewater typically contains materials that consume dissolved oxygen, the rule will have impacts 200 miles upstream, all the way to the base of Thurmond Dam, Dr. Booth said.
Although the implementation could take several years, there definitely will be local impacts.
Augusta's wastewater system, which discharges about 30 million gallons of treated sewage daily -- including about 1,000 pounds of oxygen-demanding materials -- could have to reduce that poundage, said Allen Saxon, the department's assistant director.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Georgia's Board of Natural Resources will vote on the proposed changes in December, so efforts to determine how best to achieve the new standards could be under way in 2009 and take several years to implement.
Comments
The meeting a couple of years ago concerning the river at Savannah Rapids Pavillion produced evidence that the river had perfectly acceptable oxygen levels at Clyo, below Augusta. Whatever we are putting in the river is not that bad. If the harbor water is bad, they need to look around Savannah, itself.
In some cities (Milwaukee for one) treated sewage is reused as fertilizer instead of being pumped back into a river or lake.
Well beieve it or not Riverman, all the crap that Augusta pumps into the river eventually makes its way to Savannah. Augusta is also the states biggest polluter.
Don't forget that one major reason the oxygen is so low at Savannah is because they have dredged the river much deeper than its natural depth in order to accomodate those massive freighter ships unloading way up the river. The order by the EPA is ludicrous, and the whining and fearmongering by the EPD is worse.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
