by Roger Allen

     On December 22nd, 2005 State Representative Buddy Carter arranged a meeting with Dr. Carol Couch, the Director Of the State of Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division (EPD) and 6 of her staff, with city staff from Bloomingdale, Pooler, Port Wentworth, Rincon, Guyton, and Springfield (invited as a courtesy). Sen. Eric Johnson and Carter met with Bloomingdale’s officials Mayor-elect Wayne Tipton, Councilmen John Myrick, Mike Ray, Karl Johnson and councilman-elect Billy Strozier. According to Carter “our people deserved to hear first-hand from her.”

     Mayor Tipton told me that the meeting was very cordial, and that (unlike previous Bloomingdale officials’ meetings with Dr. Couch) there were no heated arguments between the two sides over the error made in the last water permit application. He said “we were told to get the data to make a proposal for how much water we were needing for the next two years, accounting for the expected growth…we were told to submit the data (prepared by the Thomas and Hutton engineering firm) by the end of January. ”

     Bloomingdale officials were told they need 500,000 GPD (gallons of water per day). The city currently gets 156,000 GPD, which is far below the nearly 300,000 GPD it should have been getting if the error hadn’t been made. Tipton informed Dr. Couch “Bloomingdale first needs to be brought into line with the current water allotments being given to the other west Chatham towns – either on a per capita basis or by total allotment based on the town’s size.”

     He promised Dr. Couch “Bloomingdale citizens have always been good water stewards, and will most assuredly continue to be once we are given our fair share.” Dr. Couch promised that West Chatham and Effingham towns would have an answer from the EPD about their water allotments for the next two years no later than March 31st. Rep. Carter said that he and Dr. Couch did not specifically talk about the Bloomingdale lawsuit, but rather how that all of the towns in his district deserved a fair and equitable water policy.”

     As requested, on Friday, January 27th, Bloomingdale formally submitted the required data to Dr. Couch and the EPD, and has formally requested an additional 344,000 GPD, for a total of 500,000 GPD. In doing so, Tipton requested that Dr. Couch raise the city’s official water allocation to make it fair and equitable.

     In other news, Mayor Tipton has now been commuting between Bloomingdale and Atlanta. This is because he has been appointed to Dr. Carol Couch’s new State Water Committee.  This is a very definite sign that the formerly adversarial relationship between the city and the state has changed to one of mutual respect and cooperation.