Editorial-Opinion February 2011

Last month I embarrassed myself.

I indicated that I agreed with the position of the Georgia Hunting and Fishing Federation opposing state plans for the low user fees on some WMAs, and that I would vote “Yes” on the ballot on last month’s cover.

I should have said I would vote “No” on question 2.

I apologize for my error and the confusion it caused some of you. I will try to do better in the future.

In the next issue, we will have the results of the balloting, and we will also have presented those results to our new DNR commissioner. If you have not yet voted, please remember that voting ends on Feb. 4.

On another note, the new governor, Nathan Deal, announced his plans to spend $300 million over the next four years to build water supply reservoirs around Atlanta and north Georgia. When he said that, I was transported back two decades to the same plan then.

Before the current DNR commissioner, and before Noel Holcomb and Lonice Barrett and Joe Tanner’s second term, then DNR Commissioner Leonard Ledbetter had a plan to drought-proof north Georgia with a series of regional reservoirs.

Georgia’s environmental leaders — especially the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and the Georgia Wildlife Federation — pummeled Ledbetter for proposing what they called an environmentally awful plan.

The plan was withdrawn except for one reservoir proposed for the Tallapoosa drainage over in then House Speaker Tom Murphy’s district. At one point, funds were allocated to DNR to purchase the land for that reservoir. But those funds were redirected into other land purchases and the Ledbetter plan crawled into a filing cabinet and went dormant.

Now, new Gov. Nathan Deal has become a sponsor of a plan more than 20 years in the making. If it is a good plan now, it was a good plan back when Ledbetter proposed it.

Had the state floated the 20-year general obligation bonds back when Ledbetter first proposed the plan, the price tag would have been far less, the project would be paid for and on-line today, and we would have been fishing those lakes for the past 15 years.

Now, 20 years later, will it actually happen?

I expect the environmental community to sue to stop or delay the governor’s plan.

Their legal arm is the Southern Environmental Law Center (yep, SELC). These legal buzzards roost with and represent-for-free groups like the Georgia Wildlife Federation, Georgia Forest Watch, and the Georgia Riverkeepers, among others.

Because of their efforts in conjunction with Georgia Forest Watch, our Chattahoochee National Forest receives less program funds than any forest in the southeast region. The region does not provide funds for programs because, by doing little, they avoid legal challenges and legal costs.

It smacks of an environmental protection racket run by SELC and their clients designed to stifle sound wildlife management.

The SELC is already likely setting its legal boobie traps for stalling the plan through study and appeal and challenge.

Now, with a governor putting this project on his own ToDo list, either these environmentalists will retreat to fight in a different arena, or they will search for surrogates to put a public face on their agenda, thus avoiding direct opposition to a sitting governor.

How this plays out will be of great  interest to political watchers like me.

What is of interest to us all is that sportsmen have a seat at the table as the structure of funding these projects moves forward. Most government agencies oppose public use of water-supply reservoirs. They do not want to spend the funds to accommodate day-to-day public recreation.

Likely the best example of this is Bear Creek Reservoir. There was a delay of more than seven years from filling the lake to opening the lake for public fishing and recreation.

I support the construction of these regional reservoirs. I oppose the bureaucratic appeals that are likely to be raised by some environmentalists, especially those masquerading as pro-sportsmen. And I insist that the plans to build these reservoirs address the critical need of more public fishing opportunity here in Georgia.

We need them now, we have needed them for 20 years.