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Published Saturday, October 10, 2009 in Local

Cagle: Georgia needs to capture more of its rainfall in reservoirs

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Georgia gets plenty of rain that could boost water supplies in the state, said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle during the Newnan Rotary Club meeting Friday.

The state averages 50 inches of rain a year, which equals about 50 trillion gallons. The state only consumes about three trillion gallons a year, Cagle said.

Georgia needs to "capture more of the water and control it in a useful way."

"There is no question we have to build more reservoirs. It has to happen," Cagle told club members. "So we have to negotiate in good faith with our neighbors," he said. And we may "have to litigate," too.

Georgia needs to "negotiate, litigate and legislate. We've got to build those future reservoirs," Cagle said.

If metro-Atlanta didn't take one drop of water from the Chattahoochee River, it would only affect the river level at the Georgia-Florida line by 1 or 2 inches, Cagle said.

He also spoke about the Tennessee River. Some 6 percent of the water in the Tennessee River comes from Georgia, Cagle said. The Tennessee is a huge river and Cagle believes the water Georgia contributes to the Tennessee River is "greater, as it relates to volume, than the entire water in the Chattahoochee."

Georgia needs to plan for reservoirs in North Georgia, Cagle said. But tapping the Tennessee River is not a short-term solution.

Cagle was asked what can be done to keep Atlanta from dumping sewage into the Chattahoochee River. The city is under a court order and is working on it, but it's not a quick process.

"The timeline is going to have to be accelerated," Cagle said.

The wastewater issue is part of the drinking water issue, too. "I believe if you can solve the water quality problem -- water supply goes hand in hand," Cagle said. The treated wastewater discharged into streams "needs to be cleaner than what we are taking out."

Georgia's water issue "can be solved if we all come together," Cagle said.

He also spoke about economic development and bank failures.

"Government doesn't create jobs," Cagle said, but it can create the right circumstances to encourage job growth. "Economic development is a full-contact sport. We are competing against the world."

As for bank failures and the economic crisis in housing, as more and more houses were being built and property values were rising higher and higher -- "you knew this bubble would eventually have to burst," Cagle said.

But he feels some of the actions of the federal government recently have "exacerbated and prolonged" the economic crisis.

Cagle would like to see changes to "mark to market" rules, which he said force banks to "write more of the loans down." Also, "they have to put all of their money into loan loss reserves."

The economy might get worse in 2010 because of the large amount of "commercial paper that is going to be coming due."

Cagle said 60 percent of banks in Georgia are currently not making a profit, and it certainly doesn't help that the FDIC is now asking banks to pre-pay their deposit insurance premiums because it has paid out so much money in bank failures.

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