A member of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources board stands to benefit financially from a proposed reservoir in south Fulton County, a massive project regulated by the DNR’s Environmental Protection Division.
The board member, Aaron McWhorter, says he made the deal months before he was appointed to the board and will not take part in any action regarding the proposed Bear Creek Reservoir. But environmental watchdogs are crying foul at what they believe is a conflict of interest.
“I’ve not seen anything like this before,” said Sally Bethea, founding director of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. “The problem is the DNR board oversees the Environmental Protection Division, which is currently reviewing the permit request for the Bear Creek Reservoir. They will be making decisions that could benefit a member of the DNR board.”
Three south Fulton cities — Fairburn, Union City and Palmetto — have been working for years to get the state and federal permits needed to make the proposed Bear Creek Reservoir a reality. The reservoir would destroy more than seven miles of streams and nearly 31 acres of wetlands, environmental impacts that must be offset — or “mitigated” — elsewhere before the project can move forward.
To do that, the cities propose to restore damaged habitats on private property they have bought in Harris and Meriwether counties and a third site in Heard County along Pink Creek. McWhorter owns the Heard site (though not the two others) and operates a sod farm there, according to property records.
The value of the deal has not been disclosed, but the two tracts in Harris and Meriwether fetched a total of $700,000; the Heard property is 28 percent larger than those tracts combined and offers substantially more mitigation credits.
‘I don’t see a conflict’
Gov. Nathan Deal appointed McWhorter to the DNR board in May. McWhorter said he made the reservoir deal last year, but he said he does not believe it interferes with his board service.
“The DNR board is 18 people to begin with,” he said. “Secondly, I don’t think that approval or disapproval of the reservoir will hinge on the mitigation site that they have chosen. ... I don’t know if we will even discuss it.”
McWhorter said if the issue does come before the board, he will excuse himself from the discussion and from any vote.
“But I don’t see a conflict at this point. If we were directly involved in the decision making, there would be a conflict,” he said.
Tommy Craig, a Covington attorney and lead consultant on the Bear Creek project, said it had never occurred to him that McWhorter’s involvement posed a problem.
“It’s been in the works for several years before he was put on the DNR board,” he said.
Craig, one of the state’s top water consultants, negotiated the deal for the Pink Creek site with McWhorter. He said he never has to go directly before the board on a reservoir project, although he has attended their meetings.
EPD not aware
State permits for reservoir projects come from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, which reports to the Natural Resources board. EPD spokesman Kevin Chambers said the division’s review focuses solely on whether restoring the land in the mitigation plan offsets the damage caused by the reservoir.
EPD was not aware of McWhorter’s involvement in Bear Creek, he said.
“We have no reason to know about property ownership,” he said, declining further comment on the matter.
Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said the governor also was unaware of any business relationship between McWhorter and the Bear Creek reservoir when he appointed him to the DNR board. Deal has advocated more reservoir development and has pledged $300 million in state money to get projects moving.
“The governor’s office isn’t empowered to determine who has a conflict of interest,” Robinson said. “We haven’t studied this particular case and don’t know the facts of it, but it goes without saying that no member on any board should vote on issues in which they have a financial interest.”
A spokeswoman for Georgia attorney general’s office said there appears to be nothing in state law that specifically prohibits such a deal.
The south Fulton cities building Bear Creek believe they need the reservoir to support growth, and they have a lot riding on its success.
The project is expected to cost about $100 million and the three cities — with a combined population of 34,000 — have already issued $42 million in bonds. Federal and state authorities have yet to grant permits on the project, but local taxpayers will pay $2.2 million this year on the bonds financing the project. The environmental mitigation plan is part of that cost.
Mitigation plan
Under federal law, a construction project must result in “no net loss” of wetlands and streams. So if a project wipes out wetlands, it must “mitigate” that loss by ensuring that similar amount of wetlands are restored or preserved elsewhere.
The Bear Creek mitigation plan concerns regulators, according to documents. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have criticized the potential impact on the environment and downstream river flows.
The EPA criticized the project’s choice of mitigation sites, including the Pink Creek site, and has recommended the corps deny the project a federal permit, a position Craig said does not concern him.
“They have been critical of almost every mitigation site they have ever seen,” he said. “They have recommended denial of every single water supply project that has been built in Georgia in the past 25 years.”
Craig said sod farms like the one at Pink Creek are “prime rib” to reservoir developers because of the environmental damage caused by their heavy agricultural use. Repairing that damage generates a lot of environmental credits that can be applied back to the reservoir project, he said.
“It turned out to be a very cost-effective approach to meeting the wetland need,” he said.
McWhorter said he met Craig several years ago and asked him to evaluate some land in Habersham County that he and then-Gov. Sonny Perdue were investing in as a possible environmental mitigation site. McWhorter said Craig later approached him about the Pink Creek site.
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FEW ORIGINAL COMMENTS
Nearly 350 people submitted comments on a funding plan drawn up by the Governor’s Water Supply Task Force, the vast majority complaining that conservation projects were not considered for $300 million in state money for water projects.
Most of those comments came from an email form letter promoted by the Georgia Environmental Action Network, a coalition of state environmental groups. The email claims that conservation and efficiency projects are the wisest use of the money.
“Many Georgia communities are choosing water conservation over expensive infrastructure projects,” such as reservoirs, the form email reads.
According to a task force official, 256 of the messages were form letters. Another 33 comments either were variations of the form letter or expressed the same sentiment.
The task force unveiled its draft report last month detailing the process for awarding money to projects, including new reservoirs and deepening of existing reservoirs. The report did not include a method for awarding money to conservation projects, like repairing leaky pipes or improving efficiency of existing water systems.
Task force chairman Kevin Clark said state money already exists for conservation projects.
The task force will vote on a final version of the report Wednesday.
Chris Joyner
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