Faced with hard questions from federal regulators, the Newton County Board of Commissioners did something Tuesday almost no board does when it comes to long, generational projects.
The Bear Creek Reservoir, a drinking water project proposed for 1,242 acres southeast of Covington, has been on the planning table since 2000. Over the years, the county estimates more than $20 million has been spent on buying land, paying legal fees and drawing up plans, but not a spade of dirt has been turned.
In a meeting Tuesday, the board voted to stop all work on the project immediately and instructed staff to study the county's futu;re water options.
“The old ways of handling this are just not working,” said Commissioner Nancy Schulz.
A prior board submitted a permit application in 2007 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam over Bear Creek. Since then, the county and its consultants have spent millions trying to jump the permitting hurdle with no success.
This summer, the Corps pulled the county’s application after county attorney Tommy Craig failed to satisfy regulators’ requests for updated justifications for the reservoir.
The Corps listed several objections to the county’s plan, but they all rested on the fact that the county’s future population projects were vastly inflated and suggested a need for more water that regulators did not buy.
Newton County is not alone. Other planned reservoirs around the state used similar projections for their projects. What effect will Newton County’s decision have on those projects?
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