ARPC May ’09 Report

The Apalachee Regional Planning Council (ARPC) held its regular meeting yesterday, May 28 at the Ramada Conference Center in Tallahassee.

The ARPC is comprised of elected city and county officials and appointees of the Governor that serves a nine county region, which include, Franklin, Jackson, Gadsden, Leon, Jefferson, Calhoun, Liberty, Wakulla and Gulf counties.

At the meeting, Davis Stoutamire, Vice-Chair of the Liberty County Board of County Commissioners informed the council that the South Fulton Municipal Regional Water & Sewer Authority (Authority) has made application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, (ACOE) Savannah District to construct a pump-storage reservoir on Bear Creek.

The proposed Bear Creek project is located along Highway 70, about eight miles north of the Fulton-Coweta county line.

Stoutamire’ fears shared by the council, was that the project would cause a further reduction of freshwater flow down the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint (ACF) River System to the detriment of everyone south of the project.

Stoutamire learned from attending a recent River South meeting held in Bristol that the proposed 440-acre pump-storage reservoir would demand 16.44 million gallons of freshwater per day out of the Chattahoochee River for use by the Authority.

He went on to say that, the Liberty County Board of County Commissioners has already written a letter to the ACOE opposing the application and requested that the Regional Planning Council follow pursuit.

After a brief discussion, Stoutamire made a motion, which passed unanimously to request that all cities and counties represented on the ARPC write letters of opposition and copy the Governor’s office.

In other business, Tallahassee City Commissioner Debbie Lightsey, questioned ARPC staff whether having central sewer on St. George Island would activate any old Development of Regional Impact’s (DRI) approved on the Island some years ago.

Lightsey expressed concerns over whether the old DRI’s in which Gene Brown was the developer would resurface before the ARPC due to the issue surrounding central sewer on the Island.