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ATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY’S Adoption Location is inside
Pci Supplies PIUS at the Alps Shopping Center
A recent view of ft* Middle Oconee River Athens tow running water source just above its confluence with the North Oconee
ACC Commissioners are expected to meet Oct 25 to hash out details of the next step m the local droufhf management plan
Ben Emanuel ben@tlagpole com
Come out of her nice snugghr
blanket on a g r ey and rainy day?
No thank you. She’s just going
to wait right here until she
has her very own human to
snuggle up with on the couch
and play lazy games of hide
and seek. Reveille is a sweet
and gentle tri-colored tabby.
One-cat party, judging by
al the fancy once moves,
I think she was playing
“Invisible Mouse in My
Ca«” when I met her.
She s a funny and
affectionate young girl
with a constant
Aren't they pretty? Castor and Pollux are
two very dose blue-eyed brothers who
stay in nearly constant contact with each
other. They would like to be adopted
together and wii! prove just as devoted
to their new guardian.
From
Oct. 4
to
Oct. 10
Gray Water
It’s a Gray Area
It's in a time of severe drought that people
start looking into ways to change water use
habits, and Athens is no exception. In particu
lar, gray water has been getting a decent bit of
attention in Athens lately. Athens-Clarke County
(ACC) Commissioners have been asking about it:
District 8 Commissioner Andy Herod has made
a point to bring it up in multiple meetings
recently, and District 9 Commissioner kelly Girtz
estimates that about 80 inter-Commission emails
have been focused on the topic. Citizen interest
seems high, too, and ACC Building Permits and
Inspections Director Doug Hansford reports "a
lot of questions about it recently" asked of his
office.
What is gray water? Essentially, it's previ
ously-used water that doesn't need to go directly
to the wastewater treatment plant. Most legal
definitions say it's water that's been used in
showers and baths, washing machines, and bath
room sinks. Water that's been used in kitchen
sinks or in toilets need not apply. Stilt according
to figures pulled together by UGA's River Basin
Center in 2003, gray water can make up as much
as 40 gallons per person per day of the waste-
water from homes. For a family of four, annual
water savings could be in the range of 30,000 to
50,000 gallons. Despite the benefits, plumbing
codes and public health codes have created red
tape for gray water, and officials lack the infor
mation they need in order to encourage citizens
to put it to use.
“The idea of it is good. Actual implementa
tion is a little more difficult," says Ernest Earn of
the Georgia Environmental Protection Division's
(EPD) Watershed Protection Branch. ACC Mayor
Heidi Davison says, "I think all of us would like
to see us be able to use it and would want to
be able to encourage people to use it." But, she
says, "We don't have the mechanisms in place."
Davison was in contact recently with Georgia
EPD Director Carol Couch in pursuit of clarity on
the public health concerns about gray water, and
she expected to have more information soon. "It
would be nice to know what building codes are
available, what systems are available, and how
those mesh with current state public health law."
Davison says. As far as plumbing codes go, many
in the know are quick to point out that it may
be as simple as adopting "Appendix C of the
International Plumbing Code. The international
code is the state-adopted code for Georgia, but
without any appendices.
Paul Morgan of the RainHarvest Company
in SnellviUe says his company has been in the
rainwater harvesting business since 2000, and
has been working more on gray water in the last
18 months or so at jobs all over Georgia. While
being careful of the laws on the books, he's
installed systems to collect gray water in under
ground tanks—permitted somewhat like septic
tanks, via county health departments—and use it
for underground drip irrigation. Other gray water
plumbing scenarios involve re-using it for toilets
via purple PVC plumbing dedicated to gray water
and separated from the rest of the plumbing in a
building or house. According to Morgan, a system
runs about $6500-17500 (he should be charg
ing more, he says), and is easier by far to install
along with new construction. Retrofitting an
existing house is complicated. Morgan says, and
he rarely does it But, he notes. "We still don't
need to be using drinking water in our toilets.
That's crazy."
Morgan compares the fuzzy legal situation in
Georgia to that of "decriminalized" drugs: not
legal, but not necessarily illegal either. Officials
are far more wary, but some are ready to act
fast and get the red tape out of the way. To
that end, UGA Cooperative Extension Watershed
Agent Frank Henning is organizing a meeting
of officials, scientists and others to be held in
Athens in mid-November, with hopes of creating
a document that will provide clarity to citizens
and to local governments. EPO^ Earn says the
state could have something ready to adopt by
2009, but apparently local governments are free
to adopt their own codes prior to that date if
they wish.
ACC ANIMAL ATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY
CONTROL 28 c,r.s ficce
25 Dogs Recede II Cats Paced
* Dogs Placed 0 Adaptable Cats Ijuthamted
Commish/Capitol
Working Up a Wish List
ACC Commissioners will meet with Athens'
state legislative delegation next month, and
at their Oct. 9 work session they hashed out
a list of what tp ask for. A big focus of many
commissioners was transit. Said Commissioner
Alice kinman, "We're not goirg to be able to
do anything we want to do in terms of improv
ing transit in Athens-Clarke County—much less
regionally—if we don't get some more sources
of funds." For years.
Athens-Clarke has asked
legislators for the legal
ability to levy a one-
cent local sales tax that
would fund transit. The
request has not been
honored, but it remains
near the top of the list,
along with other pos
sible scenarios for cre
ating transit-dedicated
tax funds and an idea to
exempt the sales tax on
fuel purchases by tran
sit systems.
Commissioners
discussed a handful of
measures that might
help alleviate afford
able housing problems
in Athens, but decided
that none of the ideas
were well-enough
developed to go to
Atlanta yet. One was to
find a way to provide
homestead exemptions
on land owned by non
profits like the Athens
Land Trust, and another
might fund afford
able housing programs
through a trust fund
fed by, perhaps, a real
estate transfer tax. (Athens Housing Authority
Director Rick Parker pointed out that Florida has
a very effective trust fund of that sort whereas
Georgia's is consistently empty.) Commissioners
and Parker agreed at the session that all of the
concepts needed more work, but Parker pointed
out that action will be necessary at some point,
as federal funds for affordable housing are not on
the horizon in large amounts. "It's going to get
worse over the coming decade." he said.
Fairly high on the list was an increase in the *
subsidy for the county prison, which houses state
prisoners who work for Athens-Clarke while serv
ing their sentences. The subsidy hasn't gone up
since 1999, Warden W.C. Bolton told commission
ers. Also, Athens-Clarke Municipal Court officials
would like the ability to tack a small admin
istrative fee (perhaps two dollars) onto court
fines to pay for upgrades to the courtrooms,
mainly in the way of technology improvements.
Commissioners were amenable, but the move
could be slowed as it would apparently require an
amendment to Athens-Clarke County's charter.
Mayor Davison and others expressed the need
to protect grant funding for the local health
board, which has proved vulnerable at the
Capitol. And all were supportive of a state Earned
Income Tax Credit (for low-income workers)
proposed by state Rep.
Doug Mckillip, though
they didn't know if the
bill he's introduced will
make progress or not.
Davison and
Commissioners also
agreed tha. they'll want
to voice oppe iition to
state House Speaker
Glenn Richardson's tax
reform plan. They said
they'll follow the lead
of their two lobbying
groups—the Georgia
Municipal Association
and the Association of
County Commissioners
of Georgia—to support
tax reform in general,
but by no means with
no local oversight of
funding allocation,
as Richardson's plan
proposes.
Prioritizing their
requests to the local
deleg3ti' , <i is always
difficult, but the Mayor
and Commiss.on have
realised that they have
better chances of suc
cess at the Capitol
if their message to
legislators is clear. In
the face of likely opposition to a request for
more "speed cameras" on local streets. District
4 Commissioner Alice kinman indicated that she
wouldn't mind that idea being pushed down on
the list. On the other hand. Mayor Davison said
one major priority is to go along with other local
governments and Georgia EPO Director Carol
Couch in requesting full funding for Georgia's
statewide water plan, which will go to legislators
in January. (A public hearing on the plan will be
held Thursday, Oct. 18 in Athens; see Out There!
and p. 7 for more information.)
Ben Ew—el benftflagpole com
THINK AT THE SINK!
• Place a toilet dam or a bottle fHled with
water in your toilet tank to cut down on
the amount of water used for each Rush,
but make sure it doesn't block the flush
ing equipment.
• Begin planning future outdoor landscap
ing with potential droughts in mind by
researching appropriate plants. Consider
rain gardens, xenscaping and drought-
tolerant plants.
• Read your water meter before and after a
two-hour period when no water is being
used. If the meter does not read exactly
the same, there is a leak.
These water-saving tips are brought to you by
Flagpole and the Unified Government of Athens-
Clarke County For more tips on how to save water,
visit www athensciarkecounty.com.
This week’s reservoir update: The Bear Creek
Reservoir remains approximately 13.8 feet below
full pool. This ts roughly the same as last week
due to the pumping from the Middle Oconee River
and the small precipitation event recently The
precipitation def icit for Athens this year (through
Oct. 12) is approximately 15 8 inches.
4 FLAGPOLE.COM ■ OCTOBER 17,2007 NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS
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