My op-ed in the VDT today. -jsq

Gov. Deal
(WABE, 14 Nov 2012)
temporarily forgot that “conservative”
includes conserving something,


like

Theodore Roosevelt and national parks,
or when

Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge which also

administers Banks Lake, when

Richard Nixon started the EPA,
and when

Jimmy Carter signed the Soil and Water Conservation Act.
If Gov. Deal wants to call conservation “liberal”, I’m happy to
be a liberal working for water for our state!

Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen

listed the biggest boondoggle
of all as

#11: the nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle
suck up more water from the Savannah River than all local agriculture and almost
as much as the city of Savannah.

If the new Plant Vogtle nukes

are ever completed, all four will use more water than Savannah. In

2009 the legislature approved and Gov. Deal signed a law
letting Georgia
Power charge its customers in advance for building that boondoggle,
to the tune of

about $1.5 billion so far!

Let’s not forget

nuclear Plant Hatch sucking up water and


heating
the Altamaha, while

coal Plant Scherer, at Juliette near Macon, the
country’s dirtiest coal plant,

sucks up water and

emits toxic mercury
that gets into

the Alapaha River in our watersheds here in
south central Georgia.

Better energy solutions are available and in use in

North Carolina,

California,

New Jersey, and even

Germany, the world leader in solar power.

 

For $1.5 billion

we

could have already had more solar power online on time and on budget
than the new nukes will ever deliver if
they are ever finished.

Solar and wind power use no water,
emit no
pollutants,
and need no coal trains from Wyoming.

With the

conservation and efficiency

that Gov. Deal refused to prioritise,
Georgia wouldn’t need additional power, and with solar and wind we
can shut down dirty water-sucking coal and nuclear plants.

I call on Gov. Deal
to stop wasting our water on reservoir, coal,
and nuclear boondoggles and get on with conservation, efficiency,
and solar and wind power

for jobs and energy independence for Georgia.

John S. Quarterman

is a board member of

WWALS Watershed Coalition,
www.wwals.net. WWALS is an advocacy organization working for
watershed conservation of the Willacoochee, Withlacoochee, Alapaha,
and Little River Systems watershed in south Georgia and north
Florida through awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen
advocacy.