How Georgia Water Utilities Can Partner on Water Stewardship for WaterFirst Designation - Part 3: Newton County: “Our System is Complex, but it is Successful"
By Stacey Isaac Berahzer and Jack Ding
This is the third in a series of three posts on Newton County’s joint application to WaterFirst. While there are 159 counties in Georgia, and several hundred municipalities, there are only 54 WaterFirst designees. These 54 communities do not represent the largest urban areas across the state. Instead, the designees are very diverse, as this post will highlight.
As the first post in this series describes, WaterFirst is a designation and an achievement of local governments for their excellence in water resources management, recognized by the Georgia Environment Finance Authority (GEFA). Based on the prestige of the designation, and the financial benefits that ensue, this post looks at the reasons behind the successes of some WaterFirst designees, and potential hurdles that may limit broader participation in the program.
Need for a Willingness to Collaborate - Joint Applications
Newton County is a good example of the need for collaboration because of the many partners involved in this joint designation. Through separate interviews, a common theme that the partners emphasized was that they could not have achieved the designation alone.
In fact, twenty of the fifty-four WaterFirst designees across the state are part of a partnership or joint application as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Map of WaterFirst Designees as of 2022
To access an interactive map of the WaterFirst Designees: https://rpubs.com/ibeaccount/1019358
As the map shows, there is some concentration of designees in the Atlanta metropolitan area, but there are also several WaterFirst designees in other parts of the state. The City of Rome in Floyd County, for instance, has held a WaterFirst designation since 2007. Other examples include the cities of Jefferson, Pooler, and Thunderbolt. An analysis of population size also showed that large size does not dictate whether applications for WaterFirst were joint. So, communities of different sizes are collaborating with their neighbors to apply for WaterFirst because without this joint application approach, some communities are limited in the administrative capacity to meet the comprehensive list of requirements to achieve WaterFirst designation. (Click here for a list of all fifty-four current designees.)
Complex Water Systems
Many communities say they want to pursue WaterFirst but feel like “it’s complicated.” But can any situation be more complex than Newton County’s? The post on “What’s in it for the Smaller Partners?” includes a diagram of the Newton County “consecutive water system.” There were seven original entities that make up this consecutive water system, including the Newton County Board of Commissioners (the wholesale provider of water that operates the two water production plants); the Newton County Water and Sewerage Authority (NCWSA); and the cities of Covington, Oxford, Porterdale, Mansfield and Newborn. Newton County is also a wholesaler, providing drinking water to Walton County (which owns 25% of the reservoir and Cornish Creek Water Plant), the Jasper County Water and Sewage Authority, and the Alcovy Shores Water and Sewage Authority. In addition, there are emergency interconnections with Rockdale County, Henry County, and the City of Social Circle. All of the original “consecutive water systems” deliver water throughout Newton County, operating and maintaining their own water lines, valves, and tank. Five systems convey wastewater to customers in Newton County, and three systems have wastewater treatment facilities.
Several years ago, the utilities signed the “Consecutive System Agreement” to create the “Newton County Water System.” This agreement facilitates a unified approach to all aspects of potable water supply, treatment, protection, and distribution. The agreement allows for water to be wheeled through each member’s distribution system without accumulating wheeling charges. Each member (regardless of the size of its system) is able to take advantage of the low wholesale price of water in Newton County. This complexity of the distribution of water throughout the county is managed by a series of wholesale master meters that determine which service jurisdiction is paying for the water coming through their system.
In spite of this complexity, all the systems work with each other on a variety of projects, including annual water quality reports, water modeling, drought response, and WaterFirst.
Lack of Growth
Growth in Newton County has been fast and furious. That has served as an impetus to manage water to the level that WaterFirst requires. The County recognized that it wanted to manage the growth in a specific way, so it developed a process called “The Leadership Collaborative.” Communities that are not growing, or even losing population may feel less inclined to pursue the WaterFirst designation. But the designation is a good way to distinguish your community from others and can help attract development. One municipal leader in Newton County described “the encouragement through WaterFirst” as “very important, a stamp of approval that you are doing things right, … and then if you needed the money, it is available.”
It may actually take less effort for a “self-contained” local government to attain this designation. For smaller communities, time can be saved because there are fewer entities for coordination and collaboration.
Conclusion
Proper coordination and collaboration will take time. In the case of Newton County’s joint application, the NCWSA started looking at the designation in 2009. They realized it needed to be a collaborative approach, sought buy-in from all the stakeholders, and began the focused process in 2010. Even with monthly meetings of the Leadership Collaborative, the designation was not achieved until 2012. So, in addition to the willingness to collaborate, and the ability to work through potentially complex water relationships, a comprehensive application requires time. This timeline may be shorter for some communities that are “self-contained” since there is less need for coordination and collaboration and less complexity. On this issue of "time," hopefully there are many communities that have started the process for WaterFirst designation but have simply not completed the process yet. If you are interested in beginning the process in your community, a good place to start is this webpage: https://gefa.georgia.gov/waterfirst
(The authors thank Kay Lee, facilitator; and Mike Hopkins, Director of NCWSA for their time in being interviewed for this post.)
This is part of a blog post series funded by the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA).
Disclaimer: The opinions of the writers should not be considered legal advice or endorsement by GEFA.
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