Joint committee hears EPD overview of regional water planning, energy-water issues and local permit questions

At a joint session on Oct. 27, Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) staff and water-sector partners briefed the House Natural Resources & Environment Committee and the Resource Management Committee on regional water planning, permit programs and the intersections between water and energy demand.

Anya Tversnaysky, chief of EPD’s Watershed Protection Branch, outlined the two permitting programs central to regional planning: wastewater discharge permits (which govern return flows to surface waters) and water-withdrawal permits (required for any withdrawal over 100,000 gallons per day). “For any withdrawal over a hundred thousand gallons per day from either surface water or ground water, you need to have a permit from EPD,” she said, and she described how regional plans assess resources, forecast demand and recommend best management practices on roughly five-year cycles.

Tversnaysky summarized the regional planning process: assess resource capacity (surface and groundwater, and assimilative capacity for returned wastewater), forecast demand across municipal, agricultural, industrial and energy sectors, model gaps, and propose management actions. She said regional water planning councils — appointed local water leaders supported by EPD — guide locally tailored metrics and that the statewide planning framework dates to the Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Planning Act of 2004; the first regional plans were adopted in 2011 and updated in 2017 and 2023.

Catherine Zich of the Metro Atlanta Chamber highlighted Georgia’s “whipsaw” precipitation pattern (periods of drought and flood) and urged consideration of water and growth statewide, including the needs of agriculture, manufacturing and data centers. Danny Johnson of the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District described that district’s long-running demand-management work and regional coordination.

Committee members asked a series of questions about local permit decisions and long-term supply options. In response to concerns about permits for megasites in the Savannah/Bryan County area, EPD staff explained the technical review of groundwater permits tied to the Florida aquifer and said permits were vetted for impacts, including saltwater intrusion risks at Hilton Head. EPD witnesses said groundwater permits for a large automotive site were reviewed and recommended for issuance with technical conditions and that a 25-year withdrawal period was included to allow time to develop surface-water alternatives; committee members were told the amended FY25 budget includes funding toward a regional surface-water solution linked to the Savannah River.

Saltwater intrusion and coastal groundwater challenges were discussed; EPD acknowledged desalination has been mentioned as a potential option but said it is not widely used in the Eastern U.S. and remains costly compared with available surface-water and groundwater mixes being pursued now.

Committee members also asked about data centers and cooling water: EPD said creating ponds or on-site reservoirs is often infeasible for large data centers, interbasin transfer is tightly regulated, and many facilities draw from municipal systems. EPD and panel witnesses said shifting energy portfolios (for example, coal-fired plants going offline) have reduced some historic water withdrawals, but energy-related water demand remains a key factor in future planning.

No committee action or votes were recorded on the regional planning briefing; the panel said this is the first of multiple hearings planned on the broader resource-management agenda.