2020 Georgia Code
Title 12 - Conservation and Natural Resources
Chapter 5 - Water Resources
Article 2 - Control of Water Pollution and Surface-Water Use
§ 12-5-21. Declaration of Policy; Legislative Intent

1. The people of the State of Georgia are dependent upon the rivers, streams, lakes, and subsurface waters of the state for public and private water supply and for agricultural, industrial, and recreational uses. It is therefore declared to be the policy of the State of Georgia that the water resources of the state shall be utilized prudently for the maximum benefit of the people, in order to restore and maintain a reasonable degree of purity in the waters of the state and an adequate supply of such waters, and to require where necessary reasonable usage of the waters of the state and reasonable treatment of sewage, industrial wastes, and other wastes prior to their discharge into such waters. To achieve this end, the government of the state shall assume responsibility for the quality and quantity of such water resources and the establishment and maintenance of a water quality and water quantity control program adequate for present needs and designed to care for the future needs of the state, provided that nothing contained in this article shall be construed to waive the immunity of the state for any purpose.
2. The achievement of the purposes described in subsection (a) of this Code section requires that the Environmental Protection Division of the Department of Natural Resources be charged with the duty described in that subsection, and that it have the authority to regulate the withdrawal, diversion, or impoundment of the surface waters of the state, and to require the use of reasonable methods after having considered the technical means available for the reduction of pollution and economic factors involved to prevent and control the pollution of the waters of the state.
3. Further, it is the intent of this article to establish within the executive branch of the government administrative facilities and procedures for determining improper usage of the surface waters of the state and pollution of the waters of the state, and to confer discretionary administrative authority upon the Environmental Protection Division to take these and related circumstances into consideration in its decisions and actions in determining, under the conditions and specific cases, those procedures which will best protect the public interest.

(Ga. L. 1957, p. 629, § 2; Ga. L. 1964, p. 416, § 2; Ga. L. 1977, p. 368, § 1.)

- Pursuant to Code Section 28-9-5, in 1988, the hyphen in "subsurface" was deleted in the first sentence of subsection (a).

- For article examining approach to water pollution control established by the Georgia Water Quality Control Act and other regulations in light of alternative approaches, see 23 Mercer L. Rev. 603 (1972). For note, "Regulation of Artificial Lakes and Recreational Subdivisions in Georgia," recommending methods for future regulation, see 8 Ga. St. B.J. 580 (1972).

Wholesale water quality degradation was held justifiable to provide necessary social or economic development, and a permit to allow the county to discharge 40 million gallons of treated wastewater into a lake on a daily basis did not require the highest and best level of treatment practicable under existing technology because: (1) the projected population growth in the county would require additional wastewater capacity by the year 2005, and continued growth would require the level of capacity provided by the permit sometime between 2010 and 2015; (2) sufficient land was not available for land application of wastewater; and (3) there was a need to return water to the water system from which the county draws the county's water supply, and the cycling of treated wastewater taken from the Chattahoochee River system and returned to that system would aid negotiations concerning an interstate compact regarding these waters. Hughey v. Gwinnett County, 278 Ga. 740, 609 S.E.2d 324 (2004).

- Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division's (EPD's) interpretation of the narrative standard was entitled to deference as it was proper for the EPD to interpret the narrative standard as not intended to convert the designated use of a water body to a more protected use as the plain language of the narrative standard does not specify the degree of interference with legitimate water uses that would constitute a violation of the rule. Altamaha Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Rayonier Performance Fibers, LLC, 346 Ga. App. 269, 816 S.E.2d 125 (2018), cert. denied, No. S18C1474, 2019 Ga. LEXIS 554 (Ga. 2019).

Cited in Franklin County v. Fieldale Farms Corp., 270 Ga. 272, 507 S.E.2d 460 (1998).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 61B Am. Jur. 2d, Pollution Control, §§ 3, 4, 5.

- 39A C.J.S., Health and Environment, §§ 101, 102, 105, 133, 136, 142, 145, 148, 172.

- Constitutionality and construction of statutes and ordinances for protection of municipal water supply, 72 A.L.R. 673.