Overview and Challenges of the Savannah River Bi-State Task Force - Video Excerpts

Gene Edison, Restoration Ecology Director, Clemson Restoration Institute
We have a water law review report that was issued in January 2004, and this is from the Governor’s task force. And this was a lot of work by a group of individuals who really looked at the water issues that we face in our state and tried to come up with some recommendations of how do we move forward. And two of those conclusions in that report economic growth and the Savannah River Basin is at risk. If we do not find a fair and equitable method of allocating resources in the Savannah River Basin, it is unfortunately possible that disputes between this state, South Carolina, and Georgia will exist in the future. Cooperation, not litigation should be the goal of this state with the states of North Carolina, Georgia and the federal government. Time is of essence and that was really what was stressed in the water law report, and resulting from that we had Governor Sanford issuing Executive Order 2005-14 which really formed the Savannah River committee for South Carolina. And his counterpart, Governor Purdue, did the same thing for Georgia. And so we have two leaders here at the table to discuss that.

Michael G. McShane, Board Chairman, SCDNR
Good Morning. Thank you Dr. Eidson, I do appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning. I do have the privilege of serving as your South Carolina DNR board chairman and a member of this team. What I’d like to do this morning is update you on the history of what created the team, some of the principles that we’re working on, and perhaps some of the expectations from this day forward. And when you look at where we are in our drought, this is the current drought status for the state of South Carolina. The upstate counties from Greenville over to Oconee down to McCormick - which would be the headwaters of the basin - are in the extreme status. The drought committee will meet again I believe it’s October 28th. They are monitoring this closely. As you know the statute allows the drought committee to make recommendations to the governor to institute any type of restrictions that would come out of that. So we’ll continue to monitor that but again that shows, demonstrates, and illustrates the urgency that we have going forward.

Carol Couch, Environmental Protection Division Director, GADNR
The issues of water really tie together many of the factors that challenge not only South Carolina and Georgia as we work together on issues of the Savannah River Basin, but are front and center here in the Southeast as a whole. As many of the issues that we’ve seen unfold over many, many decades in the West are now coming to the East. And while many times we turn our attention to what has been the experience in the West and what are the lessons learned and what can we apply here. I think we ought to be applying all the good tools that make sense for the context. But we also need to examine what the context of our particular social and cultural expectations are on our natural resources. On the nature of our riparian and riparian-regulated water laws and so forth which provide a different context.


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