May | June 2010 LETTER FROM DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS Legislative Chris Butts


The 2010 Georgia Legislative Session promised to focus on three main subjects: water, ethics and budget. True to predictions, the beginning of the session saw a lot of action on water with the Governor’s Water Stewardship


Act taking center stage. The middle of the session saw public outrage in response to proposed budget cuts that included gutting Ag programs including re- search and popular programs like 4-H and the State Botanical Garden. Just prior to cross-over day, Speak- er Raulston introduced his version of Ethics Reform. Following the dramatic and very public ethics issues of last year, many outsiders called for, and expected sweeping ethics reforms.


At sessions end, we ended up with a water bill that protects the industry, a budget with dramatic but thankfully smaller cuts to education, and an ethics bill. Fortunately, there were minimal direct impacts from legislation on our industry.


On the Water Front The Water Stewardship Act, was signed into law on June 1 and is a broad bill with many conservation measures that reach far beyond just outdoor watering. However, there is a conservation feature that limits the time of day when people may water outdoors. The language reads as follows:


Persons may irrigate outdoors daily for purposes of planting, growing, managing, or maintaining ground cover, trees, shrubs, or other plants only between the hours of 4 P.M. And 10:00 A.M.


30 update


Through our work with Representative Terry Eng- land, we were able to provide input for exemptions to the rules which protect the industry and common sense management practices. Among others, these exemptions include the following uses:


• Commercial agricultural operations • Reuse of cooling system condensate and gray water


• Food gardens


• Irrigation of new and replanted plant, seed, or turf in landscapes, golf courses, or sports turf fields during installation and for a period of 30 days immediately following the date of installation


• Drip irrigation or irrigation using soaker hoses • Hand-watering with a hose with automatic cutoff or handheld container


• Use of water withdrawn from private water wells or surface water


• Irrigation of horticultural crops held for sale, resale, or installation,


• Irrigation of athletic fields, golf courses, or public turf grass recreational areas


• Installation, maintenance, or calibration of irrigation systems • Hydro-seeding


The Reservoir Bill, HB 206, passed late in the after- noon on day 40. This bill clears the way for additional reservoirs across the state with an eye towards im- proving supply in the Metro Atlanta area and reliev- ing some of the pressure on the Chattahoochee/ La- nier section of the ACF Basin.


The budget for FY 2011 caused great consternation


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