Federal Government Reviewing Withdrawal Permit For Reservoir

The Hard Labor Creek Regional Reservoir Management Board in August of last year asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for an extension of its permit to withdrawal water from the Apalachee River, but it has not yet received that extension.

The original permit expired on Feb. 28, 2014, and had been extended to Feb. 28, 2018, and again, it seems, to February of 2019.

The Corps is accepting input from citizens on the extension beyond the current expiration date at the same time it is seeking input on a proposal to build an intake facility on the Apalachee River in Morgan County to withdraw that water.

The intake and the permit are not needed to operate the nearly full reservoir, which has the capacity of producing 13 million gallons per day of treated water as it is.

Withdraw from the Apalachee would be needed at some point in the future only to expand the capacity of the reservoir beyond the 13 million-gallons-per-day level.

Citizens who attended a meeting last Sunday on a farm off Gober Road in Oconee County on the intake facility were given incomplete information on the status of the permit and incorrect information on the need for the intake.

For more on this story, please go to Oconee County Observations.

Pictured: Location of reservoir.