For over three decades, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have fought over the two shared river basins. Access to these basins is critical for the Atlanta metro area. Don’t worry. This story is not about water wars, water supply, or water litigation. This story is about the wonderful Katherine Zitsch, Managing Director of Natural Resources at Atlanta Regional Commission and Director of Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, and how water ultimately brings us together.
Transcript (Automated)
Song (00:00):
Oh, she lived in the big city. She lived in happy water planning land.
Katherine (00:09):
Came home and realized I was responsible for the future of Metro Atlanta’s water supply. Like, I just wanna do happy water planning. And here I was thrust into figuring out our access to water, right? The whole future of Metro Atlanta.
Robert (00:22):
Welcome to the outfall, where we share the backstories about our water world. This is Robert today. You’re going to meet Katherine.
Katherine (00:32):
My name is Katherine Zitsch, and I am the manager of natural resources of the Atlanta regional commission. And as part of that role, I am the director of the metropolitan north Georgia water planning district. What I’m responsible for is basically water planning across the Metro Atlanta region in the Metro water district perspective. It’s 15 counties, 95 cities, and we work on water resource related items that bring the region together and help us be better in a water realm. So, uh, water conservation, water efficiency, waste water, storm water, uh, and how we as a region can work together to make the systems work better.
Robert (01:10):
Katherine and I both went to school at Clemson roughly about the same time. She’s funny, she’s smart. She picked the absolute worst time for a career change. And most importantly, she has lots of positive energy to
Katherine (01:25):
Share. So I started back in January 2013. I’d spent 17 years as a water consultant. As an engineer decided I’d take my engineering hat off and put a planning hat on. And I came to arc to run the Metro water district and really to do what I say is happy, water planning. Uh, we were looking starting our next plan update. What was the next, what were the next steps in water conservation and efficiency for the region? Where did we need to head on wastewater treatment and capacity and how can we do water resources better, uh, across 15 counties. So I started at arc with this, you know, wide-eyed, let’s go make the region better space. It was nice. Water wars were on pause at the time.
Robert (02:12):
For more than three decades, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have fought over two shared river basins, the Appalachia Cola Chattahoo chief Flint basin known as the ACF and the Alabama CUSA Talla basin. A C T access to these basins are critical for the Atlanta Metro area, collectively the Chattahoochee river and the two large river basins in the region account for approximately 80% of the Metro region’s water supply. Don’t worry. This is not a story about water wars, water supply, or water litigation. This is a story about Catherine, about how water ultimately brings us together towards the end of the conversation. We even have a special guest, a celebrated American humorist, novelist and travel writer enjoy.
Katherine (03:06):
So really I started in January and Senator sessions dropped language into the water resources and development act coming through DC in February. And that language that he dropped in Wara was basically to eliminate Metro Atlanta’s access to water supply. It was brutally difficult and would have been a death blow to us. And so it became, you know, kick it into high gear and figure out what I’m doing. Ultimately, we built a co a coalition in DC of the nice thing about water is, is uniting, right? So we had every Republican, every Democrat, both senators and all our house representatives, all saying don’t mess with Georgia water, nice to be working on an issue where everybody can come together. But it certainly took my days of happy water planning upside down within the course of whatever it was two months. And it’s been going on ever since.
(04:00):
And it morphs, right? So some days we’re fighting in DC, some days we’re fighting in the courts. Some days we’re having a water disagreement with the army Corps of engineers, they operate the reservoirs that we rely upon for water supply. So there’s always something different. And I will say when I left engineering consulting and came to government, you know, I had this feeling that government was, I don’t know, doing the same thing every day and it certainly has not proven to be true. And I enjoy the fact that there’s always new challenges and not just like I could, even though the water disagreement provides me with, uh, job security, it’s not really the job security I want. I love the water planning side of the house, where we’re really pushing the ball forward and making sure Metro Atlanta continues to be a leader and making sure we’re using our water resources wisely.
(04:57):
First of all, I’ll tell you the fact that everybody works together on water is the number one success story that we have, disparate communities, small towns, big counties, and everything in between working together on making our water systems work better is the number one success story. Because with that backdrop, we can accomplish a lot. The district is formed in a way in which we have a board made up of elected officials and citizen members, the board passes action items that every utility in the district has to implement. So we have this teeth to our plan because if they don’t implement it, then they can’t get a water permit from Georgia environmental protection division, right? So there’s a, their teeth there’s meaningful. It’s not just a plan. It’s actually action right back in the day. Uh, we in Metro Atlanta, the more water people used in their homes, the cheaper it got incrementally, which didn’t send anybody a price signal, that water was valuable.
(05:54):
And so in the early days of the district, one of the, the first things they did was say, uh, as an action item, single family residents have to have increasing block rates for water. So the more you use, the more you pay. And I think that just in and of itself made people across the region, no matter what they they’re, um, no matter what their connection to water was, it made them understand the value of it. And it made them understand that it was valuable here in Metro Atlanta in particular, we get a lot of rain, right on average, it’s 50 inches a year, but it’s not 50 inches every year. And so it helped people understand that and also help them understand if they’re gonna water their lawn. There’s going to be a, be a bill associated with it. And it’s that lawn watering that really I think has come down over the years. So that as a whole, just because of this one measure, we are just much more responsible with our water use. And then in times of drought, we effectively, we go to every other day watering and then we go to no watering at all. So that in times of crisis, we can even control it further.
Robert (07:05):
I was involved with water resource planning for a good portion of my career. One of the traits of planning is that it’s a slow process with only incremental results. However, last year, this focus and hard work in planning suddenly paid off for Georgia.
Katherine (07:25):
Yeah, 2021 was a pretty good year for water in Georgia, despite a pandemic that had us all staying home, we won in the Supreme court. Florida had sued Georgia back in 2014, over what started as Metro Atlanta’s water use, but morphed about halfway through to be Georgia’s water use, including agricultural water use. We won in 2021 in the Supreme court, nine nothing. And that’s saying something I think, wow, because our water use is in fact re reasonable. It was a hard fought, lots of hours, lots of money, to be honest, but critically important, right? Because we need access to water in order to grow crops, as well as thrive here in Metro Atlanta. We also want a couple other cases. And on the army Corps of engineer side, we have a contract coming at Altoona lake, which is, it serves Cobb county. And some of the Northwest portion of the region, we have a water supply contract signed at lake Leer, which is our number one water source between the army B Corps of engineers and state of Georgia to provide our long term water supply out of lake Leer.
(08:33):
So I think from the work that was done before me in getting these measures in place to drive down our water use to the work we’re doing today, we’re, we’re getting to the point where we’re seeing the benefits of all of that really hard work over the last 20 plus years where we’re getting that stable water supply. In part, we understand the critical importance of using that water wisely and investing in infrastructure and making sure we’re doing the right thing, but also honestly, our water use is negligible once you get downstream. And so making sure that people understand the data and the science behind Metroland water use has been a big piece of it.
Robert (09:12):
I know you’ve heard this quote in a presentation or seen it in a beginning of a report. It’s one of the most overused quotes in our water industry. You know, the one, well, we asked the mark Twain to recite it for you. How cool is that?
Mark Twain (09:30):
Thanks, Robert and the outfall team. I am so tired of this quote, but since you asked, I’ll go ahead and say it whiskeys for drinking and waters for fighting. So there are you happy? My dear, sir,
Robert (09:48):
I know terrible, right? But seriously, that quote is way overused somehow, Katherine and I ended our conversation by talking about this quote and reflecting a, a little bit about her time at the Atlanta regional commission.
Katherine (10:03):
Here’s the thing like I’ve been pondering lately. That water is actually a pretty uniting force here. So yeah, we fight over it, but by the same token, it’s also what brings ACF stakeholders together. It’s what brings the Georgia delegation together, Republicans and Democrats working on the same side of the page, right? There’s a amazing uniting force behind water, right? Flips that quote. I didn’t realize how blessed I would be to be surrounded by ridiculously smart people. And that’s true, not just the legal team, but like the other people at Atlanta regional commission. I, I joke we’re like a think tank that works for government, right? We’re all working passionately to make the region better on whatever our issue is, whether it’s aging or transportation or transit or community development, it’s just ridiculously smart people and it’s makes it energizing because we all feed off of one of another right?
(11:03):
Several of my years were spent basically full time on defending Metro Atlanta in Supreme court. And when that all ended, there was this void because I had been working crazy hard on defending Metro Atlanta. And then you get to the other side of it and you’re like, oh, what am I gonna do today? And so there have been moments where I’ve had to like refine the passion because of those just weird off on switches that occur, but on the whole, it’s just ridiculously rewarding and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love my job.
Robert (11:40):
What a perfect way to end the show at the end of the day, water is a magnet that draws us together. We want to thank Catherine for joining us and allowing us to learn more about her story. We even wrote a song to honor Katherine, and all the folks involved with water resource planning.
Song (12:00):
Oh, she lived in the big city water flow through her. She in oh, trouble soon came calling lawsuits and litigation thunder from the cords cleared her lap. Now she is back and happy water planning in happy water planning.
Robert (12:37):
Thanks again for listening to the outfall as always, we love to hear your comments. So if you enjoy our podcast, please help us subscribe on your favorite podcast player and share the podcast with a friend. We’ll see you next time.
