By Clint Thompson
Georgia’s legislative session saw the introduction and passage of HB 143, a bill that places the financial responsibility of installing agricultural irrigation water meters on the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Environmental Protection Division (EPD).
Robert Dickey, chairman of the House Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee, discussed the bill’s passage during a recent webinar hosted by the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
“It takes a lot of the responsibility off of farmers, will save them many millions of dollars in metering costs and put a lot of it back on the state,” Dickey said. “That’s kind of how the state wants to go moving forward. They’ve got a plan and direction of what they want to meter and what needs to be metered. This bill gets us there and also gets a lot of people in compliance. We’re excited about opening up new drilling wells and new irrigation wells for our farmers. It’s a great opportunity going forward. The EPD has been great to work with. This bill gets us to the point where we can move forward.
“We had a lot of support from all the different ag organizations that interact with Chairman (Russ) Goodman and our committee. Everybody is just trying to get good policy passed through the House, Senate and on to the governor’s office. Sometimes it’s got a lot of detours and roadblocks. I think we had a great session this year. I was very happy leaving there on April 4 with some good ag policy; none better than this water meter bill.”
The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Sam Watson.
“We’ve got a lot of compliance issues in Southwest Georgia revolving around water. This was an effort to help with some of that and take that burden off the farmer,” Watson said. “Everybody knows we’ve got enough problems as is. This was a way, not only to get rid of some of those burdens but also to make some land more valuable and grow some better crops.
The bill will become effective July 1.