South

From an engineering standpoint, water from the Savannah River could get from Lake Hartwell to Atlanta the same way we would: by following Interstate 85.

That was the route consultants explored -- but did not formally recommend -- in a December report for Gov. Sonny Perdue's Water Contingency Task Force.

ALBANY, Ga. — In a rare joint meeting of the city and county commissions, local leaders will finalize lists of 1-percent sales tax projects today before calling for a referendum next month.

Commissioners, along with city and county staff, have been piecing together projects to be funded using the $97 million in revenues expected to be gleaned from the renewal of a 1-percent sales tax over the next six years.

Local leaders are on a fixed timetable that will ultimately lead them to a November referendum, when voters will decide whether to renew the tax or not.

The chancellor of Georgia's universities, Erroll B. Davis, said during a visit to Bainbridge College Thursday that the system will start its new budget year with a $27 million shortfall.

Not good news he discovered on Thursday after the university system suffered some severe budget cuts this present fiscal year, which will end on June 30.

Although $27 million is but a very small slice of the pie for the university system's $1.9 billion budget, it still means that the system will have to search for $4 million within the next two weeks, and hunt for $23 million right off the bat as it begins its new fiscal year on July 1.

IT'S DISTRESSING that several of the Republican candidates for Georgia governor appear to think that water from the Savannah River is there for Atlanta's taking.

Metro Atlanta's water woes are largely self-created. Rampant growth in water-starved areas, combined with wasteful use of existing precious supplies and the latest drought, have exacerbated the problem.

Letting Atlanta reach across the state and stick a straw into the Savannah River will help quench the big city's thirst. So it's no surprise that influential Georgians who are members of Atlanta's business community support this concept.

However, moving water from one river basin to another will come at a price for cities such as Savannah and Augusta that draw sustenance from this liquid lifeline.

ATLANTA, Ga. — A recent move by Gov. Sonny Perdue to pull money the General Assembly allocated specifically to keep the Columbus and Moultrie state crime labs open has drawn the ire of both the House and Senate leadership, while leaving many in Southwest Georgia to wonder if he has a beef with this part of the state.
With time ticking down in this year’s session of the General Assembly, south Georgia lawmakers — who had been faced with the closures of the labs because of cuts to funding made in an effort to close a budget deficit — were able to scrape up the money and place it in the budget for the Fiscal Year 2011 that begins July 1.

Savannah River Site, which created 3,000 short-term jobs with a $1.6 billion windfall from the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act, has been asked to develop a plan to address the fate of those workers when funding ends in 14 months.