What’s holding up the ‘Green Book,’ Georgia’s technical manual to help builders keep waterways clean?

• Georgia House of Representatives
• State Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin, wanted to repeal technical manual from law

Like a backhoe sunk in the mud, Georgia regulations on a key water pollutant are marred up in a months-long dispute that’s making nobody happy. What’s at issue is the so-called “Green Book,” the state’s technical manual for best practices in erosion control at building sites.

The Green Book sets policies that can prevent silt by the ton from invading and suffocating Georgia’s waterways. After four years of work and a federal grant to get the new edition approved in January, it took only six weeks for serious opposition to appear.

What might sound like a wonky dispute over two texts that few people but builders, regulators, and scientists will read has real world impacts. The books set policy on multiple issues, including what products builders should be required to use to prevent construction site runoff, that have big effects on Georgia waterways.

“Every staff in Fulton and its cities I’ve talked to was puzzled and disappointed that the sixth edition is being held up,” said Alan Toney, the elected chair of the Fulton County Soil and Water Conservation District, the body in charge of helping local governments, builders and citizens understand and implement soil and erosion laws. “Nobody seems to understand why, but we think it’s political.”

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The book was last updated in 2000 and published by the Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission. A technical committee approved by GSWCC’s board started work on updates in 2010. The sixth edition debuted testing and performance benchmarks for things like silt fences, the black fabric barriers put around construction sites to keep dirt from washing away.

“Mud will kill a creek faster than sewage,” said Toney.

Mud buries the rocky shoals and underwater crevices where fish, crawfish, insects and all kind of creatures like to hide, said Toney. Muddy water will corrode bridges and carry pathogens further downstream than clean water, he added.

In February this year, state Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin, filed a bill in the state Legislature to delete the Green Book from law, though it never moved past the committee he chairs, Small Business Development. Also known as the “Red Tape Committee,” it’s meant to repeal burdensome regulations on business.

“We had an issue that was brought before … several legislators, me being one of them,” early in the year at the beginning of the legislative session, said Knight, “some folks who were in this industry had no idea this was going on…. We wanted them GSWCC to go back and have an open, transparent process and to make sure they had a broad representation from industry” on the technical panel.

According to meeting minutes, some of the “folks in the industry” met with GSWCC staff in March to learn about the sixth edition. It was attended by several companies that make things like silt fences, ground covers and other kinds of erosion-control textiles

Several critiqued the staff about the cost, reliability and methodology of the testing. One complained that he was not informed of the book-editing process when it was underway.

The original seven-member technical panel was heavy on civil engineers and included one person who works for a geotextile manufacturer.

The contracts for testing the products, such as silt fences, were worth nearly $70,000 to the winning bidder, TRI/Environmental.

But three days after the bill to kill the Green Book appeared, the GSWCC met and voted to reopen the sixth edition for edits.

“There was a group of stakeholders that felt like they did not have input into the process,” said GSWCC Executive Director Brent Dykes, so the board voted to reopen it.

Earlier this month, GSWCC confirmed a new nine-member technical panel to restart Green Book works. Five people will return from the old panel, including Britt Faucette. Faucette is an ecosystem scientist who works with state governments as a subject area expert. He’s the person from industry who was on the first panel. He leads research and design at Filtrexx, a company that makes erosion control products and supplies other manufacturers.

“I believe we’re all very supportive of what we did the first time,” said Faucette. “We’re accepting any and all public comment. If we need to make changes we will, or there is the possibility it could remain the same.”

That decision could mean big changes for construction companies and the companies that make the products. The best-performing products keep nearly an additional one ton of dirt per acre from washing off construction sites compared to the worst ones, Faucette wrote in a letter to Knight and GSWCC, obtained via an open records request. The letter says that going with the sixth edition of the Green Book could help prevent thousands of tons of sediment being released into Georgia waters annually.

Knight has kept a close watch. In July and August, he sent at least three emails to GSWCC members, staff in the Governor’s office and the state Environmental Protection Division pushing for re-implementation of the 2000 edition, save maybe a few “non-controversial” items.

Meanwhile, the EPD and the companies it regulates are confused. EPD Director Jud Turner says, “to us, this is stuff upon which permits hang.”

The EPD takes no position on which book is better, they just want to know what the builders they regulate need to do to check storm water and other runoff. Turner said he’s seen some documents that say 2014 is a transition period during which builders can use either edition five or six. If that’s true, it’s still not clear either if reopening the sixth edition changes anything.

“I’m trying to make sure we have regulatory clarity,” said Turner.

The new technical advisory panel will organize its first meeting in the coming weeks, said Dykes.