Abstract Summary/Description
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA EPD) performs limited water quality monitoring and relies on point source detection to identify sewage spills, which overlooks the complex socioeconomic and political factors that influence urban bacteria pollution. The South River Watershed Alliance is an Atlanta-based community group that conducts regular E. coli monitoring with Georgia State University, as there is a particular need to determine baseline in situ bacteria levels in a region that carries the burden of flooding and sewage overflows due to state disinvestment in infrastructure and failed regulatory frameworks. Georgia has recently adopted the national E. coli standard more than 30 years after the Environmental Protection Agency first recommended the transition from the fecal coliform standard in 1986, but the state is currently utilizing a scientifically flawed strategy in its revisions to the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program that will allow direct conversions between fecal coliform and E. coli values. This bacterial equivalency strategy undermines the purpose of the E. coli standard to protect public health. Given that Georgia environmental law normalizes heightened levels of E. coli in urban streams without further investigation into its driving factors, the latter strategy is one example of several regulatory measures which contribute to what Ruth Wilson Gilmore describes as organized abandonment. My presentation will provide an overview of Georgia water quality policy situated within a critical geography framework to critique the impact of state regulation on the Upper South River watershed.
