Barnes on water and transportation: Fill available rock quarries, elevate light rail over interstates
Former governor and current Democratic candidate Roy Barnes put a few newish ideas on water and transportation on the table Thursday in an appearance before several hundred commercial real estate agents.
On water, Barnes said the state should immediately begin locating every “rock quarry, every depression” that can hold water and is beyond the reach of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
On transportation, the former governor said MARTA should be preserved — but not expanded. Instead, the state should shift to a network of elevated light-rail lines that would run above metro Atlanta’s interstate system.
Barnes remarks came during a symposium on real estate and the economy hosted by Data Bank, a real estate research firm.
The audience of real estate investors was a match for the former governor’s current emphasis on what he sees as the chief shortcoming of the first Republican administration — the failure to deal with the complicated but essential logistics that fuel growth.
On water, Barnes said he didn’t hold out much hope for overturning a U.S. District judge’s decision undercutting metro Atlanta’s legal right to water from Lake Lanier, which is controlled by the Corps of Engineers.
The decision was a substantial blow to Georgia’s legal standing in a 19-year dispute with Florida and Alabama over water. Gov. Sonny Perdue has announced that the decision will be appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Said Barnes:
“Some people study the law…..but I study judges. And I count the number of judges. The 11th Circuit is made up of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. Which means two-thirds of the judges on the 11th Circuit are going to be non-Georgian.
“In fact, there are two former attorneys general of the state of Alabama on the 11th Circuit.
“Now those folks still live in Alabama. And we’ve had all this debate of late about what influences judges. Well, I guarantee you, where they live is an influence.
“And they’re not going back home to their friends and neighbors and colleagues and say, ‘By the way, I just ruled against you for the state of Georgia.’
“Judges would tell you that isn’t true. But I’ll tell you, that’s one of the effects. And it is one of the things you have to consider.”
Barnes did not mention the Republican who beat him in 2002 by name. But he came close:
”We had planned to build 17 reservoirs north of Atlanta…..For reasons unknown to me, that was all canceled in 2003. They even recalled the bonds — did not sell the bonds.
“Was that foolhardy? It was. But again, we have to deal with the cards we have.”
As for solutions, Barnes said:
”The first thing we have to do is to locate every place that can store water north of Atlanta that does not have to be permitted by the Corps of Engineers. Now you say, why?
“Because they will keep us in litigation for years — Alabama and Florida. So we have to look at ways that we can store water quickly, north of Atlanta. Every rock quarry, every depression, every existing [permitted] reservoir that can be improved — it has to be done.”
Barnes even advocated going underground:
”I’ve become very interested in reading about the underground storage of water…..You don’t have to have a permit, [and] you don’t lose water to evaporation.”
The former governor advocated a “vigorous conservation effort” to fix leaky water lines, and incentives to retrofit homes and buildings with low-flow toilets and such. “We have to offer some tax incentives — but not mandatory — to retrofit some of the existing facilities that we have. I think it would be too disruptive, particularly in this fragile economy, make a mandatory retrofit. But it ought to be on new construction,” he said.
On the topic of transportation, Barnes said North Carolina is eating our lunch:
”You can get on a train every day, and go from Charlotte to Raleigh, and come back. And we have just stuck our heads in the sand about this….
“One of the things we don’t do is continue on with the MARTA system, in my view. MARTA is part of this solution, and I believe MARTA ought to be taken in, in a regional transportation project.
“But the old MARTA system was…one which condemned its own right-of-way and built its own line and infrastructure. We don’t have the time to do that…..
“I think that what we have to do is to elevate light rail over the interstate highways where we already have the right-of-ways. And every so many bridges, you retrofit the bridges to be stations above.”
Do it right, Barnes said, and property in exurban Atlanta will again pick up in value:
“We should be entering the new age of growth and prosperity in this region and this state. If we have the transportation, you can push further out from Atlanta.”
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23 comments Add your comment
The Snark
August 13th, 2009
3:27 pm
Barnes says that the current governor has “failed to deal with the complicated but essential logistics that fuel growth”? He is being too kind. The current governor has failed to deal with any of the problems affecting this state. I challenge anyone to name one significant challenge or problem that has been solved in the last seven years. (And don’t bother saying “balancing the budget” — he’s required to do that by the Constitution, and all he has done is send out memos telling everyone to cut their budgets by X%. A parking lot attendant could do that.)
Keith
August 13th, 2009
3:49 pm
Once again it’s so easy to promise all these great programs, but where’s the money coming from Roy? I don’t think you own enough bank stock to pay for it all.
Mike
August 13th, 2009
4:26 pm
Keith…do you consider spending money on water supply frivolous?
Jackie
August 13th, 2009
5:52 pm
Way to go, Barnes! I’m glad at least one person running for governor is coming up with reasonable solutions and taking a practical approach! Now the hard part, though; how are we going to fund it?
Barnes has a plan for our state
August 13th, 2009
6:27 pm
Barnes has a plan but can he execute it in Georgia. this is good news . water bring jobs rail bring Jobs and cut down on traffic save gas and ware and tear on your car. pump storage of water all over the state. your job Roy is to find the money. we can sell water if we plan for it right. doing nothing is part of the problem with the party of hell no!! other thing Roy to make Georgia gain jobs is to put plug in station for electric car and also natural gas for cars.To Roy be a leader in this to move our state in to money making and Job making but you have to plan a good one we need help!!!
An alternative that’s not politically sexy
August 13th, 2009
6:41 pm
[...] all for efforts to extend rail and other alternative forms of transportation (in the right places!), but it will never be even [...]
Bill White
August 13th, 2009
7:11 pm
Light rail? Not near my aunt’s house in Brasstown. Roy, being the secular moron that he is, is proposing preposterous things that your great state cannot afford. How about building more roads and in some of the cases, double-decker roads.
Let’s face it, former Governor Wingnut, folks like their pickups, cars, SUVs and minivans! You’re a total McFly who will never get re-elected God willing.
I’ll tell you some remedies:
Close the parks and develop them -maybe for even lower income folk – make park employees clean up trash on the highways
Close the libraries-take those librarians (most are women) and put them to work teaching in local schoolhouses along with stay-at-home mothers
Close the schools-take those so-called elite educrats and put them in the schoolhouses. Any leftovers can go clean up the highways or join the military.
It’s that simple. Gov’t should just be Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and minutemen.
Privative all roads through good companies like Walmart, Target, CVS, Kroger’s, Publix etc. They can do it better than bloated state governments.
If you do all of those things, you will see low or even no taxes. Everyone will be put to work and no employer health plans! Most of us can go to places like the Minute Clinic and those who can afford insurance can go to good doctors and hospitals. But, as we all get richer, fewer of us would have to go to the Minute Clinic.
Life is far more simple than you far left McFlys say it is.
Oh yes, bring God and Sweet Baby Jesus back into what would be those schoolhouses run by women. What you say? There are male teachers and librarians? Well, put them to work on the road crews or the military. You see, if I were in charge, we wouldn’t have all of the problems that Hussein Nobama brought us.
Life was so much easier and safer before this far left secular “community organizer” installed himself into office. Yes, he was installed. There was some funny business in North Carolina. I don’t believe Lil Hussein won that state.
God Bless,
Bill White
usoo
August 13th, 2009
7:40 pm
I talked with someone who was there today. A normally dull crowd was “fired up” by Roy Barnes,according to my friend-in-attendance (a card-carrying Republican)who found himself cheering for Barnes until he realized he was cheering for a Democrat…
King Roy
August 13th, 2009
8:11 pm
Yeah! Maybe we use those vans manufactured at the Mercedes plant outside Savannah to carry water…..oh wait, nevermind, Roy didn’t deliver on that promise. Never heard of his 17 reservoirs, about as realistic as the Mercedes plant is today.
Zeb
August 13th, 2009
8:34 pm
Growth at any cost is not the anwer to all our problems. It is the cause of all our problems. Florida (or California, or Texas or New Jersey, and others) are about as chock full of people, shopping malls, convenience stores, big box stores, multi-multi-multi-lane roads, apartments, mcmansions, endless ticky-tacky housing developments and corrupt politicians owned by developers as it is possible to be. California is a hellish place. Florida is losing population. Texas is mosly low paid laborers from below the border, and New Jersey has a history of pervasive corruption at all levels. Is that what we want? Do we really relish lifing in a crowded, miserable,smog bound, polluted, bulldozed wasteland? Georgia is among the most beautiful places on earth. Why do our politicians think their highest calling is to pave it into oblivion?
Sentimental Georgian
August 13th, 2009
8:55 pm
Bill White – God bless that honker ’cause he NEEDS it with the kind of ‘thunking’ he’s putting forth.
No Light Rail near your auntie’s house? Does she live under an underpass?
You Repugnicans are so good at name-calling.
The fact of the matter is, Bill – we’re going to HAVE to invest in a more productive and practical infrastructure, and building double-decker roads to fill up with more toxic-fuming vehicles is not the answer, my non-friend. Do you know how long the ego-driven folks you’re talking about will continue to love their gas-guzzling pick-ups, cars and Hummers when they can’t get them out of the driveways because they can’t afford the price of gas? I guarantee it – that shouldn’t take long at all!
So, you suggest closing the parks. How about closing the libraries, too? It’s obvious they’re not fulfilling their purpose anyway, right? And, let’s see, how many stay-at-home moms are going to be willing to fight with your pubescent middle schooler?
Oh, and your idea for putting lower income folks in the parks. That’s not a fresh idea, Bill. The Sacramento parks have filled up with the recently-foreclosed homeless.
And you unconscious sexist suggestion to put – they’re mostly women anyway – librarians in the schools, regardless of whether they’re qualified or certified to teach. Is your auntie available?
I don’t know what it is, but almost all the evil, authoritarian dictators through time started out closing the schools and killing the educated, or as you call them “elite educrats.” Your thinking has a lot in common with Stalin – how sick are you?!? Are you truly suggesting that all the government we need is contained in the military industry? We were warned about you, dog breath! Then, again, we will need to employ all those out-of-work Blackwater thugs who’re recently back in town.
Privative everything into the hands of the honest and self-regulating mega-busineses. Got it.
And, gee, this is the first I’ve heard of some ‘funny business’ in North Carolina, that I’m assuming you imply threw the election to Barack Obama? Screw you. THIS president was elected by the vote of the people – NOT by a court of nine judges, like your draft-dodging imbecile of an excuse for a man was.
Pitiful Typical Conservative with Head in Sand
August 14th, 2009
6:16 am
You can’t improve things. That ud make things better for people and that done scared me. What if them people with that there dark skin stuff started thinking that theys something and done moved up out thar.
I dont want to do no thinkin’. I just want to keep my gun and my good book. God said i got me a write to keep me my gun.
Fishawk
August 14th, 2009
7:20 am
Bill, Folks like you are the reason we are stuck in this quagmire in the first place. If the world was run by neo-conservatives like you we would still be trying to make fire by rubbing to sticks together. Go back to the cave and hide out.
Pitiful Typical Conservative with Head in Sand
August 14th, 2009
7:32 am
Bill and I should hang out and drink us some sweet tea. I like how back-erds he is. Let’s get back to the past. Tarnation!
Capitol Hack
August 14th, 2009
9:25 am
I can never tell if “Bill White” is for real or someone doing a parody of a right winger with a third-grade education. But a parody would probably be more clever, so I’ll assume he’s for real. But now I can’t decide if he’s a poster child for better mental health services or better education. Or both…
Bless his heart. There’s probably a Darwin Award in his future.
Your morning jolt: Democratic rivals tackle Barnes on water | Political Insider
August 14th, 2009
9:34 am
[...] Thursday, former governor and current Democratic candidate Roy Barnes appeared before a group of commercial real estate agents and talked a great deal about the threat to growth posed by a federal judge’s ruling that [...]
Renem
August 14th, 2009
10:10 am
Compared to Perdue, Barnes at least seems to realize that focusing solely on litigation and aggressive political posturing will not be productive … the real solution is, like Barnes says, to just go store more water.
Lucas
August 14th, 2009
10:12 am
I wish Barnes hadn’t gotten himself kicked out over the flag debacle. Light rail and reservoirs are two things we need desperately.
Gone Fishin
August 14th, 2009
10:27 am
While I originally voted for Roy Barnes in 1998, I did not in 2002 and much to my later regret, helped to shepherd in Sonny Perdue for 8 years of nothing. Lets recall former Governors and their endeavors: Joe Frank Harris (bless his heart, nice man but soooooo booooring!) but he gave us QBE; Zell Miller was often not a nice person but he gave us HOPE and the Two-Strikes law for the seven deadly sins;Roy Barnes created GRTRA to deal with a number of transportation issues and yes, he did propose those 17 resevoirs, he also tried to revamp the education system and lost his seat in part because of it. Now Sonny Perdue. Wow, I am honestly trying to think of anything in 8 years he has done except a statewide audit, Gena Evans (that is one to be proud of) and Go Fishing. It is embarassing. Whatever or whomever we chose for the future, and I am not a personal fan of Roy Barnes, lets not do a repeat of a Sonny clone. Eight more years of that kind of policy and lack of progression will mar this sate for the next several decades. For those of you who travel and work on a national basis, you know GA has become a “joke”. How sad for a state that is the ninth largest in population, home of Atlanta, the ‘96 Olympics, Martin Luther King and many other great persons and accomplishments. Voting for Sonny Perdue has been one of the bigget regrets of my adult life and disaapointments in judgement.
Base
August 14th, 2009
2:36 pm
Campaign talk that lacks specifics.Same old professional political stuff.
American
August 14th, 2009
10:09 pm
I’m from Atlanta, but used to live in Phoenix, where they recently completed a new light rail system.
Light rail is good for short hops…but it’s not as fast as traditional rail transit.
Whatever transit we do, we need to make sure that it goes where people actually live and connects them to places they want to go.
The problem with MARTA rail is that it doesn’t get close enough to many residential areas….it’s predominantly in commercial and industrial areas.
Marc Thomas
August 15th, 2009
6:01 am
Reservoirs? Is that really a rational choice? Where is the water to fill the reservoirs to come from? Is there really that much surplus water in north Georgia, flowing towards Atlanta, so that all we have to do is put it in reservoirs? And how does this get around the existing problem with the Chattahoochee–what about the impact on the folks downstream, who also have a claim to that water? What water is there in north Georgia that the city of Atlanta has exclusive right to?
A Barnes Supporter
September 21st, 2009
9:03 am
Well, first, Governor Barnes we made a big mistake in not keeping you in office. Second, we need someone like you that cares about Georgia and taking us forward with ideas that are much larger than Perdue could ever think about over his beloved SNICKER bar. Third, water and transportation are critical to Atlanta remaining a powerhouse for jobs and lives. Fourth, PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE, GET RID OF GRTA, IT IS NO LONGER THE AUTHORITY THAT YOU CREATED, GET RID OF THE LEADERSHIP (RITCHEY – THE THIEF AND ANDERSON- THE POLICITICAL ASS KISSER) GET PEOPLE THAT CARE LONG TERM AND WILL HONOR GEORGIA AND NOT THEIR WALLETS MORE.