Letter: Preserve our drinking water

Thank you for the article in The Advocate Feb. 28 by reporter Amy Wold, on Page 5B, titled “Task force struggles to form vast water plan.”

Here in the Baton Rouge area the biggest users of ground water are the Georgia Pacific Paper Mill at Port Hudson, just north of Baton Rouge; Exxon, which operates more than a dozen major facilities, such as their oil refinery and chemical plant on Scenic Highway; and the Baton Rouge Water Company, which provides drinking water to a few hundred thousand people who live and work here.

Officials at the Baton Rouge Water Company can do more to work with their largest users to find ways to reduce their water usages, and they must do more to educate all of the people in Baton Rouge to conserve our valuable and extremely threatened drinking water supply.

The Georgia Pacific Paper Mill uses millions of gallons of ground water to spray logs which are stacked up next to the paper mill.

Our exceptional ground water should not be used to keep logs wet.

The Georgia Pacific Paper Mill and the Exxon Oil Refinery are part of very large international, multibillion-dollar corporations which can and must do a better job of using, protecting and restoring our ground water.

The Louisiana Water Resources Task Force and officials in all state agencies can and must get together and work in a focused way and start doing the job of making sure that our valuable natural resources are not squandered away and unavailable for the future uses needed by people who live and work here.

Most of the rivers and streams in the state, such as Bayou Manchac, are polluted and do not meet their designated uses for fishing and swimming.

Ground water resources across the state have been overused by paper mills, petrochemical facilities and the oil and natural gas industries.

All officials in the state must look at Article 9, Section 1 of the Louisiana Constitution which states that:

“The natural resources of the state, including air and water … shall be protected, conserved, and replenished insofar as possible and consistent with the health, safety, and welfare of the people. The legislature shall enact laws to implement this policy.”

William A. Fontenot

retired state employee

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by CountryBoysCanSurvive - 14/03/2013

To Big Hug The point I was trying to make, with the 3rd world remark , was that , if we don't use our water supplies wisely, one day our future generations will not have water to drink and will become a 3rd world nation, even faster than we are heading that way now.

2) Comment by Bighug - 14/03/2013

I agree with your last comment, CB. I'm all for allowing third world countries to anchor ships at the mouth of the Mississippi and take all the water they need.

3) Comment by CountryBoysCanSurvive - 13/03/2013

Ok, then why not pump the water from the Mississippi, use it treat it and then pump it back into the river and not drain our ground supply water. There are third world countries who could thrive on what water we waste.

4) Comment by Bighug - 13/03/2013

You are missing something, CB. Most of that water is treated and pumped to the Mississippi River.

5) Comment by DMJ - 12/03/2013

I'll give it a rest if you will. You realize that your hatred for the President (who has nothing to do with this) has made you defend Koch Industries' use of our ground water when, being one of the largest and wealthiest corporations in the world, could well afford to wet their logs using other means, right? Your hatred for the President has poisoned your reasoning, bub. Take a minute and get centered.

6) Comment by Attila - 12/03/2013

Give it a rest DMJ. The Koch brothers are responsible for creating more jobs than our current President Dictator has or ever will.

7) Comment by DMJ - 12/03/2013

The Koch Brothers are using our water? Figures.

8) Comment by CountryBoysCanSurvive - 12/03/2013

Maybe I am missing something. The water they are using from our ground water supply ,is going where after they use it? I assume into the East Baton Rouge sewer system. Why can't they draw water from the Mississippi River and then dump it back into the same sewer system?

9) Comment by captcouv - 12/03/2013

Country & Attila - EPA regulations state that water taken from the Mississippi cannot be returned to the Mississippi unless it meets EPA standards (i.e. cleaner returning than what came out). Therefore, even runoff from their operation doesn't meet those standards and it would be a HUGE cost to purify that water/runoff. It's easier and cheaper to draw clean water from the aquifers for the processes. (Kudos to a number of chemical plants up and down the river - DOW in particular - who use Mississippi River water and return it cleaner than acquired). So it isn't just a 'no brainer' as you'd think.

10) Comment by Attila - 12/03/2013

Using Miss river water is too simplistic CBCS. If they did that how would those water companies drawing from our deep sand aquifers stay in business...common sense is not so common it seems.

11) Comment by CountryBoysCanSurvive - 12/03/2013

Oops I left out distance after spitting.

12) Comment by [e-mail] - 12/03/2013

Yes, it's clear that soon there will be none left in the world.

13) Comment by tradewinns - 12/03/2013

coming from elsewhere i can appreciate the drinking water in BR much more than the locals. ya'll, we now, have the best tasting drinking water i can recall having.when i first arrived here, it was like drinking candy. now even i have become use to the taste and use it like everyone else. however, and here comes my liberal side out, to allow industry to use such a precious resource especially when there is an alternative so close at hand is stupidity pure and simply. i would support making industry convert to mississippi river water for industrial needs and/or replacing the politician who fights the transformation.

14) Comment by conglo - 12/03/2013

Baton Rouge is not the only place in Louisiana with water problems. The Chicot aquifer supplies 15 parishes. DNR/Coastal Management has given Jefferson Island Storage & Hub the permit to dredge with the right to drill for and extract water as may be necessary, incidental, or desirable for the Permitted Purposes, including, without limitation for the expansion of their salt dome natural gas caverns in Vermilion-Iberia parishes. Eugene Owen, Director & Chairman of Utility Holdings Inc., Baton Rouge Water Company, etc. testified that contamination problems in Iberia Parish, wells had to be moved, costing millions. Increased withdrawal from the Chicot Aquifer by AGL Resources’ (JISH) proposed well-pumping would significantly accelerate the rate of potential contaminates, arsenic. It seems the biggest problem is not the companies, but the State giving them the permits to over use our fresh water supplies.

15) Comment by CountryBoysCanSurvive - 12/03/2013

The Mississippi River is within spitting from these facilities, why can't they get their water from there? Good letter Mr. Fontenot