If one wants to understand how government grows and views the people it serves, a case study is the opening of the Bear Creek Reservoir to fishing boats. After about four years of effort, it appears that a boat ramp, parking area and restroom facility will open late this summer.
This project will cost about $340,000 to build and $20,000 a year to operate. Both costs could be lower, but it’s the annual operating budget and the operating plan that show the mentality of government. For some reason, local government cannot build a recreation facility without staffing it, over-regulating it and trying to get revenue from it — the latter as a means of justifying the former.
Instead of opening the facility at 6 a.m., closing it at 9 p.m. every day and leaving anglers to fend for themselves, the Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority will build a guard kiosk, pay someone $10/hour to collect $5 a person from boaters and limit hours to Fridays through Sundays.
If all those advocates of smaller government holding office in Jackson, Athens-Clarke, Oconee and Barrow counties were serious about serving the taxpayers, the park would be open every day at no cost to users. There would be no need to build a kiosk, no employee to pay to do almost nothing all day and little additional burden to the taxpayers.
And local fishermen could enjoy a new recreational facility at their leisure.
The four governments act as if they’re granting citizens a huge favor by allowing them a few days each week to use the lake. Instead, they should be looking for ways to maximize the public’s recreational use of the 505-acre lake without compromising its core purpose, which is to provide drinking water.
After years of pressure, mostly from Jackson County, the group only grudgingly allowed public access for recreation. The four-county entity views the boat-owning fishermen among its constituency as threats to its lake. We’ve got news — the lake belongs to the public. The citizens are the stakeholders and while they appreciate the drinking water supply, they also see the lake as a recreational resource that can be utilized at little cost to government.
Drinking water reservoirs all over America have free and unfettered access for recreation. Are we really to believe that restrictions on access to the lake are being made in the name of security when 50 miles away Lake Lanier, which supplies Metro Atlanta and beyond, is wide open?
The four governments that own the Bear Creek Reservoir should quit viewing the public they serve as interlopers and figure out how the recreational aspect of the reservoir can be maximized instead of working to keep it minimized — and how the cost can be minimized instead of maximized. Right now, they’ve got it all backwards. The Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority’s handling of fishing access to the Bear Creek Reservoir is a case study of just how far local government can be from the needs and desires of those it serves. The question is how long they’ll be allowed to continue down this path.
So a 90 year old security guard will stop a determined terrorist from doing something horrific? This constant fear based thinking has got to stop. fear terrorists.... fear the economic meltdown, fear swine flu. The world is a dangerous place. Get used to it.
I hope the press, and the citizens, keep reminding this authority, that from day one of the project, it was sold to the public as having access to fishing. A boat ramp, and fishing access was part of the original project, not some later add-on that was gratuitously thrown out like a bone to a dog.
If the public had been made aware that these kind of restrictions were going to be in place, it is very likely that Bear Creek Reservoir would not exist today. It was the promise of fishing that put Bear Creek over the hump in public support.
Also, less we forget, there are (or were, probably died of old age) $40,000 worth of state bass put into that reservoir, for the express purpose of creating a trophy fishery. Again that was the intent from Day One. The authority has never felt the least bit embarrassed about taking this state money and not delivering.
This whole "terrorist" thing is a lot of bull. The main Athens intake and water treatment plant is 100 yards off Mitchell Bridge Road, less than 40 yards from a public park best known as a homosexual pick-up spot. You can sit on the bank there, within rock throwing distance of the water plant (and water supply) and fish all day,
1st off, You must live close to the lake by your spelling. 2nd, They don't stock the lake with minnows, There stocked with breeder fish, sometimes in the upper age of the species. 3rd,
no 80yr old guy at a gate taking your $5.00 can tell who is there to contaminate the water supply. This isn't Toy Story and this isn't the waterin' hole.
Mr. Beardsley is correct in every point in his story and we all know that if the Goverment thinks it's right then IT'S WRONG !
FOR the people? Lincoln is rolling in his grave.
Go read the ordinances and laws of your town and county. The wording is almost always intentionally to the benefit of the government and intentionally STEALS your (supposedly) constitutionally garanteed rights.
For instance, I know for a fact that one Jackson County town has an ordinance which says that the "city employees" have the right to enter into a citizen's home AT ANY TIME, DAY OR NIGHT, FOR ANY REASON WITHOUT A WARRANT OR COURT ORDER! Don't believe me, check it for yourself. Ask to read the City of Nicholson's ordinances. I'm confident that if you look closely, you will find similar ordinances in every city in the county, and in the county code as well.
Folks, I'm not making this stuff up. Your government is NOT for the people. And it IS supposed to be FOR the people. Will anyone in our local governments ever stand up and do what's right? The city councils, mayors, and county board of commisioners need to remember that they are supposed REPRESENT the people, not DICTATE to the people.
But they just don't seem to get it. And "we, the people," just let them get away with it.
That is when the bureaucrats should be met with peaceful but stern resistance. The word "NO" is one that govt workers should be told over and over until they understand that they are not our betters.
An attack on the reservoir might use toxins or biological agents. Using a toxin would require so much chemical that even a doddering and dozing guard would notice that something was up. And biological agents can be destroyed by treatment plant disinfection. No, the threat should not be expected against the impounded water, but against the reservoir’s mechanicals instead.
Our declared enemy uses indoctrinated bombers seeking martyrdom. They might try to cause damage to us by striking water supply targets such as pumphouses. Terrorists might send a truck bomb into the Bear Creek pumphouse because all of the pumps are in there. Were that accomplished, people in four counties would lose almost immediately their water. And it would take months to get it back.
I believe a more considered approach is to get fisherman, citizens really, freely onto the lake. Good citizens are observant, something abhorrent to an enemy that considers secrecy a requirement. Harden security around the pumphouse, instead.
Major F.. Alke, US Marines, Retired
Professional Engineer