Sustainable Georgia Is All Wet This Week

This week's edition of Sustainable Georgia gets all wet, including a story from GPB Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Cheatham about one of the last mercury cell chlor-alkali process chlorine manufacturing plants in America. It's located outside of Augusta, Georgia, and it discharges mercury into the Savannah River (pictured above). If you would like to follow up on this story you can read Oceana's report on mercury-based chlorine plants like the one in Augusta by clicking here.

If you are interested in following up on this issue with regards to the pending legislation, the proposed bill in the US House is House Bill 5580 the Missing Mercury in Manufacturing Monitoring and Mitigation Act , which has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Georgia Congressmen Nathan Deal and John Barrow both sit on that committee’s subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous materials. In the Senate this bill is Senate Bill 1818 and has been referred to the committee on Environment and Public Works, where Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson serves as a minority member. You can go to thomas.gov and enter HB 5580 or SB 1818 to check the bill's status.

We talk with Kathy Nguyen from WaterSmart, who has a few common sense ways for us all to save water.

In Georgia Earth News, Melissa Stiers has news about upcoming public hearings about opening up public access to Cumberland Island. You can make a public comment about that issue here.

Our shout out goes out this week to Georgia ForestWatch, who is doing what they can to save our majestic Hemlock Pines from the depradations of the Wooly Adelgid. If you want to help them save the trees, drop by their site.

Sustainable Georgia regularly features recycled music. This week we reach back into the Randy Newman catalog for Louisiana 1927, a song about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Aaron Neville's emotional version was the touchstone and theme to Katrina relief in 2005. We play the song this week to honor the memories of those lost in Katrina, and to acknowledge that the effects of development, levees, petroleum and gas extraction, and climate change may well make this rich cultural region unsustainable in the end.

We hope you enjoy the program. Hear it Saturdays at 12:30p, Sundays at 4:30pm and Tuesdays at 11:30pm on GPB Radio statewide. Hear Sustainable Georgia on demand by clicking here.