After 15 years, Ga. ban on aquifer banking expires

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http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/08/09/3323812/after-15-years-ga-ban-on-aquifer.html?sp=/99/261/

After 15 years, Ga. ban on aquifer banking expires
By RUSS BYNUM
Associated Press
August 9, 2014 Updated 21 hours ago

JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. — The underground aquifer that coastal Georgia relies on for its main source of drinking water was considered so pristine that state lawmakers 15 years ago declared it off-limits to well drillers looking for a place to stash extra water for use in periods of drought.

That's not the case anymore. The moratorium imposed to protect the Floridan aquifer in 11 Georgia counties, those along and closest to the state's 100-mile coast from Savannah to St. Marys, lapsed July 1 after an attempt in the Legislature to make the regional ban permanent was put on hold.

Now area water managers and residents, business organizations and environmental groups are debating whether a relatively small corner of the state — just 7 percent of its 159 counties — should be closed altogether to a technology other states are increasingly turning to. Called "aquifer storage and recovery," or ASR for short, it uses wells that draw water from rivers during peak flows and inject it underground to save up for droughts.

But in some cases underground water banking can pollute aquifers with arsenic when dissolved oxygen in the injected water reacts with heavy metals in the rock, or injection equipment can sometimes introduce bacteria or chemicals from disinfectants into the aquifer, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.