June 17, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Kwabena “Cubby” Nkromo
404.587.2227
Atlanta City Council Candidate Challenges New Rainwater Ordinance
West End, Atlanta—District 4 candidate Kwabena Nkromo has called on city hall to issue explicit, consistent, and unambiguous exemptions to community-based urban agriculture operations, which could be threatened by a new proposed ordinance regulating rainwater catchment systems. Further, he asks that the city publicly disclose the number and origin of requests that the city’s Office of Sustainability says it received for the new ordinance.
While the proposed ordinance is intended to solely cover potable rainwater usage (for drinking, showers, etc.), thus excluding nonpotable water usage (i.e. irrigation), a memo issued by the Office of Sustainability stipulated that “all rainwater catchment systems will be required to have a backflow prevention device.” The costs of such a device would cripple Atlanta urban agriculture programs, which often use stored rainwater for irrigation purposes.
The memo also gives the Department of Watershed Management the right to conduct on-site inspections of rainwater catchment systems and immediately shut off water service to properties where they determine there is a threat to public health, yet it gives no guidelines on the timing or circumstances of those inspections, nor does it specify how a rainwater catchment system would become a threat to public health. A second memo released by the city estimates that the devices necessary to bring potable rainwater catchment systems into compliance with the new ordinance could cost up to $15,000, a prohibitively large sum for the average Atlanta citizen
Mr. Nkromo and other local urban agriculture advocates are concerned that in addition to threatening these programs with unnecessary regulation, the new ordinance will expose them to “legislative creep,” which might allow city agencies to harass, tax or otherwise disrupt rainwater catchment intended for urban agricultural irrigation. Responding to the city’s second memo, which projects that few residents will install the potable rainwater catchment systems, Mr. Nkromo asked, “If the problem is not expected to be significant or might turn out to be non-existent, what is the real reason this legislation being proposed?”
On Monday, June 20, 2011 at 2:00 pm in front of Booker T. Washington High School (45 White House Drive, S.W.. Atlanta, Georgia 30314), concerned citizens from across the city—including Mr. Nkromo—will convene a press conference to discuss their opposition to the new proposed ordinance. The press conference will be followed by a short walking tour to the site of a local rainwater catchment system installed by the Fulton County Extension Service at Ashview Heights Community Garden.
Attendants will include:
- Mr. Kwabena “Cubby” Nkromo, candidate for Atlanta City Council District 4
- Atlanta Food and Farm Network, LLC
- Eco-Action
- Rev. Richard Bright, Pastor of the Good Shepherd Community Church (West End)
- Glynis Ward of the Holy Comforter Episcopal Church Garden (East Atlanta)
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