Two years ago, the Georgia Conservancy and the Georgia Water Coalition won a legislative battle to keep water a public resource. During that battle, we were fighting attempts to privatize water so that water withdrawal permits could be bought and sold. Although we won the fight in 2003, we are now fighting again although on very different battlefield.

The Georgia Conservancy is very concerned over the Durango-Georgia Paper Company’s attempt to privatize water by including the company’s groundwater withdrawal permit as an asset to be sold at the company’s bankruptcy auction. The auction commenced on December 6, 2005 in Savannah and, after several days of bidding by three other companies, the LandMar Group, a Florida-based developer affiliated with Duke Energy, won with a final bid of $36.5 million for most of the company's assets.

The LandMar Group proposes to develop a waterfront village and marina on the 750-acre industrial property in St. Marys, Georgia. Other groups purchased the company's timberland and the paper mill's machines and miscellaneous equipment for an estimated $5.6 million.

Much to the conservation community’s surprise, there were no separate bids for the water permit. Instead, the permit is simply part of the estate bought by LandMar, and auction documents indicate LandMar allocated $200,000 of the purchase price for the permit. The permit expired by its terms at the end of 2005, and LandMar did not seek a formal transfer of the permit from the Environmental Protection Division prior to the expiration date.

Although the threat of water privatization by the Durango auction now appears to be a nonstarter, the Georgia Water Coalition can be congratulated for its success in raising the profile of the water privatization issue and further advancing the position that water is a public resource that cannot be bought and sold. The Georgia Conservancy and its GWC partners will continue to track any post-auction developments that may occur before the actual closing date.

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