ARTICLES ABOUT BILL SIGNING:
Picayune Item-April 19, 2006
Barbour signs bill creating regional water authority
GULFPORT (AP) - Gov. Haley Barbour has signed into law a bill creating the Gulf Region Water Utility
Authority Act.
Backers said it will bring more efficient water, sewer, and storm water systems for South Mississippi.
The new law creates six individual county authorities for Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Pearl River, Stone
and George counties. It allows local control over development of water and sewer systems.
The legislation was an outgrowth of the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewals
recommendations.
Barbour said Tuesday that it takes a regional approach to managing water and sewer utility services.
A federal grant of $600 million, awarded in the aftermath of Hurricane, will help pay for the improvements.
The bill took effect with the governor's signature.
Regional water and sewerage planning for growth into rural areas, and federal funding, Barbour said, will
be essential. He said decades from now, a regional utility system will be viewed as a watershed.
He also said county governments' initial fears of the regional water push in the Legislature might have been
misplaced.
“I don't think anybody wants to be responsible for your garbage and sewage,” Barbour told local officials
at Tuesday's signing ceremony in Gulfport.
“Nobody wants to take that responsibility away from you. But I do know that the federal government won't
give us the money if we're just running around willy-nilly and not taking a regional approach. We got to
checking and realized no county here had a countywide water and sewer district.”
The initial legislation would have created a regional authority that had broad control over water and
sewerage development in South Mississippi. County supervisors opposed this, and agreed only to a much
more limited regional board that leaves true control to local governments. The bill also left an “opt-out”
clause for any county boards of supervisors that vote against joining.
“There was a lot of give-and-take,” said Jackson County Supervisor Manly Barton. “Really a lot of things
the governor's staff and DEQ thought were innocuous were big concerns to supervisors. At the end of the
day I think we got a pretty good bill.”
The bill is Senate Bill 2943.
Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS)
May 10, 2006
Page: A1
Public services accented
Storm revealed a host of problems
DON HAMMACK, dthammack@sunherald.com
When Gov. Haley Barbour signed a bill creating a regional water utility board in April, it
became one of the biggest victories for the Governor's Commission.
The public services subcommittee chair called it the "cornerstone" of his group's
recommendations, which included more cooperation between municipalities, an
improved communications systems and disaster preparedness.
"I think that's one of the biggest things that's come out of it," said Bob Occhi, the general
manager of Coast Electric Power Association. "It's probably one of the biggest things that
will come out of it."
The creation of the utility board, which was initially opposed by the powerful county
supervisors lobby, allows the region to tap into $600 million in federal funds to help
rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
The commission cited the existence of 14 municipal water and sewer systems, eight
water districts, 19 water associations and more than 30 private water companies as a
key inefficiency that could inhibit recovery. That fragmentation is even more problematic
in light of expected population redistributions north from the coastline.
The commission also encouraged consolidation of school districts and police and fire
departments in light of expected budget shortfalls from the decimation of tax bases,
particularly in Hancock County. Bay St. Louis and Waveland, for instance, have been
studying the economic feasibility of merging some or all of their cities' services.
The public services section also added a healthy chunk of responsibilities onto the state's
new Wireless Communication Commission. It was created by the Legislature last year
before the storm, but its mission soared in importance after nontechnical governmental
officials learned communications' dirty little secret.
"It's really demonstrated the lack of interoperability between all agencies," said Bill
Buffington, a communications specialist with the Wireless Commission. "For the first
time, we've made a big push in this spirit of cooperation to get everybody on the same
page. Before the storm, everybody talked the talk but nobody ever talked about how bad
it could be. Basically, they experienced a complete failure of a number of individual
systems."
The agency is well along toward acquiring a statewide voice and data network, with bids
due in early June. That system will be installed starting in South Mississippi, but it
obviously won't be ready for this hurricane season.
The commission has helped form interoperability agreements between the Wildlife,
Fisheries and Parks Department; the departments of health and public safety; the
Mississippi Department of Transportation; and the military. In turn, other arrangements
should improve state agencies' communication with local governments.