By TOM KELLY
Editor and Publisher

It's difficult to take seriously an admonition of pending shortage, when water in the parking lot outside is shoe-top deep, and rain is still coming down in sheets from skies that appear permanently made of grey mush. But that was a theme at the Louisiana Forestry Association convention in Lafayette in late August, where speakers reviewed the status of water resources in the state, and issues in the debate on water policy that is moving to the head of the line for final action in the Legislativ e session of 2003.

Motivated by public concern beginning two years ago and earlier with issues of Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) requirements under the federal Clean Water Act, and brought to a head this year by concern over aquifer depletion feared from w idespread "merchant power plants" in Louisiana, the Legislature enacted a law setting up the Louisiana Groundwater Commission to study and recommend provisions for a state water policy law at the 2003 session.

Reporting to the LFA delegates, Zakir (Bo) Bol ourchi, chief of water resources for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, said Act 446 of the 2001 Legislature created the 15-member Groundwater Commission, augmented by a 49-member citizen task force, to develop proposals for regul ating water drilling and use in the State.

The Act resulted from passage of Senate Bill 965, as amended, by Sen. Fred Hoyt of Abbeville. Virtually every government agency, public and private interest group, agriculture and forestry interest, political actio n group, business and professional organization within the state is entitled to membership on the water commission task force.

One of the major regional activist groups in the water equation is the "Save Our Sparta" group in Ruston, which came to life in o pposition to construction by Duke Energy of a merchant power plant in rural Lincoln Parish, to sell electric power for transmission out of state.

The Sparta is an underground water source underlying most of Northern Louisiana, extending into Arkansas and T ennessee, from which water is drawn for municipal residential and industrial use. Measurements indicate that the water level of the Sparta aquifer is declining about one foot per year, and while LFA speaker John Lovelace of the U.S. Geological Survey said that while there is no immediate danger of running out of water, long-term attention to conservation, recycling, and alternate sources is a good idea.

The Sparta is one of three major Louisiana aquifers under scrutiny. Others are the Chicot, in South Louis iana, from which comes most of the water for crop irrigation, including rice, and the Southern Hills, which furnishes most municipal and industrial water in the Baton Rouge region. The Chicot averages 700 feet thickness, and the drawdown has been 100 feet in 100 years, according to Lovelace - not cause for panic, but for long-term planning.

As drawdown pressure increases with municipal, industrial, and agricultural use, concerns include salt water intrusion into the underground fresh water supply, Lovelace said.

Forestry and agriculture have vested interests in the state's water policy, because of EPA regulations on stream pollution from runoff, and for availability of water for irrigation, and for forest products manufacture, including large volumes used in paper making. Sen. Hoyt, addressing LFA delegates, said that water from 40 percent of the nation drains through Louisiana by way of the Mississippi river. In that regard, momentum is gathering nationwide in support of national regulations on agriculture , considered a major source of chemical runoff, one result of which is the so-called "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana and Texas coastline.

Agricultural fertilizer, especially nitrogen, accumulating in the river water causes growth of alga e which deplete oxygen supply in the coastal waters, reducing their capacity to support fish and other marine life. Most of this chemical intrusion into river waters comes from heavy agriculture and livestock operations in the U.S. midwest, along the Miss o uri, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. Interestingly, one of the measures found capable of reducing upriver stream pollution from agriculture operations is planting of trees along the rivers - streamside management zones in a big way. One panelist on a recent Washington, D.C. conference on the national problem, said, "You can't change the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico by shutting down a chicken processing plant in New Orleans. It will take major national effort."

The Louisiana Groundwater Commission is mandat ed to complete a study and make proposals for state water policy legislation to be considered in the 2003 Legislature. The Commission will be disbanded after completing its study