March 29, 2024

CCRC vows response to letter to the editor

Clarke County Reservoir Commission (CCRC) officials have publicly stated there will be a response to a letter to the editor directed at them that ran in the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune Thursday, Sept. 17.

The letter was from the House Government Oversight Committee about CCRC’s Squaw Creek Watershed project in northern Clarke County.

Commission member Sandy Kale said a copy of the letter has never been received by the CCRC office.

“It seems a little unusual to me that the committee chose to confront us through the local newspaper, rather than to contact us with their comments,” Kale said.

The committee members names on the letter were Chairman Rep. Kaufmann, Vice-Chair Rep. Heartsill, Rep. Pettengill and Rep. Baudler.

Kale said there were a number of fallacies in the letter to the editor and many truths that were omitted.

Recreational purposes?

Commission member Bill Trickey discussed the issue of “recreational purposes,” which was addressed in the letter from the committee.

Trickey said when the project first started decades ago, it was marked as a source for potable water.

However, later on, to get federal funding through the government, CCRC was told to add recreational purposes to the reservoir’s plans.

Then, when there was going to be no help through federal funding, CCRC eliminated recreation out of the reservoir’s purposes.

“In the new bylaws, the purpose of the commission is to provide a source of water, which may be used for potable drinking water purposes for it’s members,” Trickey said. “(There’s) nothing about recreation in the bylaws and the purpose. We’ve continued to evolve as the laws and the situation and the funding has changed.”

Kale said CCRC will be working on a response in the near future.

“I don’t know how the response is going to to go, if it’s going to go back to the paper or directly to them, but we will be working a response,” she said.