Hazel Creek Gauge Work Stalls as Cornelia’s Proposed Water Withdrawal Remains Unresolved

Cornelia’s Water Authority authorized Nutter & Associates to calibrate a stream gauge on Hazel Creek during a January 2022 conference call, linking the technical work to a planned application to withdraw up to 4.5 million gallons of water a day from the creek. But a later second-quarter authority report said the calibration was on hold, leaving the proposed withdrawal without a documented resolution.

The unfinished work matters because the gauge calibration and related flow analysis could shape whether and how Cornelia pursues an additional raw-water source from Hazel Creek. Authority materials tied the application to a reevaluation of the creek’s 7Q10 flow measure, a low-flow benchmark, and said that work could affect the creek’s safe dependable yield at the proposed 4.5-million-gallon-a-day level.

The effort followed years of work on Cornelia’s water-treatment plant. In 2019, the Water Authority received a plant update and the city commission later heard an engineer’s progress report that included a contractor’s requested extension; in February 2021, the plant was still described in a city workshop as one of several major construction projects. By January 2022, the authority had moved to authorize Hazel Creek gauge calibration. The later authority report connected the pause in that work to completion of the plant’s punch list before staff would resubmit the withdrawal application.

Nutter & Associates was identified as the consultant expected to handle the gauge calibration and assist with reevaluating Hazel Creek’s 7Q10 flow. C&S was identified in the January 2022 report as the firm expected to apply for the withdrawal, while the later report described staff preparing to resubmit that application after the treatment-plant punch list was complete. The records describe those staff and consultant roles, but do not provide voting details or set out competing public positions on the withdrawal.

Authorization for the calibration is documented; completion is not. The later report establishes that calibration was on hold and that resubmission of the application was contemplated after punch-list work, rather than confirming either step had occurred. It also describes a possible increase in safe dependable yield to 4.5 million gallons a day, not a final determination. Because that later record identifies itself only as a second-quarter meeting report, its year and exact meeting date are not stated.

The next meaningful public update would need to answer three connected questions: whether the water-treatment plant punch list was completed, whether the Hazel Creek withdrawal application was resubmitted, and whether Nutter & Associates resumed or finished the gauge calibration. Until the authority records those steps or a later decision, Cornelia’s proposed Hazel Creek withdrawal and the technical review behind it remain undecided.