POPLARVILLE — Pearl River County supervisors on Monday refused to take a stand, when requested, to support a bill in the Mississippi House of Representatives that would limit the authority and power of the county utility authorities in Pearl River County and four other South Mississippi counties. They gave no explanation of why they would not support the bill.

On Monday at the board of supervisors meeting, a motion made by Supervisor Sandy Kane Smith endorsing proposed House Bill 974, introduced in the State Legislature by Pearl River County state representatives Herb Frierson (R-Poplarville) and Mark Formby (R-Picayune), limiting the power and reach of county utility authorities in five South Mississippi counties failed to pass when it did not receive a second.

Frierson is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and Formby heads the House Rules Committee.

State Sen. Angela Burks Hill, speaking from Jackson on Monday afternoon, said the bill, which prevents the utility authorities from taking over other service areas through eminent domain proceedings, is a “good piece of legislation, a good small government bill” and urged the public to support it, even though supervisors took no stand and the bill will probably die in the Senate Energy Committee.

She said that although the legislation passed the House without a dissenting vote, it will probably die in the Senate on Tuesday by not being reported out of committee. Hill a Republican from Picayune, represents District 40 composed of parts of Walthall, Marion and Pearl River counties.

“I probably should have been at the board of supervisors meeting and explained to them what was happening,” said Hill.

The resolution put before supervisors on Monday said HB 974 would revise the laws governing the utility authorities and they would be “revised into a system requiring voluntary cooperation with other utility authorities and service providers in their respective areas in order to protect Mississippi’s rural water associations from intrusion by said utility authorities.”

The resolution that failed before supervisors on Monday referred to county utility authorities, which were established in Stone, Pearl River, Harrison, Jackson and Hancock counties after Katrina by the legislature to coordinate upgrading utilities in the counties that make up the Mississippi boot heel. The action came after some water and utility systems failed during and after Katrina. George County opted out of the program.

However, the county utility authorities ran into opposition from rural water and sewer associations, which claim the authorities are trying to push them aside in a power grab for water customers.

Joe Montgomery, attorney for the board of supervisors, who drew up the resolution at the behest of Smith, said the issue has become a political football “in the state legislature.” He made no recommendation to the board concerning which way it should go.

Montgomery, pointing to some initial improvement in water and sewerage systems implemented through the Pearl River County utility authority after Katrina, added, “It sort of got caught up in a political fight and got crossed up politically. . .a big political fight in the legislature, with even the lieutenant governor and the governor fighting over it.”

Pearl River County Utility Authority attorney Mike Caples of the Jackson law firm of Butler and Snow, told supervisors that the legislation before the Senate right now would impact the way utility authorities do business.

Asked to explain in a nutshell what the Bill 974 does, Caples said that right now, if a water association has plans for an addition, it is required to bring those plans before the utility authority for approval so that, overall, the utility authority can develop an overall plan for the county. However, under the proposed Bill 974 that would not be necessary, said Caples. The bill says the process would be “voluntary.”

The legislation stems from a clash last year between the Mississippi Dept. of Environmental Quality and rural water associations. The MDEQ proposed changes in the regulations covering groundwater use and drilling wells, giving the MDEQ power over what wells are drilled and the merging of associations and city water systems with county utility authorities. Water association officials charged it was a power grab by county utility authorities which wanted to absorb the rural water associations’ customer bases to generate new revenues. Rural water association officials charged that under those proposed regulations, some rural water associations could be forced to merge into the utility authorities, giving the authorities the power to set water rates in their districts.

MDEQ, after a public hearing at Pearl River Community College in October concerning the issue, backed off from the confrontation when over 150 residents and rural water association officials protested the proposed changes in groundwater regulations. At that hearing, Pearl River County supervisors presented MDEQ with a resolution opposing the changes and former supervisor Hudson Holliday, who is no longer on the board, called for abolishing the authorities. He called the authorities “another layer of bureaucracy.”

MDEQ by January had decided to take no action on the proposed groundwater regulation changes. Local county legislators told the MDEQ they would address the issue in the 2012 legislative session, and House Bill 974 was an effort to do just that.