While Romans have raised a ruckus about interbasin water transfers for years, the loss here pales in comparison to the loss of water from the Chattahoochee basin.

“We’re talking interocean transfers,” Bennett told the Rome Rotary Club on Thursday.

The Chatta­hoochee basin loses 70 million gallons of water every day to interbasin transfers, most of that water lost to basins that flow toward the Atlantic Ocean while the Chattahoochee itself drains to the Gulf of Mexico. By contrast, Bennett told the civic group, the Coosa River basin has a net loss of 10.2 million gallons a day.

Bennett was expected to deliver a state of the city address to the Rotary group but took the opportunity to explain the water situation, which has been a dominant issue in Georgia for much of the past two decades.

Bennett chairs the Coosa North Georgia Water Council which, like nine other regional councils across the state, is charged with submitting a plan for dealing with the water issue to the Environmental Protection Division in time for the state to draft a plan that would be submitted to the General Assembly in 2012.

“I don’t think our potential should be sacrificed for somebody else’s projections,” Bennett said.

He told the club Floyd County is projected to grow by only 21 percent over the next two decades compared to Paulding County, which is expected to grow by 92 percent, Bartow County, which is anticipating an 82-percent growth over the next 20 years, and Cobb County, which is projected to grow by another 36 percent by 2030.

Bennett said he believes any new reservoirs built in Georgia should be built by and controlled by the state. “If a county builds a reservoir, it’s going to be for their own use.” Bennett said.

The longtime city manager said any new reservoirs should be built for water supply purposes along with the capacity for supplementing stream flow during drought periods. He suggested no lake front lots be sold off because when the water is siphoned away during drought times, the people who own those lots would be upset.

“Alabama is going to be very cautious about letting us build reservoirs without guaranteeing stream flow at the state line,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he could see a trend toward tiered pricing for water in the future. “The more you use, the more you’re going to pay per unit,” Bennett said.

In the past, larger water users have traditionally gotten discounts on pricing but Bennett said he sees that changing dramatically in the future.

Bennett did tell the Rotary group that the city of Rome is financially stable.

“We’re trying our best to match our expenditures with decreasing revenues,” Bennett said.

He said the city is operating with numbers similar to budgets of four and five years ago.