NCEEP

From Travis Fain at the N&R:

GREENSBORO — After winning a delay for water regulations affecting developers, the city will seek relief from other rules expected to cost more than $100 million in taxpayer-funded upgrades around the city, Mayor Robbie Perkins said.

It’s not clear what form that effort will take. And changes may have to wait for the next legislative session in January. City staffers are putting together proposals for a formal City Council review.

Perkins said he hopes the state will back off a broad section of the Jordan Lake Rules, which don’t all take effect for some years to come.

Some years ago, when this thing first raised it’s head, I looked into it pretty hard. One of the things I came away with was the final result of all this upstream revenue. As I remember, this was a landmark program to mitigate watershed damage by taxing those responsible for effluent. That’s all fine and good, but Durham and Chapel Hill are a lot closer to Lake Jordan than those of us in the headwaters of the Cape Fear Basin.

Take for instance, the case of the old Textured Fibers plant outside of Liberty. For years, they dumped dyes and chemicals into what used to be the Liberty sewer system, more properly known as Shit Creek. Ten years later, the neighborhood kids started getting MS. They shut down and left town.

All those environmental insults flowed directly into the Siler City reservoir and became a part of their drinking water before emptying into Jordan Lake. Take the Tex Fi anecdote and multiply it by all the textile mills, subtracting the few conscientious operators, and you have a real mess. Make sure to add in all the garages which meticulously washed their lots down the nearest drain.

Greensboro does an excellent job of treating its sewage effluent. Lake Jordan Rules is designed to deal with the potential effects of storm water runoff, laced as it may be with a preponderance of lawn chemicals.

From Virginia Bridges at The Durham News:

The cities and towns of Cary, Carrboro, Morrisville, Holly Springs, and Durham along with Chatham and Wake counties are opting to ignore the delay, according to a county survey of local stormwater programs.

Apex, Greensboro, Alamance County and Rockingham County will take advantage of the delay, the survey states.

Other areas, such as Orange County and Chapel Hill, are undecided, the survey states.

I could trot out James Hansen as an opponent of watershed insult mitigation, but that’s beside the point. What it really does is support a retinue of professionals intending to do a lot of good, but in fact achieving very little.