INC NEWS - Development effects on Jordan Lake Water Quality

Mon Aug 20 15:05:21 EDT 2007

Hi all. Please read the attached article from the News
and Observer (Aug 18). If you haven't done so already,
please write the Joint City County Planning
Commission, and request that there be well-defined
restrictions on clear-cutting/mass-grading and
preservation of 'specimen' trees (i.e. large among
other things) in ALL developments -- conservation,
rural, suburban, etc. 

Cary already drinks Jordan Lake...and it's our backup
water supply. Developers can do better by us.

JCCPC contact info:
"Catotti, Diane" <Diane.Catotti at durhamnc.gov>;
"Cole-McFadden, Cora"
<Cora.Cole-McFadden at durhamnc.gov>;
<bmheron at durhamcountync.gov>;
 "Woodard, Mike" <Mike.Woodard at durhamnc.gov>;
<ereckhow at aol.com>; 
<lcheek at durhamcountync.gov>; <d.moffitt at verizon.net>

Thanks!
Melissa

Full article below:

News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC)

August 18, 2007

State floats Jordan Lake water quality plan to public

Author: Jim Wise; Staff Writer

Edition: Final
Section: Durham News
Page: A1

Estimated printed pages: 4

Article Text:

Jordan Lake has beaches, boat ramps, bass and bream
and, typically, about 245 billion gallons of water. It
also has pollution.

That water is too alkaline and has too much
chlorophyll, nitrogen and phosphorus for the good of
the creatures that live in it, or for the people who
play in it and drink it.

Cleaning up the lake could cost more than $1.2
billion. The City of Durham estimates its part of the
tab would total, over a 30-year-period, hundreds of
millions of dollars.

"It's going to be a big number," said John Cox of the
city's stormwater division.

The state Division of Water Quality has proposed a set
of regulations for restoring and protecting the lake's
water quality. They're out for public comment through
Sept. 14, and the legislature likely will have
something to say about them when it convenes next
year. But there is no way around doing something to
fix the lake, said Rich Gannon of the state agency.

"In essence, the lake is not fully meeting its
designated uses," he said. Those uses include
recreation, aquatic habitat and human consumption.

In 2005, N.C. Water Quality designated the entire lake
"impaired" due to high levels of nutrients --
primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, which lead to
growth of algae that can render the water toxic to
fish and unfit for swimming or drinking. Federal and
state law require remedial action for the reservoir
now serving Chatham County, southern Wake, Cary, Apex,
Holly Springs and Morrisville. (If it needs to, Durham
can now draw up to 10 million gallons a day.)

Jordan Lake's watershed includes western Wake and
Durham counties and extends west beyond Greensboro;
but its Upper New Hope arm -- fed by Morgan Creek from
Chapel Hill and New Hope, Little, Crooked and
Northeast creeks that flow through the booming lands
of southern Durham -- is its most polluted portion.

"That's due in good part to the urbanized nature of
that portion of the watershed," Gannon said.

Until Sept. 14, the state is taking public comments on
12 new rules, which include requiring
stormwater-control measures in both new and existing
developments at the expense of landscapers, farmers,
private landowners, developers, universities, the
state DOT and local governments. For the City of
Durham alone, those retrofits alone could run, over a
30-year period, anywhere from $206 million to $545
million.

"Ultimately, there will be some rules of some sort,
and people won't like them," said George Brine, a
member of the Durham Planning Commission.

The rules are the result of several years' work by the
state in concert with various interested parties in
the watershed. Still, several localities, including
Greensboro, Jamestown and Guilford County, and the
Piedmont Triad Council of Governments, have already
stated their opposition to the rules, for reasons of
cost and ambiguity and doubts that they will achieve
the desired result.

Chapel Hill is working on suggestions for making the
rules more intelligible. The City of Durham had a
37-page, highly technical response in draft this week,
while Durham County Attorney Chuck Kitchen has
objected to both the rules' cost and the state's
authority to impose them.

"The numbers you're talking about, we could build a
whole new lake," Kitchen said. "There's got to be a
better way."

Vicki Westbrook with Durham Water Management said her
department has no concerns about Jordan's water
quality; and the city's response to the proposed rules
states that nitrogen levels in New Hope Creek and the
Haw River, which also feeds the lake, have recently
declined.

On another hand, John Kent of Chapel Hill, who has
been a volunteer water-quality monitor on New Hope
Creek for 17 years, said topography as well as
development make Jordan Lake particularly vulnerable
to impairment, and governments should err on the side
of caution.

"If we're going to look to Jordan Lake for water
supply ... we should be conservative about how loose
and fast we're going to be with the standards."

The Division of Water Quality's Gannon notes that
Jordan Lake's pollution problems were predicted well
before the lake was impounded in 1982. In the
intervening years, growth has mushroomed in the
southern portion of Durham County, most of which was
still woods and fields 25 years ago, as well as in
adjoining Orange, Chatham and Wake.

"Where water quality is concerned," said Durham
Planning Director Frank Duke, "subdivision development
is one of the worst things you can do."

In 2002, the Upper New Hope Arm reached federal
standards for "impairment." Three years later, the
lake as a whole gained that label.

"Just as long as this area keeps growing, we're going
to have to take a real hard look at what we do to
protect our watershed," said Brine, the planning
commissioner and a 32-year South Durham resident.
"There's been tremendous concern about styles of
development. ... You see a lot of yards with plants, a
lot of yard service and fertilizers and stuff, and
these contribute to pollution."

Retrofitting existing development -- with such "best
management practices" as manmade wetlands, rain
gardens and forested streamside buffers -- is
particularly problematic, due to cost, the amount of
land required and the difficulty of finding suitable
locations.

Such things need to be installed downstream from
pollution sources, said Cox, the Durham stormwater
engineer. "With existing development, there are going
to be cases where there's no room down there."

Gannon said the state appreciates the difficulties
involved.

"We fully realize that it's challenging and it's
costly," he said. "We're trying to work with local
governments."

Ed Harrison, a Chapel Hill Town Council member who
lives in Durham County, said that, judging from
informal conversations, "we clearly support cleanup of
Jordan Lake" but want the rules clarified. However, he
thinks the rules eventually imposed will be somewhat
different than those proposed. Any of the rules
receiving too many objections from the public have to
go through the General Assembly.

"So we could end up getting whatever comes out of the
legislature," he said. "Good luck to us all."

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