[Durham INC] Jordan Lake Rules impact on City

[Ken Gasch]

Jordan Lake Rules impact on CityWhen I was a young mechanical engineering
student at Texas Tech, I had this professor that was a former NASA engineer.
His class consisted of weekly design projects.  One of the projects wanted
students to design a system that could extract heat from a plant's exhaust
stream to be used in a secondary process.  Since the heat was being
exhausted into the atmosphere anyway, any heat that could be extracted was
essentially "free".

At the time I was working for a local engineering office as an intern.  I
went to the company library and pulled a catalog for industrial
recuperators.  Based on the temperature, volume, pressure and velocity of
the exhaust stream, I selected the appropriate device from the catalog.  I
then photo copied the page and turned it in.

I was extremely irritated when I got a C on the project.  I argued that a
good engineer would come up with a solution that would not only accomplished
the goal but, was the cheapest solution available.  He argued that when he
assigned the project he was wanting us to sit down and design a recuperator
from scratch and then estimate how much it would cost to have one
fabricated, from scratch!  Based on the designs of student who got A's, I
should have designed something that would have done the same job but, would
have cost 10 times as much as my solution.

I guess that I why he was teaching and no longer designing for NASA.  In the
years since, I have been greatly delighted by NASA's attempts to keep
project cost's low by working to utilize off-the-shelf components.

These Jordan Lake rules are crazy.  We have a problem with run-off.  The
proposed solution is not the best way to tackle the problem.

Ken Gasch


  -----Original Message-----
  From: inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org [mailto:inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org]On
Behalf Of Pat Carstensen
  Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 7:57 AM
  To: inc-list at rtpnet.org
  Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Jordan Lake Rules impact on City


  The rules are not crazy.  We didn't put the lake we are going to be
drinking out of in the smartest place (duh, like it was smart to put our
drinking water downstream from a big urban area and with full knowledge that
the hydrology would make it flush "stuff" downstream really slowly), but
it's not like we have a lot of choices on where to get more water.  We
already have extensive eutrophication (fancy science word for getting
scummy) of the lake.  How many days were we from trucking in bottled water 2
summers ago?


  I know the three water suppliers in our area have done more than their
share at cleaning up the wastewater and the cost-effective answer is rely
more on better management of urban run-off (not just less fertilizer, but
more rain gardens and Magnum terraces, no black plastic in your "natural"
area, etc.), but it's really hard to hold anyone accountable for getting
that done and if no-one is accountable, we all know that not much gets done.


  Another aspect is getting better rules into the UDO so we quit digging
ourselves deeper and deeper into this hole.


  Finally, who is really trying to weasel out of their share of the cleaning
up the mess they are making in Jordan Lake are the cities upstream on the
Haw River (Greensboro, etc), and if we let ourselves off the hook, they
continue to do a lot less on their wastewater than we do.


  Regards, pat





----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
  From: Ken at KenGasch.com
  To: inc-list at rtpnet.org
  Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:49:26 -0500
  Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Jordan Lake Rules impact on City


  I agree.  These rules are crazy.

  That said, it seems to me like part of the solution is for folks to stop
obsessing about their yards and stop dumping tons fertilizer on them.

  I refuse to water my lawn.  I see it as wasteful.  I also refuse to
fertilize my yard.

  As far as my yard is concerned, I believe in survival of the fittest.  If
whatever greenery is growing in my yard can't grow naturally, then I want it
to die.  Die!

  A few months back, my wife handed me a New Yorker that had an article
about how bizarre America's obsession with lush green turf actually is.  It
talked about the wasted water.  It talked about the harmful effects of
run-off.  The article went on to describe what is called a "freedom lawn."
These lawn are comprised of whatever will grow.  I was being trendy without
even knowing it.

  Ken Gasch



    -----Original Message-----
    From: inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org [mailto:inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org]On
Behalf Of Westbrook, Vicki
    Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 5:46 PM
    To: inc-list at rtpnet.org
    Subject: [Durham INC] Jordan Lake Rules impact on City


    Could you please post the following regarding the NC Bill to Disapprove
Jordan Nutrient Strategy Rules?


    We would encourage Durham citizens to carefully investigate all impacts
on our community before taking a position on the Jordan Lake Nutrient
Management Rules.  We in City government take our roles as responsible
environmentalists quite seriously and there are other City and County
leaders (also environmentalists) who oppose portions of these Rules, those
portions that are viewed as unnecessary, unfair, and not based on good
science.  The "existing development" rule will lead to huge stormwater rate
increases of hundreds of dollars in Durham that will hit average citizens
very hard.  Durham's leaders have carefully evaluated these Rules and are
supporting some of the rules but rejecting others.  For example,
restrictions on new development (the most expensive in the state) are
supported - but rules that could require citizens to fund hundreds of
millions of dollars of stormwater treatment devices for existing, older
development are being rejected. We also support moving the implementation
date for the rules that impact wastewater discharges by two years so that
adequate optimization and design work can be done; with construction
completed by the initially agreed upon date of 2016.   It is important to
not have a knee-jerk reaction to these rules.  All of us care about Durham
and want to improve downtown and attract good development without imposing
extremely burdensome stormwater and wastewater utility fees on our citizens.


    Vicki Westbrook, Deputy Director

    Administration & Operations

    City of Durham, Dept. of Water Management

    101 City Hall Plaza

    Phone:  (919) 560-4381, x 266

    FAX:     (919) 560-4479



    There are a number of ways to save water, and they all start with you.
Water - Use it Wisely!




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
  Windows Live™: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. See how it
works.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.deltaforce.net/mailman/private/inc-list/attachments/20090131/fe3206aa/attachment.htm>