[Durham INC] Fw: Durham council favors Jordan Lake protections -- News & Observer

[Melissa Rooney]

Hopefully most of you have read the N&O Article wrt Jordan Lake Rules (see link below). I'm glad to see that Council supports most of these rules and I can understand where they are opposed to a few conditions. However, I am disturbed that they are pushing for "Removing the requirement to retrofit existing development to meet new runoff standards." 

http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1395137.html

They agree that Durham must enforce higher requirements on new developments to try to prevent even more pollution of Jordan Lake (hopefully these won't be accompanied by development incentives that cancel out the environmental benefits) . 

But the contribution of existing development to the Jordan Lake pollution will continue at its current damaging levels unless we retrofit this existing development to stem the current flow of nitrogen and phosphorous into Jordan Lake. 

We are ALREADY seeing fish kills and algae blooms, and many knowledgeable citizens refuse to swim in Jordan Lake, much less drink from it. So we don't just want it NOT to get worse...we actually want it to improve. I don't see how this can truly happen unless we try to reverse the environmentally irresponsible development practices we have allowed over the last 10-20 years, and that means some form of retrofitting. 

--Melissa

Melissa Rooney
mmr121570 at yahoo.com



      
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