[Durham INC] (no subject)

[Melissa Rooney]

See yesterday's letter to the Durham News below.  (regarding Durham's use of stormwater funds to pay a well connected Raleigh lobbyist to reduce pollution-reducing rules for Falls Lake.  

Apparently Durham used stormwater fees to lobby to weaken the Jordan Lake Rules too. And Durham was sued in the 90’s for illegally using stormwater fees for inappropriate purposes.

The original Herald Sun article regarding Falls lake is also included below for your perusal.

If you have a problem with this scenario, please write your elected officials with your concerns:
beckymheron at nc.rr.com , brendahowerton10 at yahoo.com , ereckhow at aol.com , jbowser2 at nc.rr.com , mdelanopage at aol.com , council at ci.durham.nc.us , Tom.Bonfield at durhamnc.gov,  Bill.Bell at durhamnc.gov, 

[And please remove ANY spaces that may have inadvertently been inserted into the email addresses above by my email server -- unfortunately, a common problem.]

Thanks for caring!
Melissa (Rooney)


________________________


Letter [Durham News]: 
Published: Mar 13, 2010 01:00 AM
Modified: Mar 13, 2010 01:26 AM





Don't water down pollution rules

We represent the river organizations working to protect Jordan Lake and Falls Lake, the sources of drinking water for over 750,000 people in the Triangle. We join the public in their objection to Durham's use of funds meant to clean up water being used instead to pay a lobbyist to weaken the Jordan Lake and Falls Lake pollution-reducing rules.


Kilpatrick Stockton attorney Steve Levitas succeeded in weakening the Jordan Lake rules, particularly by delaying implementation of meaningful pollution reductions, and is now being paid by Durham to do the same for Falls Lake. We believe Durham has inflated the economic cost of reducing pollution in these two reservoirs, but has not taken into account the real costs of dirty, polluted water where our communities play, swim and fish.

These lakes already do not meet water-quality standards due to polluted stormwater runoff and wastewater contamination; it seems highly inappropriate to take funds meant to improve stormwater management and use them to fight rules that would provide the clean waterways to which every resident has a right.

Elaine Chiosso
Haw River Assembly
Alissa Bierma
Neuse Riverkeeper
Foundation
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner.

_______________

Falls Lake Durham deal vexes Wake advocates
 Anti-pollution strategy's just 'a delay tactic'

By Ray Gronberg 
2/25/10 Durham Herald Sun

gronberg at heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- A Wake County advocacy group isn't happy with the compromise on Falls Lake anti-pollution strategy politicians and administrators there have struck with officials in Durham.

The group, WakeUp Wake County, wants speedier action than even state regulators have proposed to limit nutrient deposits in the lake. 

And it's critical of one of the deal's key features, a Durham-pushed request that regulators rework the computer models they're using to gauge problems in the upper portion of the lake.

That's just "a delay tactic to put off into the future the planning we need to be doing much sooner for the actions we need to take on a regional basis to clean up this water," said Karen Rindge, WakeUp's executive director.

Even before officials from the neighboring cities and counties struck their bargain, WakeUp had told N.C. Division of Water Quality regulators responsible for crafting a rules package that it "strongly objects" to remodeling the lake's pollution patterns.

Rindge's comments Wednesday squared with warnings a Durham city attorney gave elected officials last week.

Senior Assistant City Attorney Karen Sindelar told the City Council it'd likely have to fight in the General Assembly to secure the new look at upper Falls Lake, specifically the portion west of U.S. 50.

Sindelar said the compromise proposal -- which isn't binding on the Division of Water Quality -- was sparking opposition from environmental groups. 

It also looked to her that regulators were unenthusiastic about rethinking the rationale for imposing strict controls on nutrient deposits into the upper lake.

Rindge's group -- which advocates for growth management in Wake County -- has organized a Saturday morning forum on lake pollution issues. It will feature presentations from N.C. State University professors and other experts, and comments from a trio of state legislators. state Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, is among the listed panelists.

The 9:30 a.m. event will occur at the McKimmon Center, an N.C. State facility at the corner of Western Boulevard and Gorman Street in Raleigh.

WakeUp has secured corporate sponsorship for the forum, with RBC Bank and Capitol Broadcasting both chipping in to help pay its expenses.

Capitol's involvement is noteworthy because the company is a force in downtown Durham development, with the American Tobacco and Diamond View complexes to its credit. Downtown Durham is in the Falls watershed, along with most everything else in Durham County north of N.C. 147.

Durham officials, meanwhile, have been busy fending off criticism of their decision last week to secure City Council permission to spend up to $120,000 in calendar 2010 on a lobbyist to battle for their preferred rules package.

The money would go to a Raleigh law firm, Kilpatrick Stockton, largely for the services of firm partner Steve Levitas. He also lobbied for the city in the fight last year over similar rules for Jordan Lake.

Levitas is a former N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources senior administrator, and a one-time head of the N.C. Environmental Defense Fund.

Lobbying contracts worth up to $189,000, paid by Durham and Greensboro, covered his work on the Jordan rules. City Manager Tom Bonfield, using his authority to sign service contracts without council permission, got Levitas started last year on the Falls package to the tune of up to another $50,000.

City officials will tap Durham's $8.9 million stormwater management fund to help pay the firm's bills this year.

That's drawn fire from Scott Pearson, a local environmentalist who sees the allocations as a waste of money that could otherwise be spent on pollution and drainage controls. 

He also questions their legality, given state statute that requires the city to tie stormwater fees to its actual costs of managing runoff and drainage.

Sindelar and City Attorney Patrick Baker, however, maintain that lobbying is a legitimate expense given the potential impact state rulemaking could have on the city stormwater program.

____________

And here's the link to the recent ABC 11 story (in both text and video form) reporting that Durham is using stormwater fees (meant to clean up stormwater drainage into our lakes) for their attorney hired to lobby for weaker environmental restrictions on Durham's contribution to Falls Lake sediment and pollution. The attorney used to "be second in command at the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources."

Here's the link:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/abc11_investigates&id=7304990



      
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