Jordan Lake rules begin their long, slow march back to the legislature
Oh, woe is us, the Jordan Lake Rules are at hand.
Eh, not so much.
I've written about these things before (here / here / here / here) but it for those coming late to the story:
The Haw River sweeps through the Triad, taking leftovers from storm water runoff, sewage plants, bits of farm fertilizer, etc... with it. At the end of its run, the Haw feeds into the southern end of Jordan Lake.
Jordan Lake, which serves as a water supply in the Triangle area, has problems with pollution in the form of too much nitrogen and phosphorus that cause algae blooms and other problems.
So on Friday, the Environmental Review Commission approved new rules that would help curb pollution in the Haw River arm. From a news release sent out by DENR:
The approved nutrient management strategy is comprised of 11 rules that define the strategy’s goals and set requirements for nutrient management, agriculture, wastewater discharges and storm water management for new and existing development and government entities. The rules also address buffer protection and mitigation for buffer impacts and provide criteria for trading nutrient reduction requirements among different sources of nutrients to achieve more cost effective options. The goals for reducing nutrients are based on nutrient loads entering Jordan Lake between 1997 and 2001.
That all sounds fine and dandy, but there's significant cost attached to accomplishing all of that. Ballpark estimates say the City of Greensboro will spend a minimum of $70 million just to upgrade sewage plants. And the city could be forced to tear into existing neighborhoods to create storm water controls and developers are none to happy about the idea of doing all this either.
So are these rules going into effect right away? No.
Next stop is the Rules Review Commission, which will knock things about and then almost certainly enough people will write protest letters to knock things back to the General Assembly.
And because of all the moving pieces involved, most folks don't think the legislature is going to get it back before 2009. And once it's back in the General Assembly, expect both sides to release all their various hounds for a big ol' legislative showdown. My guess is we're looking at 11-monhts minimum before we know what the outcome of this will be.
Comments (1)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
The Haw River drains into Jordan Lake just above the dam which means its waters have a minimal impact on the lake yet its watershed would obtain the bulk of the burden created by these rules which is wrong. It would be devastating the economy in these cities. This is just another case of the environmental nut jobs creating problems for the rest of the world. Just look at the gas prices and the oil shortage in this country and you will see where these people will get you. It is time for the rest of us to stand up to these people and shut them up!!
Posted on August 4, 2008 9:49 AM