Conservation

Chatham County development guidelines for watersheds

January 2006

In November, the committee got ready for the November 21 Chatham County Board of Commissioners hearing on proposals for conditional use zoning and invoking the 10/70 option in Watershed IV-PA, the area that drains into Jordan Lake. Two members of the Executive Committee attended the entire impressively long (5-½ hr.) hearing. Discussion of the zoning change focused on rules for public hearings on building proposals. The Commissioners seemed to be sympathetic to speakers' wish to make government more open.

Much of the hearing concerned the Commissioners' proposal to allow more impervious surfaces in Watershed IV-PA (Protected Area), the part of Chatham County that drains into Jordan Lake. The proposal, to invoke the 10/70 option offered by the state, would mean that, in addition to the current designation of 24% or 36%, the county could choose 10% of the designated watershed area and allow 70% of it to be paved or roofed. The Sierra Club OCG position is that increasing the impervious surfaces in that part of the watershed would be ill advised. Jordan Lake is already impaired by too many nutrients and run-off from impervious surfaces is one of the prime contributors of excess nitrogen and phosphorous to the lake. (As much as 68% of the nitrogen and 84% of the phosphorus come from non-point sources.) The Sierra Club position--that this is the wrong time "to invite more pavement and roofing into the [watershed]”--was quoted in the coverage of the hearing in the November 22nd News and Observer.

— Report by Judith Ferster

September 2005

In concert with local environmental groups, the newly reconstituted OCG Conservation Committee has supported an amendment that would strengthen the Watershed Protection Ordinance of Chatham County and is now responding to a proposal that would (as it were) water down the ordinance and pave the way for more development (perhaps including big box stores) in crucial areas that feed Jordan Lake. This is an important effort at a time when Jordan Lake, a source of drinking water, is already imperiled by an overload of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.

— Report by Judith Ferster

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