Agenda - 03-17-2009 - 7a - Laserfiche WebLink

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5 The portions of the Jordan Lake watershed in Orange County reflect this proactive approach to water quality protection. Within the Upper New Hope Arm of this watershed, Orange County has instituted far-reaching land use or non-structural controls, as shown on the attached map. There are three sub-basins draining to the Upper New Hope Arm in the County's jurisdiction. The University Lake watershed (part of Morgan Creek) has, since 1989, included a minimum lot size of five-acres for each new lot, with impervious surfaces limited to as little as 4% in some cases. These measures were instituted after a comprehensive watershed technical study and extensive community dialogue. The Upper New Hope Creek basin, north of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, is part of an area known as the "Rural Buffer," which has two-acre minimum lot sizes and over 2,000 acres of protected land. This protected land also includes over 7,000 linear feet of New Hope Creek in the County's jurisdiction. A small portion of Morgan Creek downstream of University Lake and south of Chapel Hill also has two-acre lot zoning, and sign cant protected lands. Orange County also enforces flood damage prevention regulations, which supplement stream buffer standards. Both of these prohibit any new structures or septic drain frelds near surface water bodies. As an example of the effects of Orange County watershed standards, our staff has used ~ an adaptation of the Upper Neuse Basin Site Evaluation Tool (SET) for a recent development in the University Lake watershed. On an 80-acre site with a natural nitrogen-loading rate of 0.66 pounds per acre per year, unrestricted development would produce an estimated 5.17 pounds per acre per year. Orange County regulations dropped that estimated nitrogen loading rate to 1.81 pounds per acre per year. Larger lot sizes required in this watershed appear to be the primary cause. Orange County is--and has always been -very supportive of attempts to reduce nutrient loading and protect water quality in Jordan Lake. However, the method of the proposed implementation for the non-point source rules in the Upper New Hope Arm may not be practical or equitable for a rural jurisdiction, especially since significant protective measures have been instituted for many years. In particular, Orange County would like to offer the following points for the Commission's consideration: 1. Reductions for existing development are not "performance" based. a. The proposed reductions for nitrogen and phosphorus are represented as percentage loading reductions. This "one size frts all" approach does not acknowledge the very different loading rates and land use patterns between urban and rural portions of this area; nor does this approach take into consideration the resultant difficulty in achieving apercentage-based reduction by jurisdiction. b. As described above,. Orange County already employs watershed protection measures that account for relatively low nutrient loading rates. In order to