Orange County NC Website
Recommendation 1: Protect water quality. <br />Action Strategies: <br />A. Continue current efforts to guide growth away from public water supply watersheds to <br />prevent new discharges into these watersheds; <br />B. Fund expanded inspection programs to ensure individual water systems are not polluted <br />and individual waste water systems and underground storage tanks are non - polluting; <br />C. Lobby for state construction projects (including DOT and OWASA projects) to <br />come under local authority for sedimentation and erosion control monitoring and <br />enforcement, or lobby for the State to adopt regulations as stringent as those of <br />Orange County. Alternatively, if this is not successful, lobby for increased funding for state to <br />monitor construction projects under their jurisdiction and some type of stiff penalties for projects <br />out of compliance. <br />D. Push the State to develop and release information about stream assimilative capacity. <br />E. Continue to improve well construction methods. <br />F. Identify wellhead protection areas that should be protected for ground water quality. <br />G. Develop an ongoing, long -term groundwater monitoring program to evaluate <br />groundwater quality and quantity. <br />Recommendation : Promote environmentally friendly /green building and <br />site design. <br />Action Strategies: <br />A. Provide fast track approval for subdivisions and commercial buildings using <br />environmentally friendly design standards, including solar power, reclaimed /reused water <br />reuse systems, low or non -toxic building materials, innovative energy - efficient design, low <br />impact development design for stormwater management, and cisterns to collect rainwater on <br />buildings, etc. <br />B. Achieve legislation to allow a local property tax break for solar houses /green built houses <br />and commercial buildings. <br />C. Adopt low impact development design standards for management of stormwater <br />runoff. Low impact development design emphasizes maintenance of natural drainage processes, <br />control of stormwater at its source, and use of simple, non - structural, and small -scale solutions, <br />such as "rain gardens" to capture and filter stormwater runoff from parking lots. <br />57 <br />