Agenda - 02-15-2011 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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79 Approved 2/2/11 61 Craig Benedict: Some of the other Board members may be able to help my recollection. This meeting we were talking about 62 stream buffers first and then if there was any time left over we would go back to conditional use. Is that how others remember it? 63 That is what I understood. I remember Judith saying, let's make sure we have a good grasp on stream buffers at this meeting 64 and then as time permits, go back to conditional use because we came to some degree of finality on conditional use and 65 conditional zoning and general use last week. 66 67 Brian Crawford: Let's go to stream buffers and try to do as much as possible and then if there are lingering issues from the last 68 meeting, Planning Board members will be free to bring them back up. 69 70 May Becker: My understanding was similar to that except that I felt that I voiced some concern about some of these issues and 71 wanted to follow up about them. I sent an email about particular concems and overview about stream buffers in general and 72 some research I have been doing in North Carolina and how it relates to streams in general and river basins. Then I made some 73 particular comments at the end regarding uses permitted by right. It appears there are a number of uses that were not included 74 in the ordinance. Uses permitted with mitigation and what mitigation involves and in general with respect to permitted uses by 75 right and I don't see any specific protections in there. If we have a area stream that has trees around it now, the buffer zone, and 76 then you clear cut if for some particular reason, development or putting sewer lines, I would like to look at specifically what will be 77 done to make sure there is some kind of vegetative buffer in there so that if nitrogen and phosphates and such get into it we don't 78 have problems down the line with dissolved oxygen where the fish can't breath or erosion and flooding and also all the way down 79 to the estuary and you consider what drives the estuary flow and what causes we to have health and fisheries that is all one 80 system and if you are urbanizing something in one part and changing on fresh water coming into the estuary for example that 81 changes the salinity gradient. In other words you have more fresh water pushing toward the ocean that changes the salinity 82 gradient between the ocean and fresh water infusion and that changes the potential for the salt water to come in or the strength 83 of the circulation of the salt water coming in on the bottom, saltwater coming in on the top which tends to change mixing 84 characteristics. I think there is a lot of evidence that the stream buffer, put in the handout with that, have had studies done at the 85 Neuse River Basin and the Cape Fear Basin and they have looked at results of putting stream buffers in as a result of problems 86 they had before and they have had positive results. I feel like that instead of later having to go down the line and clean up after 87 mistakes that have been made, I think we should look at it more carefully and make sure that we maintain the water quality that 88 we have. The other thing in the email was a link to an article about Falls Lake and how eventually when they have to consider 89 how to clean up the water quality they look at TMDL and consider who is going to pay the 1.5 billion dollars in clean up costs. I 90 marked in the lower Cape Fear and did some critical field study for TMDL environmental management plan. It is long process 91 and there are a lot of different issues in this state so sometimes it comes up in meetings, why do we need more regulations when 92 the state has these regulations. These processes take a long time and they have to consider natural factors that are causing the 93 circulation. Sometimes people get the impression that we are at the point in technology where we have all the answers and can 94 solve everything but as we've seen in the Gulf with the oil spill, you have a problem and then all of a sudden people ask how do 95 we solve this. I feel like we shouldn't be of the kind of illusion that somebody is going to clean it up and everything is going to be 96 ok. 97 98 Tommy McNeill: Dr. Becker, I hear what you are saying and I have looked at the attachment looking at the houses and the 100 99 year flood in Orange County, the wetlands, etc. What is it that concems you? 100 101 May Becker: It concems me to take trees in areas close to the river because if you have trees or other vegetation and you have 102 got urbanization, runoff, etc. that you have a filter system to keep excess nitrogen and phosphates from coming into the water 103 body. If they do come into the water body, you have green algae or different types of chlorophyll that grow and as they grow, 104 chemical process take place. For example, vegetation or algae can rot and as the algae rots it sticks to the bottom and starts to 105 consume oxygen. As it consumes oxygen, fish or the other creatures that are used to living there don't have enough oxygen to 106 breathe and you start to see fish kills. We've seen that in the Neuse River Basin, it's an area where it's largely surrounded, the 107 Outer Banks for example, serve as a barrier island to stop the Bushing of the tidal currents coming in and out so you have a 108 system that is basically temperature stratified because you don't have a lot of mixing, you tend to have problems with dissolved 109 oxygen. In the Cape Fear, in contrast, you have an estuary that is open to the ocean and you have the tides coming in and out 110 and you have more oxygenated waters that can dissolve oxygen, you will see there are different industries, they monitor these 111 areas to see how much they're discharging into the estuary. They have different ways of overseeing this. My concern is that in a 112 public area like streams here you don't have a monitoring system in place and you continue to potentially .... you go to a 113 subdivision for example, you have a lot of new residences, you have people fertilizing their lawns and you don't have some type 114 of vegetation buffer, some strict, specific area that is keeping a filter or some kind of vegetation to prevent development close to 115 the stream, then you don't know what you will have. 116 117 Brian Crawford: Help us think about policies. As I understand the buffers, and they can clear cut maybe 25 feet of it and you 118 have the vegetation portion that has to stay in place. Specifically that is what the buffer is at state law and you are suggesting 119 something further to increase the absorption and a potential runoff into the streams. 120 2