Minutes 02-15-2011 - Laserfiche WebLink

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� A motion was made by Commissioner Jacobs, seconded by Commissioner Hemminger to approve Budget Amendment #7-B appropriating $192,719 of fund balance in the General Fund for transfer to the School Capital Project Fund. VOTE: UNANIMOUS c. Proposed Chanqes to the Upper Neuse River Basin Association Bvlaws The Board considered proposed changes to the Upper Neuse River Basin Association bylaws and related information. County Attorney John Roberts reviewed this item: Members of the Upper Neuse River Basin Association (UNRBA) have recently considered proposed change to the bylaws governing the organization. These changes are a result of: 1) The General Assembly's passage of HB 1765 in 2010, which included details concerning the establishment of the Falls Lake Watershed Association; 2) The adoption of the Falls Lake Nutrient Management Strategy by the NC Environmental management Commission (EMC) in 2010; and 3) The 2010 adoption of the Consensus Principles to Guide Falls Lake Nutrient Management Strategy by Triangle area local governments. The UNRBA was founded in 1996 as a 501(c)3 corporation to provide a means for local governments located in the upper reaches of the Neuse River basin, including Orange County, to work tougher on preserving water quality n the upper Neuse River basin. Orange County is a longstanding member of the UNRBA, and Commissioner Pam Hemminger is currently the Chair of the UNRBA Board of Directors. Recently, some directors of the UNRBA expressed concern that as a 501(c)3 organization, the UNRBA was effectively prohibited from conducting significant lobbying activities, per the IRS code concerning non-profit organization. Several UNRBA jurisdictions have concluded that lobbying various state agencies such as the Division of Water Quality (DWQ) and the Environmental Management Commission (EMC) concerning Stage II of the Falls Lake Nutrient Management Strategy may be beneficial. As a reminder, the fiscal note developed for the Falls Lake nutrient management strategy estimated the total cost of implementation of the rules to be approximately $1.5 billion, most of which would "kick in" at Stage II of the Falls Lake rules. Approximately $1.25 billion dollars of this total is estimated as the cost to local governments in the upper Neuse River basin. Most of this figure is estimated to be the cost to comply with two areas of the nutrient management strategy: - The rules associated with stormwater emanating from existing development, and - The upgrading of wastewater treatment plants to reduce the nutrient loading in their discharges The final Nutrient Management Strategy requires that the EMC re-evaluate the nutrient management strategy prior to the initiation of Stage II of the strategy in the year 2026. The collection of necessary data to permit a re-examination of the Nutrient Management Strategy could begin as early as this year. The re-examination of the Falls Lake Nutrient Management Strategy is likely to include consideration of the conditions of the lake, and the effectiveness of the nutrient management strategy versus the cost of complying with the Stage I and Stage li nutrient management rules as currently written. The re-examination could also include evaluation of the current uses of the lake, the cost of achieving (or attempting to achieve)the Stage II nutrient reduction goals, and whether alternative water quality standards may be