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December 14, 2020 <br /> To Orange County Board of County Commissioners, Planning Department, and County <br /> Managers Office: <br /> Sound Rivers is a private nonprofit organization that guards the health and natural beauty <br /> of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico River Basins. We partner with concerned citizens to <br /> monitor, protect, restore and preserve the watersheds covering 23% of North Carolina's <br /> land mass. Our goal is to provide clean water to our communities for consumption, <br /> recreation, nature preservation and agricultural use. The Sound Rivers mission is to <br /> monitor and protect the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico River watersheds covering nearly one <br /> quarter of North Carolina, and to preserve the health and beauty of the river basin through <br /> environmental justice. Due to our mission and the desire of our members to protect the <br /> Neuse River watershed, I am writing to express my opposition to the proposed Efland <br /> Station (Buc-ee's). <br /> During my years as Riverkeeper for Sound Rivers, I have served on stormwater boards <br /> for the City of Raleigh, Town of Smithfield, and Wake County. I have responded to <br /> extreme folding in the lower watershed during hurricanes and heavy rain events. This <br /> makes me uniquely qualified to speak about stormwater and impervious surfaces impacts <br /> basin-wide. A building(s) with this amount of impervious surface will have negative <br /> impacts on our environment and water quality no matter how much engineering goes into <br /> the plan, simply put the local waterways cannot handle that much impervious surface and <br /> associated pollution. The associated nutrient loading of present waterways is concerning <br />