Regional leaders strategize on growth and planning

Local leaders from the far western counties of Macon, Jackson, Haywood, Clay, Cherokee and Swain attended what is believed to be the first ever regional planning workshop of its kind Thursday at Macon Bank Corporate Center in Franklin.

Macon Bank along with the Southwestern Commission, the Local Government Training Program at Western Carolina University and McGill Associates sponsored the event.

Speakers discussed similar growth management issues confronting their counties and exchanged ideas on approaching issues such as steep-slope regulations, stream protection and water quality and farmland preservation from a region-wide perspective.

Public officials continually emphasized the importance of collaboration and making an effort to stay on the same page when it comes to developing ordinances and regulations.

Consideration of how to balance growth while still protecting the environment and natural resources emerged as a recurring theme throughout the day.

Macon County Commissioner Ronnie Beale opened the meeting with a statement that would be repeated often throughout the day in one form or another.

"We all face the same challenges," Beale said. "We hope this is the start of something that we can make a regular process."

Beale touched on the importance of finding the balancing act between growth and quality of life.

"In Macon County, the good news is we have growth to contend with," said Beale, alluding to the second home market and tourism. "We are going to continue to grow. It's how we are going to grow."

Clay County commissioner Harry Jarrett said he had asked the Southwestern Commission (serves the Region A counties of Macon, Swain, Haywood, Jackson, Graham, Cherokee and Clay) executive director Bill Gibson to arrange this meeting so counties could jointly address these areas of concern.

He echoed Beale's sentiments.

"All of us are facing some of the same issues," Jarrett said. He said the counties are in various stages of addressing these topics.

"We are a regional area-we are not separated by our county boundaries," Jarrett said. "I'm just happy that we're here to look at this and that we're working together regionally.

Jackson County planner Linda Cable gave a presentation illustrating some of the effects of accelerated growth on their county (landslides, sedimentation into streams etc.), explaining why this has precipitated the need for them to create hilltop and subdivision ordinances. The first public hearing on the ordinances drew a crowd of more than a thousand people.

As currently written, some highlights of the ordinance would include: Requiring best-management practices on slopes greater than 30 percent, stormwater runoff controls, a 95 percent compaction of fill and establishing requirements for conservation subdivision designs.

"I believe in what's going on and what we're doing," Cable said. "We are responsible for what's happening, what's going on."

She said that their aim is to protect the mountains, the streams, the panoramic views and the "beauty unbound."

"We are at risk," Cable said.

Cable said they are trying to prevent problems such as ridgetop destruction, landslides, storm-water runoff and loss of farmland.

"I'm proud to be a part of the process," Cable said.

Fourth-generation county commissioner Larry Ammons, chairman of the Haywood County commissioners said he frequently fields phone calls where people call and complain, "They're ruining our mountains."

Residents see a large gouge on a mountain, a new road on a ridgetop or a landslide and express concern.

"And all of this relates to growth that we've had," Ammons said.

Haywood County erosion control officer Marc Pruett delivered a presentation and shared slides depicting safety issues and irresponsible development practices on steep slopes that led to various problems from erosion and stream pollution to landslides, cracked house foundations and improper compaction methods for roads.

Pruett, whose background is in geology, said that in almost all the cases in Haywood with steep slope problems, a soil survey found the soils were unsuitable for development.

Pruett, who came to Haywood County in 2000, helped write or has been the lead writer for the county's safe slope ordinance, subdivision ordinance and the manufactured home ordinance.

"I've told people a lot of times, 'we are not against development, but we are for good planning,'" Pruett said. "I position myself as a problem-solver and a peacemaker.

"That's what we are. We try to find a reasonable balance with all control issues."

Haywood County passed its slope ordinance in November. It became effective March 1, according to Pruett. Since then, Pruett said, as a new rule requires, he has done a significant amount of educating to explain its function and purpose.

On a positive note, he said that the most people adhere to the regulations. Pruett has issued 50-60 slope permits since March 1 and required only one developer to get a geotechnical engineer.

However, a problem Pruett sees is developers wanting to save money and in doing so hiring less experienced people for important projects such as road building. He gave one example where a developer hired a person they found outside mowing their lawn to help them build roads into a subdivision that was eventually found in violation when a section of road failed.

"By creating good slopes, you create stable situations that help prevent these kind of things," Pruett said. "Any environmental benefit that we would get from creating safer, stable slopes is a secondary benefit.

Pruett commented that in his line of work he talks to people who express worry with these new regulations that the county wants to tell them what to do with their land or take away their land.

He said that he then assures them "We want you to keep your land, every spoonful of it - so you don't let it trespass onto the people down below you. It's what you can't do to the public road, what you can't do to the water, that we all own, and what you can't put on the neighbors."

Joel Storrow, engineer and president of McGill Associates in Asheville, discussed the water quality and capacity issues in the region and initiatives on the horizon.

"It's a challenging time to be a water resources engineer," Storrow said.

He commented that in the past five years, the area has seen periods of drought, followed by a flood, followed by another drought.

"That's a lot of extremes and it presents a tremendous challenge for many of the small communities that have to provide a service," Storrow said. He added that the impact on potable water sources has been significant.

Storrow mentioned that the counties of Region A are all currently listed under the "extreme" drought classification level as designated by the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council's latest update (www.ncdrought.org).

He said that they have been seeing a historic trend of a number of wells being pumped dry in this area. Additionally, new wells drilled in rural parts of the counties continue to drill deeper because it's so much more difficult to capture an adequate yield to serve individual residents in a community.

Storrow said one of the problems is that as more wells are tapped into the aquifer, there's clearly going to be more pressure on that aquifer.

"And the more development that occurs creates more impervious surfaces where instead of water running into the ground, and recharging these wells it will run off and not be captured by that aquifer," Storrow said.

"I personally think North Carolina needs a regional strategy." He suggested coming up with better telemetry (monitoring and control of the system) as one solution.

One of the earlier versions of "The Safe Artificial Slope Act" legislation before the General Assembly, which Storrow said did not appear likely to pass this session, had a regional groundwater assessment stipulation attached.

"It would be prudent for that information to be available to all the counties out here so they can better decide on where development can smartly occur," Storrow said.

He discussed the potential $500 million bond referendum to fund water and sewer projects, part of the Clean Water Act of 2007 (HB 127, SB 208) that will likely go before state voters in November.

He said it would be similar to the 1998 bond except that it would parcel out funding $50 million per year instead of one lump sum. Roughly half would go to the Rural Center and the other half to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, while five percent would be allotted for the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Macon County environmental health supervisor Barry Patterson also said the area is seeing a high amount of wells drying up, complicated by both the drought and over-consumption.

Patterson-said that every well is a potential conduit for contaminants to reach groundwater. He said the goal should be to plan ahead, anticipate problems and plan properly to avoid groundwater contamination.

"I think the whole area is five years behind on collecting data on septic system and wells' effect on health," Patterson said.

He commented that we're all in the same boat and we need to do something on a regional basis. "It's a regional issue that requires a regional agency approach," Patterson said. "I strongly recommend that approach."

In regards to public safety issues, Patterson said a common misconception is that you can install a septic system in the ground and just forget about it. However, you must provide proper service and maintenance in order for them to last their life expectancy of 25-30 years.

However, Paterson said that even with maintenance, all septic systems will eventually fail. "The biggest thing I can emphasize is that every single one will fail," he said.

Additionally, they are seeing a change in location of lots with more people going higher and steeper to take advantage of views. He said that 65-70 percent of the permits the environmental health department issues are on slopes over 35 percent.

With the fractured and shallow soils in the mountains, effluent can travel hundreds of feet and get into groundwater and creeks, according to Patterson.

Patterson said the goal of the environmental health department is to identify the problem and work on solutions. One powerful management tool that will aid them in this process is the use of the GPS-based GIS system they have now started.

The technology will allow them to see problem areas with dry wells and polluted septic systems and provide information on septic systems and locations.

Patterson said that some other solutions that would help their department include the development of local controls including a development ordinance, animal control, trash ordinance and well program. Patterson said some of these other concerns that regulations could address divert them away from public health issues and the septic backlog.

Patterson qualified thought that staffing is the key to managing the backlog.

Farmland preservation

Chairman of the Clay County commissioners Hub Cheeks, said that he had been farming thirty four years of his life and had seen a lot of changes in agriculture.

"Anything we can do to preserve our farms is a high priority," Cheeks said. He said the aim for officials is a balancing act - leaving green space, while not stopping development.

"There's a better way,"he said. "Let's try our best to make it work together."

Jackson County commissioner and farmer William Shelton echoed Cheeks' statements.

"There has to be a balance," Shelton said. "You only way you can have sustainability is to find a balance."

Shelton said it has become all too easy for people to overlook agriculture. He encouraged audience to pay attention to agriculture, give it its respect and due and be an advocate for any preservation programs like Land for Tomorrow.

He said they need to discourage people from building in floodplain areas and use them for agriculture.

"We keep allowing them to build in the same places," Shelton said. "That just doesn't make sense."

Shelton added that he thought in this area we still have "an opportunity to be a model" in terms of small farms and sustainability.

Duke Power-Access, capacity, and other issues

Duke Energy business relations manager Fred Alexander perhaps delivered the most animated talk of the afternoon, demonstrating the importance of public awareness through a series of simulated customer calls in which he used a phone as a prop.

Addressing growth, he said that historically, the population in the parts of the far-western counties served by Nantahala Power Company started declining after 1940 when World War II erupted and did not reach the same 1940 level of population again until 1980.

In 1980, Nantahala had 32,500 customers in the far-western counties. Alexander recalled that then people termed residential areas neighborhoods, not developments.

In 2007, Duke Energy now serves 71,000 customers in these same counties, nearly double the amount, yet their service area has not expanded.

"It's a population without precedent in the mountains," Alexander said. "New residents have an impact."

He said that there are those who have moved here who do not know how to prepare for winter weather or severe storms. Alexander added that access issues in the area such as narrow and steep roads could present logistics problems for their power trucks, which have difficulty navigating them.

Like Shelton, Alexander also expressed concern about the number of houses being built in the floodplain, its affect on areas downstream and the potential flooding issues it raises.

In regards to capacity, Alexander said people have asked him if Duke Energy would have enough power to meet their future needs and he said that the answer is 'yes.'

He brought energy efficiency kits to distribute to the audience members and said that he could arrange Duke presentations about energy efficiency for various groups if they contacted him with the request.

"I believe we need to educate new residents for their sake, for our sake, for our future," Alexander said.