scotty80
06-27-2007, 10:12 PM
Proposal to clean up Inland Bays drafted
Already rejected twice, DNREC compromises
By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal
Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Delaware's environmental chief Tuesday offered a compromise plan to reduce pollution running into Sussex County's Inland Bays.
Under the proposal by John A. Hughes, the state's environmental agency would publish a plan for the Inland Bays around Oct. 1, replacing a version currently up for public comment. The new draft would combine rules for septic systems and stormwater management with regulations for protective buffer strips around the waterways.
A plan to control pollution running into the environmentally sensitive bodies of water -- Rehoboth, Indian River and Little Assawoman bays -- has repeatedly been delayed.
Hughes said he would personally work to develop an acceptable plan, but warned that further delays could lead to legal challenges.
"I must advise you that this will be the third time the department has taken this proposed regulation to the public, only to be restrained by threatened legislative action," Hughes wrote to Sen. Robert Venables, D-Laurel. "It is my belief that neither DNREC nor the watchful environmental community can countenance further delay."
The offer came after a resolution was introduced in the Senate that called on DNREC to halt action on the septic and stormwater rules.
Rich Collins, who directs the Sussex County-based Positive Growth Alliance, said that his group viewed DNREC's current septic-system proposals as a potentially crippling expense for homeowners.
"We are very much opposed to the way this thing is working right now, and we want to see some changes," Collins said. "We are happy, certainly, with the action to postpone. There needs to be more communication."
Among other features, DNREC's current approach would establish new inspection and maintenance rules for septic systems, which break down sewage in underground tanks and trickle wastewater into soil. The regulations also establish new pollution-removal standards for the future and upgrade requirements for new or replacement systems.
State planners estimated that the septic rules would cost about $13 million annually across the region.
The state also sought creation of "buffer strips" around key streams, ponds and bays where construction and septics would be banned or tightly controlled. DNREC initially proposed a 50-foot buffer, fell back to a 100-foot proposal and now is considering use of more-flexible categories that take local conditions into account.
Regulations adopted in 1998 under terms of a federal lawsuit settlement call for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution flows by 40 percent to 85 percent across the bays. Both types of runoff have been blamed for feeding harmful algal blooms and creating low oxygen conditions that kill fish.
??? (http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070627/NEWS/706270424/1006/NEWS)
Already rejected twice, DNREC compromises
By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal
Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Delaware's environmental chief Tuesday offered a compromise plan to reduce pollution running into Sussex County's Inland Bays.
Under the proposal by John A. Hughes, the state's environmental agency would publish a plan for the Inland Bays around Oct. 1, replacing a version currently up for public comment. The new draft would combine rules for septic systems and stormwater management with regulations for protective buffer strips around the waterways.
A plan to control pollution running into the environmentally sensitive bodies of water -- Rehoboth, Indian River and Little Assawoman bays -- has repeatedly been delayed.
Hughes said he would personally work to develop an acceptable plan, but warned that further delays could lead to legal challenges.
"I must advise you that this will be the third time the department has taken this proposed regulation to the public, only to be restrained by threatened legislative action," Hughes wrote to Sen. Robert Venables, D-Laurel. "It is my belief that neither DNREC nor the watchful environmental community can countenance further delay."
The offer came after a resolution was introduced in the Senate that called on DNREC to halt action on the septic and stormwater rules.
Rich Collins, who directs the Sussex County-based Positive Growth Alliance, said that his group viewed DNREC's current septic-system proposals as a potentially crippling expense for homeowners.
"We are very much opposed to the way this thing is working right now, and we want to see some changes," Collins said. "We are happy, certainly, with the action to postpone. There needs to be more communication."
Among other features, DNREC's current approach would establish new inspection and maintenance rules for septic systems, which break down sewage in underground tanks and trickle wastewater into soil. The regulations also establish new pollution-removal standards for the future and upgrade requirements for new or replacement systems.
State planners estimated that the septic rules would cost about $13 million annually across the region.
The state also sought creation of "buffer strips" around key streams, ponds and bays where construction and septics would be banned or tightly controlled. DNREC initially proposed a 50-foot buffer, fell back to a 100-foot proposal and now is considering use of more-flexible categories that take local conditions into account.
Regulations adopted in 1998 under terms of a federal lawsuit settlement call for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution flows by 40 percent to 85 percent across the bays. Both types of runoff have been blamed for feeding harmful algal blooms and creating low oxygen conditions that kill fish.
??? (http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070627/NEWS/706270424/1006/NEWS)