
{"id":14314,"date":"2010-12-02T10:57:50","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T15:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=14314"},"modified":"2010-12-02T11:10:13","modified_gmt":"2010-12-02T16:10:13","slug":"residents-oppose-owasa-logging-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/12\/02\/residents-oppose-owasa-logging-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents oppose OWASA logging plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\n<strong><em>Hillsborough<\/strong><\/em> At a heated public forum attended by about 150 people at the Maple View Agricultural Center Tuesday evening, county residents told Orange Water and Sewer Authority administrators they strongly oppose the utility\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s forest-management plan for 1,900 acres in Orange and Chatham counties.<br \/>\nThroughout the meeting, attendees held signs that read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No more OWASA logging,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d shouted questions at OWASA administrators and repeatedly asked OWASA to revise the plan.<br \/>\nDavid Halley, owner of True North Forest Management Services, the company hired by OWASA to develop and implement the plan, said the plan breaks up the 1,900 acres into 17 properties with different types of forests, including areas around Cane Creek, Mt. Mitchell, Thunder Mountain and other parts of Orange and Chatham counties. Halley said the plan includes protection for riparian buffers and involves hardwood and pine thinnings, cutting of low-quality trees, small group opening harvests, controlled burnings of understory and reforesting. It also includes clear cuts in some areas and herbicide control of hardwood sprouts and weed species.<br \/>\nResidents expressed strong opposition to the plan, citing concerns about the use of herbicides, the effects of clear cuts on wildlife, the disruption caused by forestry operations and the effects of the plan on drinking water.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that OWASA has lost its compass,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Michael Hughes said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think the plan is misguided.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nSeveral residents also expressed concern that they had not been informed about the plan or the meeting and called for more time to provide feedback. The public-comment period for the plan was scheduled to close today (Thursday), but OWASA board members indicated they would likely vote to extend the period at their Dec. 9 meeting.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There are multiple objectives, competing objectives, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to balance that in a way that makes sense,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Patrick Davis, OWASA sustainability manager.<br \/>\nOWASA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s primary objective for the plan, according to authority officials, is to protect water quality. Other objectives include establishing and maintaining riparian buffers, enhancing forest conditions, minimizing the impact of forestry-management activities on adjacent properties, restoring and enhancing the overall quality of OWASA-owned woodlands and generating revenue through sustainable timber harvests.<br \/>\nAccording to Halley, about 500 acres of the plan area are protected as riparian buffers.<br \/>\nConcerns<br \/>\nResidents said they were skeptical of OWASA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motives, given that no financial analysis was included with the plan. Davis said the authority had not yet run the numbers, but that that information would be made available to residents.<br \/>\nMac Clarke, chair of the OWASA board\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s finance committee, said the plan strives to be cost-neutral.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to make money, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to lose money,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost impossible to set up any project just to break even&#8230;. The thing we want to avoid are losses.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nJim Warren said he felt that allowing True North to conduct both the assessment and implementation of the plan presented a conflict of interest.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any problem with True North making a living. You guys have got to do it, but frankly this was a bad mistake hiring a company to do the assessment that you then would hire to do the work,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Warren said.<br \/>\nDerb Carter, who works with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the plan focused too much on economics and not enough on science.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What we have here is a plan that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s driven by the lowest priority,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I saw the word \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcovermature.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122&#8230; That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s purely an economic term. That has no basis in science or ecology at all.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nRobin Mulkey said she was concerned that the plan applied some of the Jordan Lake Rules to its riparian buffers, some of which are listed at 50 feet.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I find it very ironic we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re using rules for Jordan Lake. The reason we have Cane Creek Reservoir is because OWASA said Jordan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s water wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t good enough for them,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The quality wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t good enough, but the rules were good enough.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nAlex Hessler, one of the few speakers from the audience who wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t completely opposed to the plan, drew boos from some audience members.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not opposed to logging and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not necessarily for all logging,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just want to urge you to recognize that timber harvest is an important thing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a vital thing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nThe OWASA board meets Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. at the OWASA Administrative Building at 400 Jones Ferry Road. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday evening, county residents told Orange Water and Sewer Authority administrators they strongly oppose the utility\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s forest-management plan for 1,900 acres in Orange and Chatham counties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14320,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14314\/revisions\/14320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}