THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 6, 1994 TAG: 9409060058
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
The towns of Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head will seek approval Thursday of a plan to exempt a freshwater pond on the Outer Banks from regulations designed to protect rivers, ponds and reservoirs that supply drinking water in the state.
The towns will ask the state Environmental Management Commission, a panel that oversees environmental regulations throughout the state, to approve an alternate plan for protecting the freshwater pond.
Town officials say the commission's new watershed regulations are unnecessary because the pond, which supplies some of Dare County's drinking water, is already protected by other environmental regulations.
And while the exemption would allow additional development near the pond, that new development should not endanger it, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head officials said Friday.
``We're strongly in favor of protection of water quality,'' said Nags Head Town Manager Webb Fuller. ``What we don't want is to see a regulation established that has no impact on the resource.''
The freshwater pond is already protected by a Division of Coastal Management regulation that designates the pond as an ``area of environmental concern,'' making it subject to restrictions under the Coastal Area Management Act, which regulates development in the coastal region. And the pond is protected by local zoning ordinances.
``We're doing a better job of protecting it than the watershed program,'' said Greg Loy, planning director for Kill Devil Hills. ``When they wrote the watershed regulations, they had a broad brush, but we had a sharp pen.''
The watershed program began after the General Assembly passed the Water Supply Watershed Protection Act in 1989. Considered the first of its kind in the nation, the act is based on the premise that curbing growth in drainage basins will prevent the pollution of surface water supplies.
About 26 percent of the land in the state, most of which lies west of Raleigh, and about 200 bodies of water fall within the jurisdiction of regulations protecting the watersheds.
The entire plan is to be implemented this year.
Freshwater ponds were among a handful of northeastern North Carolina waterways designated for protection as a surface water supply. It was designated WS-III, which allows low to moderate development and some industrial and commercial development.
Fuller said that runoff from any new development allowed by the exemption will drain away from the pond and will not be a danger to the drinking water supply.
The Environmental Management Commission's Water Quality Committee approved the alternate management strategy at its July meeting and has recommended that the commission also approve the change. by CNB