Pollution strategy hearing delayed
A public hearing will not be held on a groundbreaking state regulation to clean up Delaware’s Inland Bays until at least late February, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control spokespersons announced recently.
A public hearing must be held on the regulation before the agency considers adoption. Officials had originally anticipated a late-January hearing but that was delayed because of an influx of comments on the most recent draft of the Pollution Control Strategy.
DNREC officials said they also wanted to give legislators time to formally comment on the draft before going to a hearing but they would not comment directly on the possibility of further changes in the regulation or its controversial buffer policy.
“At this point, we’ve made no changes. But that doesn’t mean changes won’t be made,” said Kevin Donnelly, director of DNREC’s Division of Water Resources.
“We just want to make sure we have the best information available before we move forward,” said Kathy Bunting-Howarth, DNREC’s principal planner working on the regulations.
DNREC must publish the clean-up regulations in Delaware’s register of regulations – published at the first of every month – and wait about a month before holding a hearing.
The agency’s regulation would eliminate direct sources of pollution and regulate septic systems and buffers along the inland watershed, aiming to reduce the amount of nutrients entering the bays daily by as much as 85 percent.
Buffer widths and sizes in the 2006 version drew criticism late last year. The proposed buffer regulation in the spring 2005 version of the PCS would have protected perennial and intermittent streams; ditches, tidal and non-tidal wetlands; and ponds on developed lands with a 100-foot buffer.
After meeting with The Coalition, a group of property-rights advocates in the area, officials reduced the buffer’s application and its width to 50 feet in the 2006 version of the proposed regulation, citing potentially serious economic impacts on area property owners.
Under the newest proposed strategy, released this August, the buffer would only protect perennial streams and ditches, tidal wetlands and ponds. Requirements for building the buffer are also less stringent under the current proposal.
However, a study authored by Center for the Inland Bays’ Science and Technical Coordinator Chris Bason, released last fall by the center, blasted the effectiveness of the proposed buffer protection in the August 2006 version.
Bason compared the buffers’ effectiveness in an analysis on Hopkins Prong and Dirickson Creek, two waterways picked arbitrarily, according to the report. The proposed buffer regulation in the 2006 version would eliminate 99 percent less nitrogen annually than the 2005 version in Hopkins Prong and 97.7 percent less nitrogen in Dirickson Creek, Bason reported. The numbers for phosphorous load reductions are almost identical.
Both nutrients are used in fertilizers applied to stimulate growth of crops and other plants on agricultural and residential properties, and enter the area’s waters partially through runoff. They cause excess growth underwater, leading to low oxygen levels and the increased potential for fish kills and other environmental problems.
Bason’s report roused a backlash of public concern regarding the reduced buffer policy within the 2006 strategy, Bunting-Howarth said.
“There’s a lot of science out there about buffers. We’re trying to weigh the science and the policy,” Bunting-Howarth added. “We’re considering all of the comments.”
Bason declined to comment for this report. Ed Lewandowski, executive director of the Center for the Inland Bays, was not immediately available for comment.
