By Staff
Joining together to pay advocate on stormwater issue
By DAN PARSONS
Staff Writer
Commissioners in Washington and Beaufort counties will converge in separate meetings this week to consider hiring a lobbyist to represent their concerns with new stormwater regulations at the upcoming short session of the General Assembly.
The Washington County Board of Commissioners has scheduled a special meeting on the topic today at 8 a.m. Beaufort County commissioners will take up the issue Thursday at 1 p.m. The General Assembly opens its short session May 13.
That expenditure will not be made immediately. The coastal counties are waiting to hear if the N.C. Association of County Commissioners will help them oppose the new stormwater rules. Peoples and Beaufort County Manager Paul Spruill want to have the resolutions in place so that they can move forward with their fight against the new stormwater rules no matter what the NCACC decides in regard to supporting the coastal counties.
Changes to the stormwater rules are the result of a 2005 study by the N.C. Division of Water Quality. That study determined the stormwater regulations in place then were not protecting water quality in the state’s coastal areas. The new rules tighten triggers that require stormwater permits and mitigation measures for new and old development, which Peoples has said could “stymie development” in rural coastal counties.
Officials from the coastal counties want the General Assembly to re-examine the science used to develop that study and make sure that environmental benefits of the new rules would offset the potential cost to poor counties’ slowed economic development. That is the task the counties want the NCACC to take up and for which they may hire a lobbyist.
Peoples said Monday that support from the NCACC would not necessarily rule out the need for a lobbyist. The most likely candidate with which the counties will contract if they choose to hire a lobbyist is Oriental-based McClees Consulting, according to Peoples. The firm has more than 30 years experience in the advocacy and lobbying arenas, he said.
Peoples and managers of other coastal counties asked the NCACC in February to lobby on their behalf in opposition to the stormwater regulation changes. A meeting with NCACC representatives is set for March 31. At that time Peoples said he expects to learn if the association will agree to help the 20 coastal counties. There has been doubt the association would provide assistance because it is tasked with advocating for all 100 North Carolina counties.
At the Washington County board’s meeting March 3, Peoples advised commissioners to recess rather than adjourn so that they could be called back into session if hiring a lobbyist was deemed necessary.
Spruill said the resolutions, once passed, will obligate the counties to a “joint effort to hire a lobbyist to represent the northeastern rural counties in the stormwater issue.”