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Protect Our Shared Water Resources
A perspective from John Dempsey
Field researchers began documenting Urban Stream Syndrome as a primary threat to watersheds and water resources in the early 2000’s. Urban Stream Syndrome (USS) describes the consistently and universally observed ecological degradation of streams draining urban land. Particularly hard hit are those areas experiencing intense urban development, such as here in Orange County and the greater Triangle area.
Orange County is currently working to update their Comprehensive Land Use Plan, (CLUP 2050). This document will guide land use and zoning decisions for decades to come. It was last updated in 2008. That was around the time when Urban Stream Syndrome was first being defined.
Since then it has become a major concern and focus of scientific field research on water management practices. The Orange County Board of Commissioners and the Orange County Planning and Inspections Department need to set UDO reforms as CLUP 2050’s first priority. These overdue reforms need to be based on that peer-reviewed, scientific research done since the previous update. Failure to do so would codify outdated development policies as far out as 2050 and that would guarantee the further degradation of our vital water resources. Use your outdoor voice to advise your elected county officials to protect our shared water resources and bring development practices and our UDO into compliance with the science.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
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