State officials plan to publish an updated and incomplete version of a strategy aimed at cleaning up Sussex County’s inland bays on May 1 that will not include a controversial buffer regulation.
The new Pollution Control Strategy — now available on the Internet at www.dnrec.delaware.gov — leaves time for more discussion after local environmentalists expressed concern and outrage over a relaxed buffer regulation in last year’s draft.
The 2006 release was wrought with controversy, mostly over the buffer regulation — leading to delays in the plan’s approval process. The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control hopes to draft a buffer regulation by this fall after receiving more input, officials said Tuesday.
A workshop on the 2007 version was preliminarily scheduled for Thursday, April 26, at the Rehoboth Beach convention center, with follow up meetings scheduled across the county for June 13 and June 14.
DNREC must publish the clean-up regulation in Delaware’s register of regulations – published at the first of every month — and wait about a month before holding a hearing.
“The buffer section is reserved. It will be essentially blank so we can continue to develop a more effective buffer regulation,” said Kevin Donnelly, director of DNREC’s water resources division. “The feedback we got from the scientific community was that a one-size-fits-all (regulation) was inadequate. We’ve listened to that and we’re committed to developing a more comprehensive buffer regulation by the fall of this year.”
Center for the Inland Bays Executive Director Ed Lewandowski, whose organization has pushed for a more stringent and thought-out regulation, remained diplomatic this week about the missing buffer section.
“We would have preferred to see a buffer strategy included as a component of the regulations that have gone to publication. But, given the complexity of the buffer issue and the conflict that surfaced after the revisions were made, I think that it’s a reasonable response to delay publication until which time they’ve had an opportunity to reconsider,” Lewandowski said.
The agency’s strategy would eliminate direct sources of pollution and regulate septic systems, stormwater systems and buffers along the inland watershed to reduce the amount of nutrients entering the bays daily by up to 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 and 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 last August’s version, the buffer would only protect perennial streams and ditches, tidal wetlands and ponds. Requirements for building the buffer are also less stringent with the current proposal.
A study authored by Center for the Inland Bays’ Science and Technical Coordinator Chris Bason and released last fall by the center blasted the effectiveness of the proposed buffer protection in the 2006 version.
Bason compared the buffers’ effectiveness in his 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 — which are used in to stimulate growth on agricultural and residential properties and enter the waters partially through runoff — cause excess growth underwater, which leads to low oxygen levels.
Bason’s report roused public concern regarding the buffer policy within the regulation.
Another significant change includes relaxing the requirement to update septic systems with advanced nutrient treatment technology, until at least 2014 — a move that could save area property owners some money, at least temporarily.