Winston-Salem Journal Editorial

During the summer of 2002, while North Carolina suffered through a serious drought, then-Gov. Mike Easley pleaded with residents to conserve water.

Turn off the faucet while you shave and brush your teeth, the governor suggested. His aides set up public-relations events where he walked through parched farm fields and lamented the withered crops.

At the same time, the governor’s favorite golf club, an exclusive retreat for a very small number of the state’s most influential people, was manipulating the political system to get six million gallons of water to spread on its greens. Had it not been used on the golf course, the water would have flowed into Jordan Lake, a reservoir for the Triangle.

No one has demonstrated yet that Easley had a personal hand in Old Chatham Golf Club’s securing the approval for use of the water. But evidence uncovered by McClatchy Newspapers indicates that an unidentified someone in the governor’s office contacted the N.C. Division of Water Resources to intercede in favor of the transfer.

The club’s special treatment was not illegal. Chatham County commissioners had allocated the water to the club. But the state’s consent was necessary and, at such a time, the public would have expected officials to be more sensitive to fairness concerns. At the very least, the public would have expected the state, if it could not legally block the water’s sale to Old Chatham, to at least raise a protest about it and ask local commissioners to reconsider.

In retrospect, the approval carries a bad odor considering that we now know the golf club, in 2001, had waived Easley’s responsibility for paying dues. That saved him nearly $50,000 while he was in office.

North Carolinians might have also expected more responsible behavior from the directors of the golf club, who should have never asked for special treatment. And commissioners who approved the $10,000 sale of the water from the county’s allocation don’t look too wise, either. All around, it was an affair that smacked of self-interest and disregard for the public good.

Fortunately, a repeat of the Old Chatham episode is less likely. During the more recent 2007 drought, the General Assembly began to provide the state with more authority to regulate and control water. Ironically, legislators did so at Easley’s prodding.

At the time, it may have been illegal for the state to block Chatham County’s sale of the water. Now, it clearly is within state power to do so. And there is a regulatory process in place, one that, we would hope, will be more difficult to manipulate.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. – North Carolina’s two senators plan to meet with military leaders to discuss past water contamination at Camp Lejeune. Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan will meet with leaders this afternoon.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Gov. Bev Perdue today announced a total of $45.2 million in drinking water, stormwater and wastewater projects in a second round of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) awards.  In total, 40 communities in 31 counties received second round funding.  More than half of the second-round projects were identified as “green” projects.

“These JobsNOW Recovery projects will create jobs, boost the economy, improve the state’s infrastructure and protect North Carolina’s drinking water and other water systems in the future,” said Perdue.

Nearly $23.9 million in recovery funds will be distributed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to 28 communities for public water supply projects.  New Hanover County, Jacksonville and Cary each were awarded $3 million, the maximum amount allowed by the ARRA program.  The full list of second-round drinking water award recipients is now available at: www.deh.enr.state.nc.us/pws/recovery.htm.  In April, $40.3 million in drinking water funds was awarded to 35 local systems in the initial round of projects.

In addition, awards totaling $21.3 million will go to 12 communities for wastewater and stormwater projects.  Southport, Burgaw, Brunswick County and Buncombe County received the $3 million maximum allowed under ARRA.  The full list of second-round stormwater and wastewater award recipients is available at: www.nccgl.net/Stimulus.html.  In April, $45.8 million was awarded to 36 communities for stormwater and wastewater projects.

Project awards are not final until all ARRA and other federal requirements have been met and the Local Government Commission approves the recipient’s financial qualifications.

Funds will be awarded as 50 percent zero-interest loans and 50 percent principal forgiveness loans.  In accordance with ARRA requirements, priority is given to projects that can proceed quickly, already have any required permits and have additional funding committed, if needed.

Also, non-ARRA N.C. Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund monies will provide $12 million for nine projects in Buncombe, Haywood, Macon, Vance, Polk, Caldwell and Watauga counties.  These projects primarily address failing systems and drought-related problems in the individual communities. The list of recipients can be found online at: http://www.deh.enr.state.nc.us/pws/srf/Pages/CurrentNews.htm.

For further information on ARRA drinking water project funds and criteria used in the selection process, visit the Division of Environmental Health Web site.

For more information about ARRA wastewater and stormwater project funds and the criteria used to select the recipients, visit the DWQ Web site.

WASHINGTON  – The Supreme Court refused Monday hear a Marine’s lawsuit blaming the government’s dumping of toxic chemicals at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina for his son’s illnesses.

The high court declined to hear an appeal by Donal McLean Snyder Jr. of the lower courts’ dismissal of his lawsuit.

Snyder lived at Camp Lejeune as a young 1st lieutenant the 1970s, and said the dumping of trichloroethylene, an ingredient in cleaning solvents, into the ground polluted the water.

Snyder said his son was born in 1971 with a congenital heart defect because his pregnant wife drank the water at Camp Lejeune. Donal McLean Snyder III is facing a second open heart surgery, court papers say.

The lower courts said trichloroethylene was not regulated as a dangerous substance until the late 1970s. Because of that, the government cannot be faulted for the dumping at Camp Lejeune while Snyder’s wife was living there and pregnant with their son.

The case is Snyder v. United States, 08-894.

Jim Leutze is a former professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, former president of Hampden-Sydney College and most recently chancellor of UNC-Wilmington. To read his entire column, pick up this month’s edition of Raleigh Metro Magazine or go online at http://www.metronc.com/ and click on “columnists.”

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue’s decision to take back $100 million of the Clean Water Management Trust Fund’s $121 million available for grants so that she can meet other state needs leaves The Nature Conservancy “in an extremely awkward and exposed situation,” says Raleigh Metro Magazine columnist Jim Leutze in his column in the April edition now on newsstands.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) works around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters. As a TNC member himself, Leutze explains, “We work as middlemen between private donors, trust funds and state agencies. For instance, if we find that someone wants to sell land meriting conservation adjacent to a state park — and the state doesn’t have the money — we put together a package of private donations and trust fund money, purchase the land, and hold it until the state can buy it.”

Since its official founding in 1950, TNC has managed to preserve 700,000 acres of land “that otherwise would have been lost to the public of our state,” Leutze says. To do that, TNC depends on CWMTF grants.

Now that Governor Perdue has taken the majority of the CWMTF funding back, TNC’s land acquisitions in North Carolina will not go through unless TNC comes up with all the funding itself, Leutze says, noting that the state has already lost more than 600,000 acres of farmland just between 2002-2007. Mecklenburg and Wake counties saw declines between 5000 and 20,000 acres each.

“Everyone understands that the state is in an unenviable situation,” he writes, “and when people are losing their jobs and businesses are going broke, conserving land may seem desirable but not urgent. While recognizing that reality, let me make a couple of additional points.
Land available now may not be available later — and certainly not at the price it can be purchased for today. Moreover, the fact that TNC and the CWMTF have backed out of projects in the closing phase will not add to our credibility later when we try to save other tracts from development.”

The most distressing thing, he says, is to see a long-term interest, like land conservation, sacrificed for short-term goals.