Greensboro Mayor Bill Knight has asked state officials to give cities four more years to clean up streams feeding Jordan Lake, the Triangle’s primary water supply. “Since the rules were put in place, a lot has happened in our economy,” Knight told members of Guilford County’s delegation to the General Assembly on Wednesday. He said the city needs more time to plan for expenses involved in complying with the rules. In general, the rules approved in 2009 require cities and counties upstream of Jordan Lake to take steps to clean up the water flowing out of their territory.
Earlier this month, Knight and other Greensboro officials asked that the rules be repealed entirely. That met with a withering reception from lawmakers, who said complete repeal was unlikely. Now, Knight and other city officials want to delay requirements involving cleanup of water discharged from sewage treatment plants. Under Knight’s proposals, cities in areas with streams that feed Jordan Lake would get a four-year reprieve to 2020 before they would have to meet new discharge standards. That would save the city $70 million, officials said.
Sen. Don Vaughan said the delegation might take up the rule change if Knight gets a groundswell of support. Sen. Stan Bingham, a Denton Republican who sits on the board that drafted the original rules, said he was “reluctant” to tinker with the guidelines. “It derails the whole legislative process,” Bingham said.(Mark Binker, THE NEWS & RECORD, 2/24/11).
