Comments/Letters - Feb. 2022

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Letters to Cape Gazette, Coastal Points and Delaware State News

From SARG- HISTORIC WETLANDS BUFFER REFORMS WEAKENED BY PROPOSED OPTIONS

1/8/2022


After the recent nearly 3 years of study, discussion, and debate, and guided by the 2018 Comprehensive Plan, the Sussex County Council is holding a Public Hearing on a proposed Ordinance Amendment to consider the modernization of the 32 year old § 115-193 Buffer Zones for Wetlands and Tidal and Perennial Nontidal Waters Ordinance. The proposed ordinance amendment is focused on improved protection of property values and safety of its residents by requiring more extensive natural buffers between new residential developments and its wetlands and waters as well as substantial enhancements to ensure that Sussex County’s drainage network is improved now and maintained in the future. Considered by many as the potential for the most monumental environmental legislation in the history of Sussex County, this action places significant responsibility on the shoulders of our elected Council.


The Council Public Hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, January , 11, 2022 at 10:30 am @ the County Chambers in Georgetown.


The agenda can be viewed @ https://sussexcountyde.gov/sites/default/files/agendas/011122%20Final.pdf

AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 99, SECTIONS 99-5, 99-6, 99-7, 1 99-23, 99-24, 99-26, AND 99-30, AND CHAPTER 115 SECTIONS 115-4, 115-25, 115-193, 115-220 AND 115-221 REGARDING CERTAIN DRAINAGE FEATURES, WETLAND AND WATER RESOURCES AND THE BUFFERS THERETO.

The complete proposed Ordinance Amendment can be accessed at the link below;

https://sussexcountyde.gov/sites/default/files/packets/Sussex%20County%20-%20Drainage%20and%20Resource%20Buffer%20-%20Recommended%20by%20the%20PC%2012.15.2021.pdf

It is SARG’s position that the Council has been stalwart over the past three years in recognizing the need to employ key County Comprehensive Plan strategies for preserving environmental areas and encouraging development practices and regulations that support natural resource protection. These efforts included a significant investment in an outside consultant to facilitate a Buffer Wetland Workgroup comprised of outside professionals and County staff as well as managing the review process through past and present pandemic conditions. The workgroup focused on defining the purpose, function, and benefits of proper buffers to;

• Protect the Resources and their associated functions

• Improve/protect water quality via sediment filtration, reduce impact of nutrient loading on Resources, moderate water temperature, and enhance infiltration and stabilization of channel banks

• Provide wildlife habitat via nesting, breeding, and feeding opportunities; provide sanctuary/refuge during high water events; protect critical water’s edge habitat; and protect rare, threatened, and endangered species associated with each Resource and its upland edge

• Enhance and/or maintain the flood plain storage functionality via reduction of flood conveyance velocities as well as dissipation of stormwater discharge energy.

The workgroup through a consensus building process arrived at both qualitative and quantitative measures for buffer widths and permitted and non-permitted uses as well as an understanding for the irregularities of natural resource areas and the need for the incorporation of a buffer averaging approach to provide flexibility in site design for prospective landowners and developers.

After achieving a level of consensus, recommendations were delivered to the Council in September of 2019 at which time the workgroup’s work was paused to the pandemic. Since that time work continued primarily at the County level. As with many initiatives especially ones of this magnitude there is always the influence of special interests without the benefit of the consensus process. As a member of the Wetland Buffer Workgroup and in consultation with other workgroup participants, there is clear agreement that certain provisions in today’s 12/17/2021 Proposed Amendment do not have the benefit of the consensus approach and in fact place in jeopardy even to the point of potentially taking a number of steps backward.

In a recent interview in the Cape Gazette, Chris Bason, Wetland Group member and Director for the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays shared his concerns:

“ Forests provide the best protection against pollution and are essential wildlife habitat. But the ordinance allows forests to be cut down up to the time that an application for development is submitted. Trees do not need to be planted back in the buffer when the site is developed and the buffer can be maintained as grass.

The second step backward is a series of allowances to reduce the widths of the buffers. For example, if an existing forest in a buffer is maintained, then the width of a buffer can be cut in half. This eliminates gains in the width provided for buffers of tidal wetlands and waters, and reduces minimum buffer widths on larger streams to 25 feet. In the same fashion, the buffers may be reduced or eliminated around the new development's property boundary; which buffers existing residents, not waterways, from new construction.

Finally, buffers can be reduced or eliminated in exchange for creating buffer easements in areas far from the development itself.

The good news is that these issues can simply be resolved so that the ordinance fulfills its purposes. First, if a buffer is not forested at the time the development application is submitted, it must be replanted to a forest before construction is complete. This provides an economic incentive for developers to keep the trees, and it is what other nearby jurisdictions have required for a long time. Second, buffer widths must be maintained at their newly increased widths, plain and simple, and options to reduce buffer width dropped. Finally, clear language on how the ordinance will be enforced by the County needs to be added to ensure buffers will be maintained; this is not always the case currently.


The benefits that the County’s wetlands and waterways provide are critical to its economy and the wellbeing of its residents. Providing adequate protection now will help to clean up our waters, protect our wildlife, and reduce the impacts of flooding on new and existing communities.”

Please do your part to not allow the needed progress with environmental protection and preservation to be highjacked!


Let your Council person know;

  • If you believe that the proposed new and improved buffer widths should be enforced without any potential for reductions other than buffer averaging

  • If you believe that deforested areas in buffers should be replanted with trees

  • If you believe that developers should not be permitted to reduce or eliminate Forest/Landscape buffers between new and existing developments Lines 781- 806

  • If you believe that a developer should not be able to reduce buffers in a new development in exchange for an off site easement buffer that may be miles away from the proposed development 808-871

  • If you believe that the proposed ordinance amendment is unnecessarily overly complicated

  • If you believe that the potential for any combination of buffer averaging and buffer options/incentives could result in buffers that are more inadequate than what we currently have today must be eliminated

  • If you believe that the proposed amendment would be an absolute nightmare to administer

  • If you believe that any offsite buffer easement would be unmanageable for future HOA’


Share your concerns regarding

AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 99, SECTIONS 99-5, 99-6, 99-7, 1 99-23, 99-24, 99-26, AND 99-30, AND CHAPTER 115 SECTIONS 115-4, 115-25, 115-193, 115-220 AND 115-221 REGARDING CERTAIN DRAINAGE FEATURES, WETLAND AND WATER RESOURCES AND THE BUFFERS THERETO.

By

  • Attending the Tuesday January 11, 2022 Council Meeting Council Chambers, Sussex County Administrative Office Building, 2 The Circle, Georgetown, Delaware

or

  • Listening and watching the public hearing on line and when prompted share your comments by following the instructions below:

The meeting will be streamed live @

https://sussexcountyde.gov/council-chamber-broadcast

The County provides a dial-in number for the public to comment during the appropriate time of the meeting. Note, the on-line stream experiences a 30-second delay.

Any person who dials in should listen to the teleconference audio to avoid the on-line stream delay.

To join the meeting via telephone, please dial:

Conference Number: 1-302-394-5036

Conference Code: 570176

Members of the public joining the meeting on the telephone will be provided an opportunity to make comments under the Public Comment section of the meeting and during the respective Public Hearing.

or

  • Go the County website link below and email County Council Members

https://sussexcountyde.gov/county-council

· Write and send a Letter to the Editor of your local and regional newspaper

Please forward this email to friends, neighbors and to members of organizations to get the word out!

Thanks in advance for your concerns and support!

SussexCountyCouncilLetter_Feb172022_v1.docx
Public Comments - Drainage, Wetlands and Water Resources Ordinance Supplemental.pdf