Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/656512
MARCH 23-29, 2016 UCW 23 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Here is some troubling but hardly unexpected news about the solar-powered water mixer boondoggle approved by the 2013 General Assembly to avoid implementing common sense water quality rules to protect Jordan Lake. It doesn't work. An interim report released last year showed the so called SolarBees that were somehow supposed to reduce algae blooms in the lake merely by mixing the water up weren't working at all, but that didn't stop the General Assembly last year from throwing good taxpayer money after bad and spending another $1.5 million on top of the $1.3 million spent on the SolarBees in 2013. There was also talk of expanding the program to Falls Lake too. Supporters of the scheme said it was too early to tell if the mixers were cleaning up the lake and asked for more time and money. But the latest report from the Division of Environmental Quality makes it clear that more time hasn't helped. The report says that the solar mixers are unlikely to improve water quality and "appear to contradict the fundamental premise of the Clean Water Act, which seeks reduction of pollutants to waters of the United States." And in case that's not enough, the report also says the mixers can cause other problems downstream and could become a hazard for boaters. Several of the 850-pound devices left their project zone area of the lake this winter thanks to storms and high winds, going rogue — as one news account put it — for weeks at time. It is now indisputable that the mixers still in place aren't doing anything about the algae problem, which makes sense when you think about it. As Mary McLean Asbill of the Southern Environmental Law Center told ABC11 News, "The pollution needs to be stopped before entering the lake. It is absurd to think you can remove the pollution from the lake without doing anything to stem the flow of it into the lake." It is absurd indeed, but that's exactly what legislative leaders said would happen when they approved the no-bid contract with the company that makes the giant mixers that are supposed to miraculously stir the lake clean. And their failure has cost more than just the several millions of dollars of taxpayer money that were wasted. The folly of the SolarBees means that the pollution in Jordan Lake has not been addressed and it's the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people. The water quality in the lake has been a problem for a long time. That's why the federal government told the state years ago to figure out a way to reduce the pollution at its source as the Clean Water Act requires. The decision to try solar mixers instead meant a long delay in the rules to clean up the lake that were developed in 2009 after years of a painstaking process that included input from environmentalists, developers, municipalities and the general public. Lawmakers stepped in and postponed the rules and then postponed them again and then came up with the flawed solar mixer solution that has done nothing but make some money for the company that manufactures the devices. It's time for lawmakers to stop the swirling mixers and start improving the water quality in the lake by reducing the pollution flowing into it. Stirring the water is not enough. It seems like they would have known that from the beginning — several million dollars ago. Have you had enough of presidential candidates flying in and out of North Carolina looking for primary votes? Wouldn't it be nice if they came to see us after the election, like our first president, George Washington, who visited North Carolina soon after he took office? Thanks to a new book by Warren Bingham, George Washington's 1791 Southern Tour, we can follow that trip traveling in Washington's shoes. The new book explains that the president of the new country wanted to visit the different regions to promote unity after the recent bitter battles over adoption of the Constitution had left divisive feelings in states like North Carolina. Because the book follows Washington's travels day-by-day with detailed information about each stop, it provides a nice itinerary for a modern traveler who wants to see our state the way George Washington did. Coming from Virginia, Washington's first stop was at Halifax along the Roanoke River, a few miles south of today's Roanoke Rapids. Halifax was an important place, a center of politics and commerce. It was the home of William R. Davie, a founder of the University of North Carolina and a strong advocate of the nation's new federal constitution. The state's leading opponent of that constitution, Wiley Jones, also lived there. Thanks to the old town's status as a historic site, some of the buildings that Washington saw and visited in April 1791 are still there. From Halifax Washington's party made its way to Tarboro where he was underwhelmed by a one-gun salute. But he must have been impressed by the lovely town commons established in 1760. Still in existence, it is on my list of must- experience places. In New Bern, Washington dined and danced at the Tryon Palace, now rebuilt and restored for modern visitors to enjoy. After a long passage through longleaf pine forests, the party arrived in Wilmington, then the state's largest city. "Though it was Easter," writes Bingham, "Washington did not attend a church service." The DuBois Boatwright House at 14 South Third Street and the Mitchell- Anderson House at 102 Orange Street are among the few existing buildings that Washington might have seen in 1791. From Wilmington, the party moved into South Carolina on April 27. After a few weeks in South Carolina and Georgia, the party came back into North Carolina on Saturday, May 28. That was after, writes Bingham, "the president reluctantly met with Catawba Indian leaders" who were concerned, with good reason, about losing their lands which covered areas now occupied by Rock Hill and Fort Mill. In his diary entry for May 28, Washington wrote, "Charlotte is a very trifling place." His host was Thomas Polk, great-uncle of future president James K. Polk. President Polk's birthplace in nearby Pineville, built in 1796, can give an idea of the modest buildings Washington saw while in Charlotte. After a stop at Martin Phifer's farm near Concord, the group arrived in Salisbury on May 30. Now in a hurry to get back home, Washington left the next day at 4 a.m., crossing the Yadkin River at Long's Ferry where "ferryman's Alexander Long's fine home from 1786 still stands." Then Washington sped to Salem, where he spent two nights enjoying Moravian hospitality in buildings that modern travelers may still visit. After a short visit to the Guilford Courthouse battlefield, Washington headed home. Shortly after crossing into Virginia on June 4, he wrote that the people he had visited "appeared to be happy, contented and satisfied with the genl. governmt. under which they were placed. Where the case was otherwise, it was not difficult to trace the cause to some demagogue, or speculating character." Did they have demagogues back then, too? Tracing the Cause of Discontent by D.G. MARTIN Do Solar Mixers Improve Water Quality? by CHRIS FITZSIMON The so called SolarBees that were somehow supposed to reduce algae blooms in the lake merely by mixing the water up weren't working at all, but that didn't stop the General Assembly last year from throwing good taxpayer money after bad. D.G. MARTIN, Host of UNCs Book Watch, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200 CHRIS FITZSIMON, Founder and Executive Director of NC Policy Watch, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com.