N.C. Ecosystem Enhancement Program (EEP)
By combining duplicative state operations into a single focused initiative, the N.C. Ecosystem Enhancement Program provides more efficient and effective use of resources in North Carolina. In its first year, EEP achieved tangible results toward its goals of restoring, enhancing and protecting the state's ecosystems and fostering responsible growth.
EEP has allocated more than $30 million in existing funds toward preservation of natural areas that helped to protect more than 19,000 acres of high-quality assets, about 70 miles of streams, and more than 600 acres of wetlands. Another 4,600 acres of wetlands were under option or awaiting final acquisition as of August, including an additional 38 miles of streams. Largely because of these activities, EEP, in its first year, helped to facilitate permitting for almost $190 million in transportation-infrastructure improvements in North Carolina. If current schedules are maintained for planned road projects, another roughly $500 million in construction could be approved in 2004 because of EEP's contribution to offsetting unavoidable environmental damage.
The program is working statewide to restore and enhance streams, wetlands and other sensitive areas. EEP and its private-sector partners are carrying out nearly 400 active projects, including 215 stream projects totaling 780,000 linear feet of restoration, and about 7,600 acres of wetland restoration in 125 projects. The program also entered into more than $30 million in contracts with wetlands-mitigation bankers for 14 restoration projects across the state, and has 22 local watershed plans completed or underway.
Working Lands Conservation Plan Update
Following the highly successful Summit on Working Lands Conservation held in January 2004 during the N. C. Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts' Annual Meeting, progress continues on a Working Lands Conservation Plan for North Carolina. The plan, currently in draft form, is being fine-tuned by a committee comprised of representatives from the same organizations that helped to plan the summit: the N. C. Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts; the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Division of Soil and Water Conservation, Division of Forest Resources, and Office of Conservation and Community Affairs (One North Carolina Naturally); N.C. Farm Bureau Federation; N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services; the Conservation Trust for North Carolina; N.C. State University Cooperative Extension Service; USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; American Farmland Trust; N. C. Soil and Water Conservation Commission; The Conservation Fund; the N. C. Association of County Commissioners; and Piedmont Land Conservancy.
The North Carolina Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts will take action to endorse the final version of the working lands conservation plan at their January 2005 Annual Meeting. The association will partner with the Division of Forest Resources and forestry association in their similar effort.
The working lands plan will include possible actions by the association, agencies, partners and the General Assembly to place greater emphasis on working lands conservation programs and services. It will help to build partnerships to support the growth of overall conservation funding in North Carolina. The working lands conservation plan will do much to advance the footprint of working lands conservation in North Carolina.
N.C. Forestry Summits -
Conservation, Incentives Are Keys To Sustaining NC Forests
Hundreds of North Carolina landowners participated in the two "2004 North Carolina Forestry Summits: Sustaining Working Forests," held this summer in Smithfield and Statesville. The take-home message from these summits is that forest landowners need more incentives to promote conservation and sustain North Carolina forests. The summits sprang from the One North Carolina Naturally Initiative, a long-term plan aimed at conserving North Carolina's land and water resources.
Trees are one of North Carolina's greatest renewable resources and provide homes for wildlife, clean air and water, and erosion control and also fuel the state's second largest industry. North Carolina lost 1 million acres of forestland between 1990 and 2002, according to an inventory released in the spring by the N.C. Division of Forest Resources and the U.S. Forest Service.
"It simply seems to me that we haven't done all we could to promote incentives to private landowners to promote conservation,"said Bill Ross, secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. "Between 8 and 9 acres of every 10 acres in North Carolina is privately-owned. If the forests were to disappear on privately held land, we who live here would have a much smaller opportunity to have a healthy and prosperous life."
Officials and landowners from more than 15 government and private agencies discussed with forest landowners issues such as soil conservation, better forest stewardship and available tax credits for forest landowners. Several landowners said they are committed to keeping their land in forests, but are hurt by the level of taxation.
Stan Adams, NCDFR Director, said many landowners are selling their property for development because the cost of keeping land is prohibitive. The forest inventory states that North Carolina is losing most of its forestland to urban development. "Increasing financial incentives both for cost-sharing and forestry practices and for the purchase of easements would be a very important incentive for people to save their land."
N.C. Environmental Commissions Review
Historic Coastal Habitat Protection Plan at Joint Meeting In Raleigh
Members of North Carolina's three main environmental commissions met Sept. 9 in Raleigh to review and discuss a historic plan designed to change the way the state protects special places along the coast that are critical to the survival of flounder, oysters, red drum and other marine creatures.
"This is an important day in North Carolina's efforts to manage its natural resources," said Bill Ross, secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, before presenting the proposed Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, or CHPP, to the Environmental Management, Coastal Resources and Marine Fisheries commissions.
Required by the Fisheries Reform Act passed by the N.C. General Assembly in 1997 as a way to recover slumping fish stocks, the draft CHPP describes critical habitats where marine fish and shellfish feed, spawn and grow. It also details the threats to those habitats and outlines four broad goals that need to be reached in order to protect and enhance each habitat. A committee comprised of members from each of the three commissions guided the drafters of the CHPP.
The legislation also directed, for the first time, the three commissions to cooperate to carry out the goals outlined in the plan. The plan has been the subject of 20 public meetings across the state during the past two years. The three commissions have until the end of the year to adopt the plan and then must devise coordinated strategies to meet its goals.
Mike Street, chief of the Habitat Protection Section of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, detailed some of those problems. The draft CHPP, he told the commission members, describes six types of critical marine habitats - the water, wetlands, underwater sea grasses, and water bottoms made up of shell, mud, sand or rock. Many types of fish and shellfish rely on more than one type of habitat during their lifetimes.
Some of the habitats have been severely stressed, with dire consequences for the creatures that depend on them, according to Street. Oysters, for instance, need water bottoms made of shell, usually of other oyster shells. But oyster dredging more than 100 years ago decimated many of the state's shell bottoms, and oyster harvests have been in a slow decline since. The commercial catch is now at historic lows.
Stormwater runoff contains sediment that clouds the water, affecting the growth of underwater grasses that are crucial to the survival of bay scallops and the young of many fish species, Street explained. The runoff can also contain bacteria, he said, making oysters and clams unsafe to eat. Some fishing practices, such as mechanical oyster dredging, can dig up sea grass beds and create clouds of turbidity.
To protect and enhance those habitats, the draft CHPP includes a set of broad goals with specific recommendations related to each goal. The four broad goals are to:
- Improve the effectiveness of existing rules and programs protecting coastal fish habitats.
- Identify, designate and protect Strategic Habitat Areas.
- Enhance and protect important habitats.
- Enhance and protect water quality.
Barbara Garrity-Blake, a member of the Marine Fisheries Commission, chaired the Intercommission Review Committee that fashioned the goals and recommendations. Improving the effectiveness of existing rules, she said, was the major concern of the people who attended the public meetings, and the Strategic Habitat Areas are those "super habitats" that deserve particular attention. "That goal recognizes that, though all fish habitats are important, there are some areas that are especially important," Garrity-Blake said. "So let's concentrate on those areas."
Reaching those goals won't always require new rules, Ross said. He offered the commission members a far-ranging list of suggested steps his department could take that require no new rules. Coordinating enforcement among the department's agencies, issuing an annual report on the status of the CHPP, mapping underwater grass beds and oyster shell bottoms, and working to better educate the public about the importance of fish habitats are just some of those steps.
To learn more about the CHPP or to download a copy of the plan, visit www.ncfisheries.net, or call the Division of Marine Fisheries at (252) 726-7021 or (800) 682-2632.
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