Pickens County Progress
July 21, 2005
Etowah habitat planners hold first in series of land use meetings: Most agree on where growth is headed, but opinions vary on need of environmental protection
Pickens residents generally agreed where commercial development is headed during a public meeting for the Etowah Habitat Conservation Plan Wednesday.
But developers, environmentalists, Jasper city officials and Etowah conservation planners certainly did not agree on the extent that endangered fish in the Long swamp Creek Corridor need protection.
The meeting at the Jasper Family Steakhouse, coordinated by staff from Etowah Habitat Conservation Plan, was intended to give their biologists and planners insight into where local residents believe commercial growth is likely to occur. Predicted growth can then be "modeled" to forecast its effects on endangered darters found only in the streams of the Etowah drainage.
Once modeling is complete, a second meeting will be held to see how closely ideas of the forty people who attended the first open meeting mesh with the goals of the habitat conservation planners.
According to staff with the Etowah Aquatic HCP, federal endangered species laws make it mandatory that Etowah and Bronze darters and their habitats are protected. Creating a single plan for the entire watershed is considered more feasible than having each developer create their own plan because of the amount of testing and monitoring involved.
Pickens was chosen as a pilot program, because there is still
open land to work with here, and existing county land use ordinances
already mesh well with provisions required to protect the fish and
their habitat, according to speakers at the meeting.
Etowah Aquatic HCP Director Laurie Fowler said Pickens County was
chosen to be the pilot, because zoning in place here may already be
sufficient to offer the protection needed."In many instances, Pickens County is already consistent with
the types of protection we're looking for," she said. "Pickens County
comes much, much closer than many other counties."
The consensus Wednesday was commercial growth is either inevitable or most appropriate in the city of Jasper, along Highway 515, along some portions of Highway 53 and at the intersection of Steve Tate Highway and Highway 53.
Discussion in the packed room ranged from questions on darter genetics to general comments on growth. The meeting began at 7 p.m. and at 9:30 p.m., the Etowah Aquatic HCP staff had to break-up still running discussions among many participants so restaurant employees could clean the room. Outreach Coordinator for the Etowah Aquatic HCP Curt Gervich said later it was amazing to have that many people still there actively discussing the issues almost three hours later.
Gervich said there will be a series of meetings throughout the summer on different aspects of the land use portion of the protection plan. Technical aspects are being discussed through local builders, developers and engineers.
The meeting began with staff of the Etowah Aquatic HCP presenting some basic information.
Seth Wenger, a biologist from River Basins Institute of the University of Georgia, gave a presentation of the darters and the science behind the plan.
Stormwater runoff is the greatest single threat to the darter population and habitat water quality, he said.
Wenger said they had conducted some testing to determine if the fish population is still being affected by previous agricultural land use from past decades or if it is current usage affecting the fish. Based on research, Wenger said, darters are sensitive to current usage, particularly the effects of increasing numbers of impervious surfaces like rooftops and paved areas."We are fairly confident the fish are responding to current use," he said.
According to their research, the Bronze Darter population usually begins to be affected when the watershed reaches a point where 13 percent of its land area is covered by impervious surfaces.
The federally endangered Etowah Darter is much more sensitive. According to information presented by Wenger, the Etowah Darter is impacted when impervious surfaces cover about two percent of the total drainage area.
Wenger said with these thresholds, largescale commercial development may have to be limited in some "priority one" areas, but much depends on the types of developments and where they are.
It is generally believed that residential development no more dense than one unit per acre will not significantly impact the fish, particularly if developers plan for handling stormwater runoff. "We can never make dense commercial areas act like a forest, [in absorbing rainwater]," he said. "But we can work on it."
During the first round of questions, Jasper Mayor John Weaver was critical of the entire process and the need to protect the fish. He referred to it as a political obstacle. He said environmentalists are using the darter's endangered classification as a backdoor to halt development.
Weaver asked why they didn't just breed darters and reintroduce them after construction is finished and the habitat stabilized again. "I remember when the DOT was working on Highway 53 and there were long delays because of darters," he said. "They could have just been replaced."
Weaver was told first by Wenger that re-introduction is a good point, but not practical, because if the habitat is destroyed simply putting more fish in the streams won't address the problem. Wenger said, "It's a lot cheaper and easier to the avoid the problem."
As a member of the audience, Dr. Steve Powers, a biologist who specializes in darter studies from Reinhardt College, replied that there were mountains of data that darters bred in captivity lost the genetic makeup and diversity of wild populations.
A second member of the audience added, "Once you've ruined the environment, there is no way to get it back."
Weaver replied, "You're telling me that back in the early days of Pickens County when we had cotton fields running right into the streams that didn't kill them but more development will?" He again said they should use their money to breed more fish in captivity.
"This is a political conflict," the mayor said. "You have people who want to protect this area through the backdoor use of the darter versus people wanting to populate this area."
Fowler replied that a Habitat Conservation Plan doesn't have to be no-growth. "What we're saying is let's get up-front of the problem, and then we won't have to worry about a lawsuit."
A member of the audience said, "We really don't have much choice, do we? Either we prepare this plan as a group or we'll have to do it as individuals. It's a law that we're going to have to protect the endangered species and the fines are going to be pretty substantial if we violate it."
Fowler said the preliminary work on the technical side has been done with input from developers who recognize the need for the program and are interested in seeing a habitat conservation plan for the area put in place.
"What we're hearing from developers is they want to see this plan adopted," Fowler said. "What the developers don't want is the uncertainty. They want to know up front what the rules are. They have bought the land and have bulldozers ready. They don't want to [wait while a plan is created]."
Weaver replied, "Well I don't see many developers here tonight."
Other questions from the audience included: Clay Johnston, the president of the Mountain Conservation Trust and a local builder, who asked how provisions put in place would be monitored to see if they were doing the job? Fowler said they would perform adaptive monitoring so they could "watch for the effects on both the endangered species and on the work force. So, we can see if it's working for builders and developers."
A member of the audience asked if this plan could later be abandoned by a future commissioner or mayor once the plan is implemented.
One of the speakers explained that maintaining a Habitat Conservation Plan is not mandatory but complying with the federal endangered species act is. So if a future government decides not to use the plan, they must create their own or force developers or individuals to do their own, according to discussion at the meeting.
Robert Anderson of the Mountain Stewards asked how much is the Etowah Aquatic HCP budget and who is funding it. Fowler said they receive grants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife of around $300,000 per year.
Following opening remarks, the crowd divided into three smaller groups to plot on maps where they thought commercial development was most needed, valued or inevitable.
The information gathered will be taken and modeled to see how potential commercial growth may affect the habitat plan.
Among the small groups, discussion included: