After more than a year of heated debate, research and stakeholder meetings, Loudoun supervisors on Tuesday sank – for now – a controversial ordinance aimed at protecting the county’s streams from pollution.
The 5-4 vote to suspend work on the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance came after Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge) had a change of heart about the issue, saying he believed changes made to the proposed legislation during the last few months made it impossible to stand up to legal challenges.
“While we deal with a complex issue, I try to let the deliberative process lead me to an answer. While it may be true that each deviation we’ve taken from the original ordinance may be deemed reasonable … taken as a whole it has created a situation which may not be defendable,” Burton said.
In lieu of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance, Burton proposed several environmental protection motions – which passed – including a septic tank pump out requirement, meant to protect Loudoun’s waters.
Loudoun supervisors were looking to voluntarily adopt a version of the 1988 state Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, which mandates restrictions to localities surrounding the waterway.
But new court ordered state legislation, some supervisors believe, will soon start to trickle down the pipeline.
In the vote, supervisors agreed to suspend work on the ordinance until state officials complete work on a mandated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency blueprint for Virginia and its localities.
The state’s plan, called the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan, is being developed as part of the EPA’s establishment of a total maximum daily load, known as TMDL, or “pollution diet” for the Chesapeake Bay. The TMDL sets goals for all bay states – Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Delaware and Washington, D.C. – to reduce the levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment entering the Chesapeake Bay from its rivers and streams.
Burton’s flip provided board members opposed to the ordinance the vote they need to table the issue – a move that’s been brought up several times in the past by Chairman Scott York (I-At Large) and Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac). Also voting with Burton was Supervisors Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) and Lori Waters (R-Broad Run).
“What are we trying to solve here at the end of the day? It is clean water? Well, that’s the goal of everybody. The question is how do we get to that?” York said.
Some of the dissenting supervisors had called for work to be suspended, while others had called for the ordinance to killed out right, saying they believed constituents who said the ordinance violated property owners’ rights.
“All you hostages out there, you’re now free. If this motion passes, government itself is now responding to the people of Loudoun County,” Delgaudio said prior to the vote.
A long process
The ordinance, as it was first proposed, would have required property owners living near waterways to maintain a 100-foot riparian buffer and obtain a building permit for land disturbances larger than 2,500-square-feet, among other restrictions. The idea, county leaders said, was to preserve what’s already in place and prevent further stripping of natural vegetation. Supervisors had worked on changes to the ordinance since January, including a decrease in the size of the riparian buffer from 100 feet to 75 feet, the addition of a liberal grandfathering clause, and the application of a Resource Protection Area to only two-thirds of the county’s streams.
The vote to suspend work on the ordinance angered supervisors who supported the ordinance, leaving them to accuse their colleagues of folding to political pressure and helping to spread inaccurate descriptions of the legislation.
“Our neighbor Fairfax has grown and developed pretty well with stream protection rules,” said Supervisor Sally Kurtz (D-Catoctin). “Yet an air of defiance and contempt for this legislative body and legislation has hung heavy from organized opponents and the Loudoun Republican Committee and its candidates for the upcoming election. Tax and control was their spin. Calling reservation of a stream setback a tax is really the opposite of what it is. If anything, it’s tax avoidance at its purest. It’s having new developments and new uses responsible, not the rest of us paying to mitigate their pollution.”
Supervisors Kelly Burk (D-Leesburg), an adamant supporter of the ordinance, said she baffled Burton’s change of vote.
“Do I think these ordinances would have cleaned the streams tomorrow? Of course not. But it is a start. It would have cost the taxpayers nothing. It would demonstrate to the state and the federal government that Loudoun is working toward clean streams,” Burk said.
New regulations
Burton didn’t come to the dais Tuesday with simply a vote to suspend work on the ordinance. Instead, he offered up alternatives, including a requirement that residents pump out their septic tanks every five years.
Supervisors also agreed to discuss at a June 7 board meeting the possibility of implementing a riparian buffer incentive program, which would give residents tax breaks for taking steps to decrease sediment and erosion.
While he said he supported such a program, Supervisor Stevens Miller said should it be implemented residents opposed to the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance would show their true colors.
“This will be a great opportunity to find out if participation is a good idea only when you suggest it as an alternative to good policy … ” Miller said.
In addition, supervisors also voted to have county staff review recently passed state legislation dealing with the use of fertilizers; have the Transportation and county Land Use Committee review the possibility of creating an environmental policy advisory board; and have county staff create a website containing information about the quality of Loudoun streams.
From Mr. Burton’s newsletter today, he expects the CBPO measures to be part of what the County negotiates when it speaks with the State about meeting any future TMDL measures. He says:
“When the County enters into negotiations with the State as to how it will meet its TMDL limits, I believe those (CBPO) ideas may merit further consideration by this Board or the next….Staff will be making an initial presentation on the County’s assigned TMDL as a future meeting. This will begin the next round of conversations and recommendations but with the stick of the State, the EPA, and the Federal court system to move us forward.”
As we all know, Staff will continue to recommend this as the first thing to try to meet any TMDL requirements, and is stuck on tying up as much land in no disturb buffers and stopping whatever uses it can, thwarting our economic development to the maximum extent possible, charging suburban landowners with onerous fees and regulations requiring professionals to prepare simple landscape plans… instead of doing something practical…
Freedom requires us all to pay attention, and not let these extremists just duck and re-group.
I’m with WE, Barbara, and all the other common sense people who thought this was an outrage from the very start. Why would any jurisdiction want to volunteer for restrictions before they are mandated? I don’t know about you, but when I was young, I never volunteered for detention at school. Did you?
At the Public Relations level, this was touted as an evironmental need. What a load of crap. It was easy to see this was another environmentalist wacko, PEC backed, Liberal backed, scheme to take away more rights from citizens, and another way to take more $$ from citizens. The libs love it because they can raise more tax revenues, and the environmentalists love it because they get to claim how they saved the Earth without any accountability or solid proof.
I hope this thing is gone for good, but it appears the liberals are only waiting for another legistlative session to begin beating the drums again. I just hope that We the People can beat them back into submission each time they bring it forth.
Eric, nice to like the idea of waiting for the state now that Burton had to make the decision for political survival.
Guess what? When a guy as firm in their opinions on growth as West End seems to be, with so many of their positions in consonance with your own on development, how do you think it comes off for you to tell them their opinion is nothing but “real estate” “developer” “talking points”?
From here, not looking so good. There’s a citizen who apparently is NOT in your imaginary cadre of greedy developers (since that’s the only kind of people who WOULD disagree with you on this, right?), and it looks like they thought this was a win.
Just a thought.
WE,
You are laying out talking points promoted foremost by the real estate industry of Loudoun County. I disagree with your characterization of the ordinance but that is neither here nor there as it is over. For now anyway - it still will need to be passed once the State hands down its mandate - I am good with that. None the less, the campaign to kill it was led by the realestate industry in this county. That is why it is their victory (again for now). This fact is relatively well documented and I don’t really care to debate it (nor do I really care that it is so - they have a right to do what they did). But in the end, our streams are still impaired and not improving, the Bay still needs to be addressed and the final ordinance could make this one look like child’s play (how will you feel when you must have a permit to fertilize your yard each spring, for instance) - the citizens of this county lost thier chance to have a hand in this issue. It is a shame. The builders are all high fives though.
But Burton made the right decision given where this ordinance was. It was indenfisible (legally) and was too late (legislatively) - he was right to wait at this point.
@Eric the 1/2 troll -
How do you see things in this way?
I’m neither a realtor nor a developer (probably about as far from being a developer as they come with my desire to drastically slow new development in the west end of the county). I’m merely someone who believes in property rights, and the government not poking its nose into areas where it doesn’t belong.
This issue is simple for me… The government has no business telling a homeowner that they must pay for inspections, etc. on their property and that they must not change/use/alter/mow/etc. a section of their property. If government is going to do that, then they ought to be forced to buy that portion of the property from the owner at the price of the property dictated to them by the owner - plain and simple.
And, no, I don’t even own property that would have been affected by all this nonsense. I’m just someone who believes in that “limited government” should be the guiding principle used these days, not “government as big as big can be”.
IF these folks who rely on water from the Bay are running into problems and think that a land use rights grab is the answer, then they ought to be made to pay for it.
“Actually Eric, the citizens and the county won this one.”
That is simply false, Barb. The only people who won here are the realtors and developers. That is decidedly NOT a victory for the citizens of Loudoun.
That is all, you bet I will tell that particular truth often. I am actually NOT like Ms. McGimsey, because when I go to speak as a citizen at public input, no one has ever paid me to do so. If they had, I’d have said so—it’s called disclosure.
The truth is not a personal attack, even if it is a standard defense to say so for those thus caught by it.
Jeff, Gem Bingol has been employed by PEC for years. That’s fine, and she’s good at her job. Does she need to hold multiple county policy appointments? That’s another question. McGimsey worked for PEC for over a year before she admitted it. Join Guidestar, it is free, and look up the PEC’s 990 forms. It will be quite educational, when you see how many notable people from a “variety” of what appear to be different advocacy groups have been claimed on their tax forms as employees over the years, not to mention the size of their (tax deductible donation) budget.
that is all, who’s AGAINST clean water? No one, that’s right.
The right decision was made to wait and see what our directives from the state will be.
And that decision was made for purely political reasons.
I’m so happy telved this his Board finally listened to ALL of its citizens and shelved this stupidly proposed policy! The argument that we have too much affluent going into our drinking water down stream to the Chesapeake Bay is just that-crap! Besides, technology is advancing so fast that soon you won’t need a traditional septic field to take care of your waste. By integrating the home design with consideration to the environment you can integrate a gray water treatment system for water purification and subsequent reuse by creating landscape ponds including hydroponic plants that treat wastewater, prevent the growth of algae, and repel insects to prevent infestation. The site will have varieties of sedum used as a surface landscape ground cover that absorb carbon dioxide emissions from the surrounding environment and they serve as a runoff system for impervious surfaces surrounding the house. Very simple to do and eliminates the problem. Lets quit thinking twenty years in the past and count on technology and American ingenuity to take care of the supposed problem.
I would like to know what McGimsey was paid for by the PEC? Being paid is certainly not the same thing as simply being a “concerned citizen” particularly when you are one of their highest paid employees/consultants? And has Gem Bingol been paid by the PEC too?
Barb,
What about the people who wanted this to pass, who supported it? There were some, I know, I was one of them. So how can you type “the citizens and the county won this one”. It’s just an example of how you (and no doubt Eric on the opposite side of the argument) mis-speak and make over-statements to paint the picture of what is right or wrong. Please stop.
And, while you’re at it - please stick to a topic. I usually enjoy to hear your side of things, when it’s not vicious or slanted but simply an opinion, but am SOOO sick of seeing you go off these personal attacks and tirades against the public figures you are trying to tear down. I mean, I’ve seen you type the same wage info attack on McGimsey for the past 3 years now. Enough. She’s a politician, she’s a lobbyist, she’s a liar, and you are not that much different than her. If the article is on McGimsey’s improprieties, them by all means, espouse all her seedy actions of the past.
But stay on target w/ the topic at hand here, please.
Actually Eric, the citizens and the county won this one. We don’t have to waste any more time and money catering to the special interests you prefer, at least on this one thing.
And Burton can say anything he wants, and he will, because it’s campaign time.
Which is why you’re out flogging the memes.
Go back and watch any public input Eric, and see how many times, for how many months, a wide variety of people came and said “slow down, wait”—-just like McGimsey was paid to say at the podium every meeting from Jan 04 to early 07 (but lied about from Jan 04 to July 05, when the PEC’s tax forms for 04 had been filed, showing her to have earned $65K from them in 2004 as one of their top five highest paid employees—which translated at the podium to “how dare you developer shills say I’m paid when I’m just a concerned citizen!”)
“Slow down and wait, listen to the people” is only okay for the anointed, isn’t it?
Any talk of hypocrisy from you is sheer projection, Eric.
“You’re in Catoctin now, Eric. I don’t know what good you can do for Burton in Brambleton, but I DO know that won’t stop you from trying with the same old same old.”
This coming from the one woman hit squad on everything Burton - from South Riding none the less? No, I won’t identify you as pro-developer, Barb, you do that just fine by yourself. I will simply point out what a hypocrite you are.
BTW, I think the article cites Burton’s primary reason for changing his vote was that he felt the watered-down version was not legally defensible. Imagine if he passed the watereed down version and it fell to legal challenges - oh how you and your buddies would hoot an howl over THAT.
Be happy, Barb, the real estate community won this one - for now. But keep spinning, Barb, its what you do best.
Yes, he did, Eric.
He finally did the math on the communities carved up to make two “rural” seats, and on the number of people in them who opposed the CBPO.
This isn’t statesmanlike wisdom, but electoral desperation.
And arrogance, not to have heard it sooner, when scores of people went to the BoS month after month to ask that they do THIS VERY THING, and WAIT to see what happened with the state, where they were told they were developer liars, stupid and lisled sheep, by not only some BoS members, but parroted here there and everywhere by people like you.
McGimsey saw the CBPO writing on the wall months ago before even the stupid districts were carved to try to make one for her that she could be elected in—-another casualty on the way.
You’re in Catoctin now, Eric. I don’t know what good you can do for Burton in Brambleton, but I DO know that won’t stop you from trying with the same old same old.
(now, call me a developer Eric, and say I’m paid. Quick! rotfl)
Of course, you all know that this will be mandated on us by the state soon enough. I am interested in how the (so-called) LEC will fight this ordinance at that point. Burton made the right move on this issue. At this point wait until the State mandates kick in - then the ordinance will pass with narry a word of opposition. Probably a stronger ordinance as well.
You mean “Land grab successfully defeated by the people”—November can’t come soon enough…
Really? What a waste of time this whole charade was. Thanks to all who wrote their supervisors, called Richmond, and went to board meetings. Too bad the initial “stakeholder” meetings didn’t actually include the stakeholders. This just goes to show what you get by getting someone from out of the county to head up an in-county effort. When word leaked out of what the unintended implications of this ordinance were…the fire quickly got out of control…rightly so, folks had a right to be peeved—who tells you that you can’t mow the grass next to the creek that you own? They could have funded a buyout and take the buffers out of the tax base! In my opinion, this is not a business that the local government needs to be in. They should focus on the core functions: safety, transportation, and education (in that order).
I agree with Barbara—-no more new policy advisory committees and no more appointments plse (if they can restrain themselves)-we have elections coming. Thank goodness they stopped this—-this would have cost taxpayers alot and sometimes the BOS just seems intent on creating work for themselves and growing the govt needlessly (someone needs to monitor compliance). Let the state finish their work, we will have to comply with that anyway! Maybe the state will foot the bill for checking compliance??? Or will it be unfunded mandate?-just curious
A lot of concerned citizens worked very hard to make this happen. Congratulations on restoring some common sense to the project.
Interesting artcile in the Post the other day, touting today’s meeting and vote as some kind of reaction to the trees on the Trump golf course, which stated they were cut down because we hadn’t passed the ordinance.
I guess that was the last favor called in by supporters?
I do think Burton caved to political reality, given that a lot of the people that got gerrymandered into Blue Ridge were pretty outspoken against it.
However, it was the right decision, to wait and see what comes from the state.
Now please, no new policy advisory bodies to pay to support and create new positions! Gem Bingol has what, FIVE county appointments now? She doesn’t need any more, really!
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