20050732 Ver 01_Public Comments_20051213 (2)

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~. Box .187 ~ytiic~ji, N~' 27228
(919) 542-~ 790 Iz~a@c~mji.~zet
December 13, 2005
To: Ms. Cyndi Kazoly
Address: North Carolina Division of Water Quality (NCDWQ),
1650 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, North Carolina, 27699-1650
I am the coordinator for the Haw River Assembly's Stream Stewardship Campaign that works
with individuals and communities to reduce non-point source pollution to the creeks and rivers in their
neighborhoods. I would like to offer comments on the Newland Communities Application for
Certification under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act for the Briar Chapel development.
First of all, I echo the concerns stated by Elaine Chiosso for the Haw River Assembly. I have
looked closely at the April 2003, Stream Mitigation Guidelines by US Army Corps of Engineers with
regazds to Newland's 401 certification application and have some concerns about Newland's stream
mitigation plans.
1. Section 5 of the Stream Mitigation Guidelines discusses the Mitigation Requirements based on
the stream quality and the amount of stream impacted by the permitted activity. The guidelines
provide "basic compensatory mitigation requirements (ratios) based solely on the quality of the
stream being impacted and are intended to ensure that impacts to higher quality streams are
being adequately compensated." For streams in Poor to Fair condition a 1:1 ratio is used, for
streams in Good condition a 2:1 ratio is used, and for streams in Excellent condition a 3:1 ratio
is used. Newland has documented in their 401 certification application that the stream impact
will be 1,6231ineaz feet due to 15 road crossings and 13 utility line impacts. They are
proposing to mitigate this with 2,2291ineaz feet of stream channel restoration. This would
provide 1.4 linear feet of stream restoration to 1 foot of impacted stream. Considering that the
land being developed by Newland for the Briaz Chapel development is located in a primarily
wooded undisturbed property, I would expect that the majority of the stream are in Excellent
condition. So I question the low mitigation ratio of 1.4 to 1 being used by Newland. If by
some chance, they are correct in assessing that the majority of the streams on this property are
in the Poor to Fair category that they'd have to be in order to get a 1.4 to 1 ratio, they should
have ample stream mitigation sites available on their own property.
2. Section 6 of the Stream Mitigation Guidelines discusses the Selection of Mitigation Sites.
Selection Criteria 1 for a stream mitigation site states, "Mitigation should be accomplished
within one stream order of the impacted stream, within the same subbasion (8-digit H.U.C.) and
as close to the impacted stream as possible." Newland's proposed mitigation site, Harpers
Crossroads, is in the Deep River subbasion (H.U.C. 03030003) rather than the Haw River
subbasin (H.U.C. 030300002) where the Briaz Chapel development will be located. Through

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the work that I do with the Haw River Assembly, I know there are streams within Haw River
subbasin that are in need of stream restoration. I suspect that stream mitigation sites could be
found within even the sub-watershed (14-digit 03030002050100) for Pokeberry Creek within
which Briar Chapel will be located.
3. The Haw River Assembly's Stream Stewardship Campaign has been awarded a Section 319
grant from North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (NC DENR) to
conduct a 3-year monitoring program on Dry Creek and Pokeberry Creek in Chatham County.
Part of this effort will be to conduct visual stream assessments with landowers throughout the
Pokeberry watershed. This will provide us with the opportunity to educate landowners on
stream stewarship practices as well as identify potential sites for restoration, installation of best
management practices and preservation. I expect this work will begin in the summer of 2006.
Due to the on going impact of road construction, development and agricultural in the Pokeberry
Creek watershed, I anticipate our intensive assessment of streams in the Pokeberry watershed
will result in potential sites that could be used for stream mitigation.
With a little effort, I believe Newland could fmd stream restoration sites within the Pokeberry
Creek watershed or at least within the Haw River subbasin. If they are not able to spend the time
or eiTort to identify stream mitigation sites within the subbasin as instructed by the Stream
Mitigation Guidelines, then they should pay mitigation fees to the North Carolina Ecosystem
Enhancement Program (NCEEP), so that future stream mitigation sites within the Haw River
subbasin can be funded through NCEEP.
Sincerely
c.~•~ ~~
Ca Brine Deininger
Stream Steward Project Coordinator
Haw River Assembly
[e-mail]

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Division of Water Quality Hearing on Briar Chapel Application
December 13, 2005
I am asking that the Division of Water Quality consider the groundwater hydrology when
reviewing the impact of this project on the surrounding communities. Attached please
find reports from Ralph Heath, Consulting Hydrologist, regarding concerns to what at the
time was referred to as `Norwood Aires'. This property is adjacent to Persimmon Hill,
directly to the east.
There is a perched water table on the ridges that is evident to the surface level from the
months of November through May. In addition to these reports, we have a videotape of
test perk sites during that time of year that show water flowing through the test holes. The
video evidence is available upon request.
Our concern is that the Briar Chapel plan calls for the discharge of treated wastewater on
this property. Persimmon Hill is served by individual wells adjacent to this spray area.
These wells are subject to contamination if the system is not managed properly. During
the approval stage with the Board of Commissioners, there was no real discussion of this
concern, and frankly no expertise regarding this concern. Therefore, it is up to you to
protect our health in this matter.
It is recommended that a thorough evaluation be performed on this area to determine the
impact of a failed system. It is also recommended that a series of test wells, monitored
monthly, be drilled along the borders of the development, to monitor for contamination.
Lastly, it is recommended that a minimum buffer of no less than 100 feet be established
between the spray areas and the surrounding properties. We do not wish to live with the
threat of water contamination and smell in our neighborhood. To date, there does not
seem to be any mechanism to guard against this, and frankly, no assurance of the County,
developer, or the State that the correct protections are being put into place or monitored.
Thank you for your time in this matter.
Larry M. Hicks
128 Persimmon Hill i
Pittsboro, NC 273
[phone]
Hicks e,email.unc.edu

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RALPH C. HEATH
Consulting Hydrogeologist
December 26, 199
Mfr. Larry Hicks
Persimmon Hill Homeo~zners Assn.
128 Persimmon Hill Trail
Pittsboro, N.C. 27312
Dear Lam':
4821 Kilkenny Place
Raleigh, V. C. 27612
(919j 782-0171
This letter is nYitten in response to your and Bruce RayTnond's request, on behalf of the
Persimmon Hill Homeo~yners Assn., that I evaluate the hydrogeologic conditions in the Persimmon
Hill subdivision and in the adjoining proposed Norwood Aires subdivision. These two subdivisions
are located in notthern Chatham Couniti•, south of Manes Chapel Road about 3 miles west of U.S.
Highways 1~-~01.
This letter is based on observations made on December I9 during a field tour of the area.
on records of wells in the Persimmon Hill subdivision, on laboratory reports from the North
Carolina Public Water Supply Section regarding the bacterial contamination of the well in the
nearby Chatham subdivision, and on a review of reports on the geology and ground-water
resources of the area. These reports include, among others, the report prepared by the U.S.
Geological Survey on the Durham Area, which includes Chatham County.
For convenience in the following discussion, I will refer to the general .area from
Persimmon Hill to the Chatham Subdivision as the area. When referring to conditions m a specific
area. I will use the specific name of that area. •
Relative to geologic conditions, the area is underlain by bedrock composed of granite
which is commonly referred to in welt-driller reports as Chapel Hitl granite. A rather striking
geologic feature of the area is the numerous large granite boulders that occur on the Land surface
abode elevations of about X00 ft. Whey roads, homes, and other structures aze built in these areas.
the boulders must be moved with the result that along parts of Manes Chapel Road the shoulder is
lined with boulders a few to several feet in diameter. Yards near the south end of Persimmon Hill
Trail are also bordered with boulders that had to be moved to build the homes and domestic-waste
drain fields.
Attachment No. 1 shows the approximate area in the Persimmon Hill and Norwood Aires
subdivisions in which large granite boulders are common on the land surface.
After observing the boulders on the upland surfaces, I expected to also find numerous
granite outcrops along the stream channels in Norwood Aires. This, however, is not the case. No
outcrops were observed and in only 2 or 3 places along the channels were scattered scones up to
several inches in diameter observed. The geologic history of the area is too complex to cover in
this letter but a fe~v comments are certainly in order.

The granite that underlies the area formed at great depth below the land surface. Since
u then, erosion has removed the many thousands of feet of rock that originally existed beztiveen the
land surface and the newly formed granite. In the process, great compressive stresses acting on the
granite were relieved with the result that it expanded and broke along both a network of steeply-
dipping "vertical" fractures and a network of "horizontal" fractures roughly parallel to the land
surface.
These fractures serve as pathways along which ground water moves and, in the process,
the ground water dissolves the most soluble minerals which gradually causes the granite [o
disintegrate into a loose, granular soil-like laver referred to as saprolite or regolith. ~s the granite
disintegrates, it becomes susceptible to erosion by rain falling on the land surface.
The importance of these observations, relative to the area, is chat the boulders and the
ridges occur where the granite is the least fractured acid the valleys occur where fractures are most
abundant. This is believed to explain, in the simplest-possible terms, the presence of the large
boulders on the upland (ridge) areas and the lack of bedrock outcrops along the streams.
With these geologic features in mind. I w111 now discuss the hydrologic conditions. Rain
falling on the land surface either infiltrates into the ground or, if the rate exceeds the infiltration
capacity, rain runs off over the land surface. Most of the rain that infiltrates into the ground
remains in the soil zone from which it either evaporates or is withdrawn by plants during the
growing season. The remainder moves downward to the water table as recharge to the gro:~nd-
water system which is composed of both the regolith layer that underlies the land surface and the
underlying fractured granite bedrock.
The water that reaches the water table moves dowmvard and laterally through the ground-
water system (thru the regolith and bedrock) to nearby streams where it returns tq..the land surface
as seepage through. the sides and bottom of the channels. The result of these recharge and
discharge conditions is that the water table stands at a higher elevation beneath ridges than beneath
valleys.
Ground-water recharge in forested areas, such as now exists in the Norwood Aires area,
averages, over the course of a year, about 300,000 gallons per day per square mile. This recharge
is not evenly distributed over the course of a year, however, because of the effect of evaporation
and plant transpiration. Instead, about 70 percent of the recharge occurs in the 6 months from
October through March and the remaining 30 percent during the remainder of the year. This
uneven distribution of ground-water recharge causes a seasonal fluctuation of the water table that
may exceed IO ft beneath the ridges in the area.
The large recharge rate in forested areas results from the very porous nature of the soi] and
surface litter and to the presence of holes !eft in the soil zone by decayed tree roots. Conversion of
the land surface to other uses destroys these features and thereby results in a substantial reduction
in ground-water recharge. Not unexpectedly, the reduction in recharge rates is least in areas zoned
for 2 acre and larger lots because more of the area is likely to be left in its natural state. On lots of
1 acre or less, most of the land surface is occupied by houses and driveways, which are non-
recharge areas, and by lawns and other cleared areas which have recharge rates one-tenth, or less,
that of forested areas.

With the above points in mind, it is important at this point to deal with the affect of
development density on ground-water recharge. The proposed Norwood Aires subdivision contains
about 70 acres or about 0.11 mid (70 acres _ 610 acres/mid). Under the present natural
conditions. with a recharge rate of 300,000 gpd/mi~, the average daily recharge amounts to about
33,000 gallons per day.
The area is presently zoned for 1-acre lots and the preliminary development plan dated
November 18. 1991, shows ~9 lots. If the average size of families in the subdivision is 3 people
and their average daily water use is 100 gallons per capita, the water use will total about 18.000
gallons per day, or only about » percent of the estimated present recharge.
At first glance, it would appear from this that the recharge is more than adequate to supply
the water use. This conclusion, however, ignores the reduction in recharge that will result from the
development. This reduction will be at least 75 percent, even if every effort is made to retain as
much of the area as possible in its natural state, and is more likely to be as much as 90 percent. In
other words, with the development of 1-acre lots, it is probable that the ground-water recharge titi`ill
be reduced to substantially less than the water use. This does not necessarily mean that the area
will "run short" of water because a large part of the water used will be returned to the ground-
water system through septic tanks and domestic-waste drain fields. It does mean, however, that
after a few years an ever-increasing percentage of the water drawn from the w•etls will be water
that has passed through septic tanks.
The preceding discussions of recharge to the ground-water system and movement of
ground water from the upland areas to the streams to discharge deal with the pipeline, or conduit.
function of the ground-water system. An equally important aspect relates to the storage, or
reservoir. function. iVlost of the water "in storage" in the ground-water system is in the regolith
laver. The volume of water in storage in the fracture openings in the granite is..so much smaller
that it can be ignored.
The ground water contained in the regolith in [he Norwood Aires subdivision serves a~-o
very important functions. First, it is the source of the water drawn by wells during the gro«ing
season when recharge is small or none.Yistent. Second, it serves to dilute the domestic wastes
introduced into the system through septic tanks and drain fields. Thus, whether a shortage of water
develops during the summer or whether the domestic wastes result in an undesirable deterioration
in water quality depends on the volume of water in storage in the regolith.
The presence of the large boulders on the surface in the upland areas suggest that the
storage in the regolith in these areas is small. In an effort to verify this, I prepared the cross
sections shown in Attachment No. 2. The lines of these cross sections are shown on Attachment
No. 1.
The upper cross section on Attachment 2 shows the land-surface profile, based on the U.S.
Geological Survey topographic map, through the Norwood Aires Subdivision. The lower cross
section shows the land-surface profile, together with the water-table profile, the position of the
bedrock surface, and the apparent nature of the regolith near the east side of the Persimmon Hill
subdivision. The water table and the geologic features shown on this profile are based on the well-
record reports that you furnished me. I believe that the conditions in the Norwood Aires
subdivision will be very similar to those shown on the Persimmon Hill cross section.

The general geologic and hydrologic features discussed in the preceding paragraphs. such
y as the position of the water table, are shown on this cross section. However, the nti•o most
significant features are the nature of the regolith and the position of the water table relative to the
top of the fractured bedrock. Relative to the regolith, the presence of boulders on the land surface
indicates that a large part of the regolith in this area is also composed of large masses of sotid
granite. The presence of these masses results in a much smaller storage capacity in the regolith
than would be the case if the granite were completely disintegrated.
Relative to the position of the water table in relation to the top of the bedrock, note that at
the well on Lot 13• the top of the bedrock, as indicated by the depth of the casing. is onl}• 26 ft
below land surface. The well driller reports the water level in the well was 3~ ft below land '"
surface_ or 9 ft below the bottom of the casing. Although no dates are shown on the well record_ I
suspect the well ma_v have been drilled in late summer. hz any case, the record suggesu that in
parts, and possibly in large parts, of the upland areas of Persimmon Hill and, presumabh•.
Norwood Aires. there is little or no ground-water storage in the regolith. (Note that on the cross
section. I show the water table at Lot 18 to be about 2~ ft below land surface to make it consistent
with the other wells.)
The preceding parts of this letter cover the most important features of the geologic and
hydrologic conditions that I wanted to call to your attention. I have gone into more detail in some
cases than may have been necessary, but I did this in anticipation that your Association will send
copies to the Planning Board and to the Board of County Commissioners none of whom. I assume.
are zither geologists or hydrologisu.
iVly conclusion, based on my observations and from analysis of the well data for the
Persimmon Hill subdivision, is that it will not be wise to develop the Norwood Aires
subdivision with 1-acre lots, if each lot is to be served by a well and a septic tairYc and drain
field. After such development, I do not believe the ground-water recharge and the ground-
water storage in the regolith will be adequate to meet the water needs and to provide
sufficient dilution of the domestic wastes. The fact that the regolith and the bedrock in the
area can be overloaded with domestic wastes has recently been demonstrated by the
contaminated supply well in the Chatham subdivision.
1 suspect. from my studies in northern Chatham County, that decisions related to zoning
and development density are based largely on the infiltration studies related to septic tanks and
drain fields. This is certainly an important consideration. However, the thickness and storage
characteristics of the regolith and the effect of development density on recharge may, in the long
run, be equally, if not more, important.
From the standpoint of the Persimmon Hill Homeowners Association, I think your concern
about the potential effect of the Norwood Aires development on your water supply are well
founded. Water and wastes from that development will e:dt through the tributary to Wilkerson
Creek which flows through the Persimmon Hill subdivision. During dry summers, water from this
tributary may be drawn into nearby Persimmon Hill wells and. if the water is contaminated, the
wells will be also contaminated.

I hope that the above satisfactorily answers the questions raised by your Association.
However, if there are any points that I failed to address, let me know. .
Sincerely,
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Iph C. Heath
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