20080880 Ver 1_Public Comments_20080722

Cliffs High Carolina development hearing deadline
Subject: Cliffs High Carolina development hearing deadline
From: "Will Weatherford" <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:25:48 -0400
To: [e-mail], [e-mail]
Loretta Beckwith,
My name is Will Weatherford. I spoke with you several days ago. My family has called 180 acres
contiguous to this development home for just over a century. Having spoken with Hydrologists and
Geologists we are concerned that this development could damage the water quality and quantity in our
well and springs on our property.
We received the letter from your office during the July 4 Holiday and began deciding how we
should respond. Simply put, 30 days, or 23 after the Holiday, is not enough time for working citizens
to learn about similarly effected neighbors and to identify, screen and arrange for financing to pay a
professional Geologist to represent them. On the other hand, Cliffs, who we hope to hold accountable
and maybe restrain somewhat, has had a team of full time professionals on their payroll preparing their
presentation for many many months. Frankly, the odds or so clearly in their favor that we don't have a
chance of modifying their use of this neighboring land, or the effect that will have on our land. If you
delay the deadline for the hearing until October 1, 2008, we will have a better chance.
Reasons to postpone the deadline for the Public Hearing:
• Geologists have told me that our water quality could decline, but not show up for several years.
There are test that could be performed before, during and after the development that would tell
us scientifically and in advance if the ground could support all of the water demands on it, if the
water flow was declining and if the quality of the water was getting worse. A test plan put
together before August 1 would be thrown together at best. If we had two more months we
could present a well formulated test plan.
• One Hydrologist told me "Western Carolina is the worst place in the world to get water from a
well" because of the geology. I believe he said the rock is Transmissive. I haven't had time to
find out if Cliffs is drilling wells, a few wells, hundreds of wells, using lakes or getting city
water piped in.
• Gilford County is the the only County in North Carolina that has laws on the books that can
protect a private property owner from a neighboring development that could impact the water
supply. All other counties in the state, including ours, offer protection for one business, if
another business harms their water supply. I believe that all of Cliff s neighbors are private
property owners and hence are without this line of protection. We need some more protection-
an extended deadline would give us a little more protection.
• Golf courses are the second largest source of non-point-source pollution, Agriculture is first, in
the U.S. Golf courses can be managed in an environmentally safe way. We need time to
determine how a Golf course right next door and up stream from us could and should be
managed. Leaving that to Cliffs would be putting the fox in charge of the hen house- Cliffs
would be the fox and the private property owners would be the hen house.
• We know one or two property owners around the development. There simply isn't time for us to
get to know them before August 1 so we can determine our best course of action.
• The combined financial and professional resources of the neighboring property owners is a very
small fraction of Cliffs multi-million dollar war chest. They have already invested millions in
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