Erosion officer has muddy job

PITTSBORO -- Every day, Jim Willis laces up his WearGuard boots, dons a white hard hat and hops in his county-issued Jeep Liberty to look for mud.

More than 15,000 new homes have been approved for construction over the next decade in booming Chatham County. It's Willis' job to make sure developers are keeping their construction site dirt from spilling into the county's waterways.

Willis, whose official title is sedimentation and erosion control officer, can levy hefty fines against those who break the county's sedimentation and erosion control ordinance.

Recently the Chatham County Board of Commissioners upheld Willis' $90,000 fine against Melton Valentine and Larry Carlson for cutting down trees without a permit on part of their 460-acre tract on Devil's Tramping Ground Road. The developers also had advertised their land as a potential subdivision with 21 lots without notifying the county's planning department.

"They claimed it was timbering, but it looked like construction," Willis said.

The $90,000 fine was the first for the county's erosion control program, which started last year. Developers get opportunities to correct problems before being fined, and they can appeal. Money collected from fines goes to the school system.

Commissioners Chairman Carl Thompson said the board upheld the fine to send a message to other developers.

"I don't want Chatham to seem easy," he said.

Local erosion-control programs are important because state resources are spread thin, said Gray Hauser, a state sedimentation specialist.

Also, dirt is the No. 1 pollutant in streams around the state, he said. It can create muddy creeks the color of cafe au lait. And in eastern Chatham, the fastest-growing part of the county, creeks feed Jordan Lake, which provides drinking water for Cary and east Chatham.

Dirt also harms aquatic life, Willis said.

"The way sunlight comes through the water affects the biology of a stream, how it works and how it runs," he said. "It also makes [the water] flow out of the banks more often."

Even in the area's extreme drought, erosion remains an environmental threat, Willis said.

"When there's no moisture to pack soil down, sites get a couple inches of dust, and when it does rain, that could be an issue," he said.

Willis prefers to help developers comply with the ordinance. But sometimes they don't. He has issued about 25 notices of violation this year, including one to Pittsboro Mayor Randy Voller.

Voller built the Chatham Forest subdivision in Pittsboro and is now developing the Wilkinson Creek subdivision on 47 acres off Tobacco Road in northern Chatham.

On June 29, Willis cited Voller for failure to install erosion and sedimentation devices as specified, failure to provide adequate ground cover on exposed soil, and insufficient measures to retain sediment on site.

Willis said sedimentation had accumulated in Wilkinson Creek because sediment traps on Voller's site had not been maintained.

Voller, who is running for re-election on a planned growth platform, said he is not physically working on the site. His partner Dan Walsh is. Voller said heavy rain caused the devices to fail.

Voller said Walsh worked in the summer to bring the site into compliance and removed the sediment. They were not fined, Willis said.

All the violation notices are public documents and are on file at the county's public health department.

Though Chatham's sedimentation program is young, the state's Department of Environmental and Natural Resources gave the program a favorable review.

And local environmentalists are praising Willis' efforts. "Jim Willis is really great about looking at sites, and he gives advice to the developers," said Elaine Chiosso, executive director of the Haw River Assembly. Most of the development in the county is taking place in the Haw River watershed.

Chiosso's group and others lobbied the commissioners for Willis' position. He earns $50,650 annually. The commissioners recently hired a second erosion control officer, Rachael Thorn, who earns $42,683 annually.

Willis said the Board of Health, which oversees his department, has created a plan to toughen the sedimentation control ordinance.

Chiosso would like to see the county strengthen its erosion control requirements. "But first, I think, we need to get people up to what they are supposed to be doing," Chiosso said.