Anthony Aú✧Green Party🌻
Platform: North Carolina Green Party => III. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM => Topic started by: AnthonyAú on Aug 20, 2024, 12:39 AM
H. WATER QUALITY AND USE-EFFICIENCY
- New policies aimed at eliminating all groundwater pollution and monitoring the quality of our aquifers should be implemented at local and state levels.
We propose a groundwater management program that would include regular and extensive testing of aquifers, regulation of groundwater pumping, wetlands conservation, funding to clean previous dumping or landfills and bio-regional aquifer protection.
- Deep-well injection of hazardous waste should be banned.
- The destruction of wetlands should be halted immediately and measures taken to restore some damaged wetlands.
- Society should accept no discharge of toxic materials into water or landfills.
There must be heavy penalties for violation, including the revocation of business licenses.
- All landfills should be lined and contained.
All underground storage tanks containing toxic materials should be of the double-container type.
- We need tougher enforcement of our clean water laws.
Polluter fines should be increased to give the state the resources to enforce the law and to nullify the economic benefits of disposing of waste improperly.
The state should enforce environmental laws by collecting all fines.
- To reduce salt content in wastewater, self- regenerating water softeners must contain built-in salt recovery systems.
- Agribusiness and farmers should be encouraged to use water efficiently and avoid polluting it, employing such techniques as low-runoff tillage, drip irrigation, fertilizing with compost, mulching, and organic growing methods, which eliminate the use of chemicals and recycle organic wastes.
We support legislation, financial incentives, and educational programs that encourage conservation and water reuse, low-use water systems, and reduced-use patterns in residential and commercial buildings.
- Water supply projects should be funded on the user- pays principle rather than by taxpayer subsidy.
We propose that all water and sewage management be converted to publicly owned and democratically organized regional agencies, ideally in the form of consumer cooperatives.
- The state legislature should give municipalities, park districts and watershed districts the power to ban certain classes of pesticides (including, but not limited to, diazinin, 2, 4-D, and MCPP) from golf courses, private lawns and parklands.