Last year Charlotte City Council approved a plan that aims to make Charlotte a low carbon city by 2050. And last week 75 people gathered with us at Triple C Brewing to hear more about how this plan is getting off the ground.

“You can’t talk about sustainability without talking about equity,” according to Ray McKinnon, the pastor of South Tryon Community United Methodist Church, and keynote speaker at our Charlotte Sustainability Summit.

Summer in North Carolina is in full swing: long sunny days, temperatures in the ‘80s, and humidity even higher… oh, and for those of us at Sustain Charlotte, the chance to go back to summer camp! On Thursday, July 19th, we hosted a Sustainable Transportation Fair in partnership with the Progressive Baptist Church’s summer camp, YouthQuake!. We invited governmental departments and nonprofits from all over the city to Arbor Glen Outreach Center, to teach the campers about how transportation choices affect their health, safety, and community.

This is the second article in our 8-part series of weekly blog posts called "The Good, the Bad, the Possibilities". For this series, we are asking local experts three questions to give you a quick overview of recent local trends and solutions with respect to a range of important issues that affect our community's sustainability. This week’s topic is water, and our two featured experts are Emilee Syrwicze and Jennifer Frost.

Water may not be top of your mind when it comes to smart growth, but every new building, every additional use of energy, every added parking lot, contributes to our water crisis. Pollution is washed off surfaces and into streams, trees that clean and absorb excess water are cut down to build apartments, and stormwater runoff scours out creek banks until they collapse. It’s these issues and more that brought people together for our June Grow Smart CLT event, where our panel of experts discussed water, both quality and quantity.

The City Council Environment Committee voted unanimously to approve a cost-share program to fund certain stormwater repairs. The Environment Committee met earlier this month to discuss the growing backlog of stormwater repair requests and the need for the cost-share program.

The City Council Environment Committee discussed a potential cost-share program to fund certain storm water repairs as they face a growing backlog of projects and lack of revenue for Storm Water Services. The purpose of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Stormwater Services is to effectively drain runoff from storms safely while ensuring runoff is as clean as possible when it reaches the streams.

Environment Committee members and staff discussed the backlog of storm water projects.

Our clean water is at risk! We have to act now.

In 2015, commonsense protections for streams and wetlands known as the Clean Water Rule went into place. These safeguards protected the small streams that feed the drinking water sources for nearly 1 in 3 Americans. They protected wetlands throughout the South that filter pollutants from our water, absorb floodwaters and buffer our communities from storms, and provide habitat for countless wildlife. It was a no-brainer supported by millions of Americans and backed by science. It was a huge victory for our water.

But that is all at risk now.

Proposed changes to the Clean Water Act would put drinking water and natural waterways at risk!