No more moratorium

WILMINGTON — The City of Wilmington received notification today that the moratorium on new building permits here has been lifted by the State Division of Water Quality.

The state imposed the building moratorium because they didn’t feel the City had an adequate plan to improve its leaky sewer system.

But City leaders just put together a 22-page plan to fix the sewers and it appears the state thinks the plan will work.

The State Division of Water Quality rejected Wilmington’s first plan that came in response to a series of spills that leaked millions of gallons of raw sewage into local waterways.

City Councilman Jason Thompson says council has already received some positive preliminary feedback from the state.

Thompson said, “It just has a lot more teeth than the first plan, and it has a lot more in depth explanation as to how we’re going to, number one, address the immediate needs of the sewer system, number two, do the interim repairs, number three, to the long term repairs and number four, expedite the whole process.”

City leaders hope this revised plan will be approved within the next two weeks, allowing them to lift the ban on building permits.

They say lifting the ban is essential for our area’s economic development.