Second Quarter Update - 2016
Keeping you informed about legislative issues that affect
your business and your industry.
About GIC:
To conact us, learn more, get
involved, or donate to NCGIC, visit
www.ncgreenindustrycouncil.org.
Find Your Legislator:
Visit www.ncleg.net/representation/
WhoRepresentsMe.aspx to find
your local legislators.
Upcoming NCGIC Events:
September 29, 2016
Fall Board Meeting
NCSU University Club
Raleigh, NC
News You Can Use:
July is Smart Irrigation Month!
At the request of the NCGIC,
Governor Pat McCrory has again
designated July as Smart Irrigation
Month in North Carolina.
The special Proclamation
recognizes the efforts of North
Carolina’s green industry in the use
and promotion of smart irrigation
technologies to help conserve and
use water more efficiently in the
landscape.
NCGIC encourages professionals to keep edcuating their customers about efficient water use all year
round.
For educational resources,
including all the presentations from
NCGIC’s Water Symposiums, visit
NCGIC’s special website:
SavingWaterNC.com
2016 NCGIC Water Symposium:
Focus on Green Infrastructure
A sold out crowd of landscape and irrigation contractors, landscape
architects, engineers, nurserymen, and other green industry professionals
packed NC State University’s McKimmon Center in Raleigh on June 16
for the sixth annual North Carolina Green Industry Council (NCGIC)
Water Symposium.
This year’s event concentrated on the stewardship of the managed urban
space with a focus on how the landscape functions as green infrastructure.
Debbie Hamrick - Director of Specialty Crops for the North Carolina
Farm Bureau Federation, NCGIC advisor and event chair - gave a welcome that highlighted NCGIC’s continued value and relevance years after
its member organizations came together to promote common interests.
“The NCGIC has become a leader in the country for horticulture and
landscape umbrella organizations,” said Hamrick. “The NCGIC is also a
leader in North Carolina for the wise stewardship of water through smart
irrigation technology, advocating innovative water pricing regimes, and
proactively reaching out to develop common interests with municipal
water utilities, state and local regulators, other nonprofits and most
importantly the NC Legislature.”
Foretelling the Future
Green industry economist Dr. Charlie Hall kicked off the program with a
positive prediction that the next few years will be stable, and encouraged
the industry to work with cautious optimism and capture opportunities.
To keep the momentum going in the future and help the industry thrive,
Continued on page 2
Continued from page 1
Hall called on the industry to make
customers and builders understand
plants are more than pretty. Reports
reveal the economic, environmental
and health/well-being benefits of
green infrastructure, including:
• Generating tourism revenue,
• Improving air quality,
• Reducing energy costs,
• Increasing productivity,
• Reducing crime,
• Creating jobs,
• Reducing street repairs, and more.
A key to success is for each green
industry business to authentically
educate their customers about the
value and relevancy of these
positive points.
Green Infrastructure is Growing
Several presentations reviewed
projects around NC that are using
green infrastructure in new and
innovative ways.
• Asheville: David Tuch,
President of Equinox Environmental, reviewed several green
infrastructure projects that build
resiliency to extreme weather
events. Data shows heavy precipita-
Mike ‘Muddy’ Schlegel - Program Manager - Water Resources for Triangle J Council of Governments and
Co-founder of Innovation Think Pad - drew notes during each discussion to show the information visually and
deliver even more insight to presentation topics.
tion in NC has increased 27% over
the past 50 years, and the number
of days over 100 degrees in the
summer and above 32 degrees in
the winter continues to rise each
year. Two of Tuch’s projects – a restructured park that has eliminated
major flooding in Biltmore Village,
and a residential community built
to allow for maximum natural areas
for species movement – use natural
systems & ecological function to
provide resiliency for future
extreme weather.
• Pittsboro: Thomas D’Alesandro of
Blakefield LLC, and Hunter Freeman of WithersRavenel spoke on
the planning and engineering for
Chatham Park – a 7500-acre town
being built just outside of Pittsboro.
Both emphasized the collaboration
and forward thinking needed to
maintain the current community’s
approval and incorporate green infrastructure. Developments include
preserving 2,000 open-space acres,
a greenway trail system, and storm
water architecture.
• Charlotte: Tim Porter, Chief
Arborist, and Marc Recktenwald,
Water Quality and Environmental
Permitting Program Manager, from
the City of Charlotte reviewed how
the city is using trees as its major
green infrastructure tool to impact
the city’s economic and environmental initiatives. While a tree is
not the answer to every problem,
it is a key tool to help keep things
moving forward; especially the
city’s plan to have 50% tree canopy
by 2050 – a big goal to add to its
nationally-recognized urban forest.
Green Infrastructure
Means Business
Eric Gunderson, Owner of
Southern Branch Nursery in
Chesapeake, VA, spoke to the
business of functioning landscapes
– conservation-based landscaping
practices to benefit watersheds and
people. Conservation landscaping
incorporates environmentally-sensitive design components (native
plants, rain barrels, permeable
pavement, etc.), thoughtful installation practices, and requires continued maintenance. There is business
growth opportunity for every facet
of the green industry – nursery’s
planting and selling native plants,
landscape architects designing projects to benefit the environment and
function efficiently and aesthetically, and landscapers to install and
maintain sites – that also improves
quality life. Urban development will
continue, and the industry needs to
plan and take advantage of the opportunity using Best Management
Practices that preserve, enhance
and reduce impacts upon a site’s
natural features.
It’s All About the Ecosystems
Dr. Bill Hunt, Professor, NCSU,
Biological and Agricultural Engineering, shared extensive research
on green infrastructure and ecosystem services, i.e. the benefits people
obtain from ecosystems. While
green infrastructures often start as
a design for water treatment and
hydrologic regulation, they can also
provide other societal benefits like
air quality regulation, microclimate
regulation, habitat provision, and
recreation. The landscape should
be thought of as a system that can
improve the quality of life for our
urban environment. Meanwhile,
the adaptive management of these
systems – modifying designs and
strategies to be sure they working
at their highest level – is another
opportunity for the green industry.
NCSU’s Universal Goals
Dr. Richard Linton, Dean of NC
State’s College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences (CALS), provided the
audience – many alumni – with
an update on the school’s collaborative efforts and strategic plan to
maximize NC’s agricultural impact
throughout the state, the country
and the world.
The current Big Ideas CALS is
working on, based on feedback
from key stakeholders (cals.ncsu.
edu/strategicplan) include:
• Plant Sciences Initiative
• Food Manufacturing Initiative
• Food Animal Products
• Student Access to CALS, and
• Leadership
The overarching theme of all these
ideas is interdisciplinary teams and
partnerships for success.
Thank You
Water Symposium Sponsors
Thank You
Water Symposium Supporters
NC Farm Bureau
RainBird
Syngenta
Water Resources Research Institute of
the UNC System
Got to Be NC Agriculture
Ewing Irrigation & Landscape Supply
Turfgrass Council of North Carolina
NC Composting Council
NC Nursery & Landscape Association
At the end of the day, presentation moderators highlighted what they thought was the best point from each talk.
Full presentations can be found at SavingWaterNC.com.
Hoffman Nursery Named
2016 blue Green Innovator of the year
NCGIC awarded the 2016 BlueGreen Innovator of
the Year Award to
Hoffman Nursery.
The award recognizes outstanding
leadership and
innovation in
environmental stewardship in regard
to water conservation, water use
efficiency, and the development and
implementation of green infrastructure by an individual, organization, or
government entity.
Hoffman works with wholesale
growers to help them see the potential
of grasses, sedges and other plant species for green infrastructure projects,
and handles water on site with a series
of bioswales and
wetland areas to
increase infiltration
and clean the water.
Jill and John Hoffman accepted the
award and thanked
both their employees and the NCGIC
for their hard work and dedication to
improving the environment.
“We’re happy to be increasing
awareness of plants for green infrastructure, and we love seeing the
market expand,” said John Hoffman.
“The most fun, though, is implementing green infrastructure projects at the
nursery. Seeing the plants in action
and knowing they’re creating a better
environment is pretty exciting.”
Industry Serves Up
Ice Cream and Info
at Annual Social
NCGIC representatives served up
1500 bowls of ice cream to government
officials, staff and friends at the 2016
NCGIC Ice Cream Social at the
Legislature in Raleigh on May 24.
“This is a fun event that allows us
to maintain and build relationships
with our legislators and the staff who
support them,” said Chris Mitchell,
NCGIC President.
Aside from the ice cream, NCGIC
members manned an information
table and met with legislators to
remind them of the positive impact
North Carolina’s green industry has on
the state’s economy and environment.
Top Left: Senators enjoy ice cream. Top Right: NCGIC members serve up ice cream to legislators and staff
members. Bottom: Former NCGIC President Cyndi Allison answers questions about NCGIC.
Current Issues:
The North Carolina General Assembly adjorned the short session in the early morning hours of July 2, 2016. It
was a good session for NCGIC, and NCGIC lobbyist Dick Carlton did outstanding work. NCGIC will monitor
and meet with state legislators and departments on green issues as needed until session reconvenes next year:
Tax on Services
The legislature worked throughout the
session to claify the Tax on Service
Bill, adding new services to be taxed
and fixing the issue relating to retailers
from last session. NCGIC was engaged
from day one of the session to the
benefit of the landscaping industry.
The final language inserted into the
budget was favorable to the NCGIC
in that it did two things: (1) it made
landscaping exempt from sales tax
and (2) it made capital improvements
exempt from sales tax. The effect of
this was to exempt all installation and
maintenance of plants and exempt
the addition of capital improvements
(hardscapes).
Legal opinion of the statute is that the
GIC industry is fully exempt from
collecting sales tax on its services
except when someone does repair or
maintenance to an existing capital
improvement. However, all NCGIC
Members should check with their tax
advisers.
Farm Bill
Section 14 of the Farm Bill (SB 770)
exempted horticultural uses from
the Sedimentation Pollution Control
Act. It specifically exempted mulch,
ornamental plants and other horticultural products from the act. It defined
mulch as “substances composed
primarily of plant remains or mixtures
of such substances.”
Water Permiting
The NC Environmental Management
Commission’s (EMC) Water
Allocation Committee is once again
discussing a statewide water
permitting program. There has been
no progess on this issue, but NCGIC
will continue to fight this program
and educate key stakeholders about
the work the ag industry has done
with municipalities to reduce outside
water use, and the voluntary water
plans the ag industry has implemented
since 2010 that protect the rights of
landowners to use land water as they
see fit.
Licencing Boards
Both Landscape and Irrigation
Contractor Licensing Boards have
been cleared to continue by the Joint
Legislative Administrative Procedure
Oversight Committee. This is a win
for the industry thanks to the efforts
of the NCGIC network who proved
the professional importance and
self-sustaining system of each Board.
NCGIC will monitor any future
discussions about changes to licensing
boards that may affect contractors.
County Fertilizer Licensing
The North Carolina Soil & Water
Conservation Association has been
talking with the Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ) to
change current legislation that negates
local entities from making permits/
licenses so it can pursue legislation
to require a county permit or license
to spread fertilizer. The DEQ has not
progressed on this issue.