Carrying Capacity

Carrying capacity can be defined as the "maximum number of organisms that can use a given area of habitat without degrading the habitat and without causing social stresses that result in the population being reduced." Overpopulation is the result of exceeding carrying capacity. In a local environment, such as Orange County, how do we determine carrying capacity?

Apparently many of our local officials, those who make land use policies, believe that as long as we are building inside the urban services boundary, there is no problem with carrying capacity. They believe that if we have strict requirements for open space and stormwater management with investment in public art and transit that we can proceed with total build out. Does carrying capacity relate only to land use? What about resources, such as water and sewer, air quality, or waste management?

The county's comprehensive plan has a goal of “Less solid waste per capita with cost effective and environmentally responsible disposal and management.” Using a normalization factor, such as per capita, is a good start at informing growth management from a real on-the-ground approach over the theoretical approach that has been dominating the conversation in the past several years. But per capita doesn't tell the entire story. We also need to know the growth projections being used by the planners. We can reduce per capita trash consumption while still growing our total volume produced. Is it acceptable to reduce per capita trash production while increasing total volume given the costs we will be incurring from shipping our trash out of county as of 2011? Is affordability part of carrying capacity?

I believe there are signals, the unaffordability of our housing, our failed landfill siting exercises, our persistent school funding issues, and growing stormwater problems, that should be interpreted as threats continued growth imposes on our natural environment and quality of life. The precautionary principle says that despite the lack of cause and effect evidence, we should still proactively engage in measures to protect the environment and social structures of the community. "According to the precautionary principle, precautionary action should be undertaken when there are credible threats of harm, despite residual scientific uncertainty about cause and effect relationships."

The assumption used by most elected officials, the Village Project and others is that growth is inevitable. Some embrace it; others don't. But discussion around growth seem to always come down to a choice between urban density and sprawl. I hope the upcoming election will bring this false dichotomy into a serious political discussion. Do we proceed with building out southern Orange County or do we recognize that some activities associated with growth "may cause serious, irreparable, or widespread harm and that [we] have a responsibility to prevent harm and to preserve the natural foundations of life, now and into the future."