Who's responsible for the Falls Lake mess?
by Dan Riechers
- Photo by Jeremy M. Lange
- A boat launch at the Rollingview Recreation Area marina at Falls Lake in Durham County. Falls Lake has consistently failed water quality tests for nearly 30 years.
Spring pollen swirls in the waves lapping the shore at Rollingview Recreation Area at Falls Lake in Durham County. The water level is up from the recent rains, and the lake stands ready to provide nearly a half-million people in Wake County with their drinking water throughout the next year. Up the beach, a red plastic spoon and an empty soda bottle, along with tracks, human and deer, imprint the otherwise empty space. A sign by the bathhouse warns of the dangers of ticks, drinking alcohol while swimming and swimming alone. The risk of swimming with pathogens is not listed.
Falls Lake is required to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's most basic water classification determined by the Clean Water Act—that it be swimmable and fishable. But the lake doesn't meet that standard. Since 2010, Falls Lake, including the lower portion where Raleigh gets its drinking water, has failed state and federal water quality standards. Upstream of the Highway 50 bridge, near Durham, the lake has been flunking its water quality tests since its creation 30 years ago.
The Falls Lake rules are supposed to fix that. The rules, which went into effect Jan. 15, require a reduction of pollution-creating nutrients flowing into the lake, which theoretically would bring the entire lake into compliance with the Clean Water Act, although not until 2041. It seems like a good idea, but throughout the rule-making process, local municipalities, primarily Raleigh and Durham, argued over who is responsible for the pollution and who should pay for the cleanup, estimated at more than $1.5 billion.
That seems expensive, but the alternatives are costlier. "What's the cost of doing nothing?" Karen Rindge, executive director of WakeUP Wake County, said. "What's the extra water treatment cost, what is the cost of lost tourism dollars?"
As for Durham, its leaders question whether the cleanup is worth the cost, especially if the high price tag won't guarantee that upstream portion of the lake will meet water quality standards. But Raleigh officials contend the water quality data shows a steady increase in pollution—pollution they say is primarily entering from Durham's end of the lake. If the lake's health doesn't improve, Raleigh will incur significant costs, since it will be forced to upgrade its treatment plant—for at least $115 million—to clean the water to meet drinking water standards.
Everyone in the Triangle has a stake in Falls Lake. As we move closer to a Triangle-wide water system, Falls Lake is becoming a regional resource, not just one for Raleigh. Even now, Cary's drinking water supply from Jordan Lake is connected to Raleigh; Durham taps into Cary's and Orange County's supplies during drought or when treatment plants are down for maintenance. And Durham is planning a new treatment plant on the west end of Jordan Lake in collaboration with Chatham County.
After extensive debate, Raleigh, Durham and other communities in the Falls Lake watershed agreed on the need to protect Raleigh's drinking water supply. But in return, these same municipalities pushed the state to produce weaker rules and a longer wait for a cleaner lake.
Falls Lake stretches 14 miles from north of Durham at I-85 all the way to the dam north of Raleigh, a few miles west of U.S. Highway 1. The watershed, or land area from which the lake receives water, extends west of Hillsborough into Orange County and runs north to include Roxboro, Stem, Butner, Creedmoor and Wake Forest. And along the south, Hillsborough, Durham and a small portion of Raleigh bound the lake.
The lake has been classified as "sensitive to nutrients"—and susceptible to pollution— since 1983, just two years after the dam was constructed. As rainwater travels over land—particularly highly developed areas with a lot of pavement or concrete—it picks up nutrients and sediment from rainwater, lawn and agricultural runoff, animal waste, septic systems and sewage treatment plants and carries them to Falls Lake.
Nutrients can be beneficial—plants, algae and tiny organisms at the bottom of the food chain depend on them—but too many nutrients can form oxygen-depleting algae blooms that kill fish and other organisms.
A variety of algae live in the lake—from the green, slimy algae to the brown iron-based algae that leaves a film like that on "top of cold soup," according to Alissa Bierma, riverkeeper with the Neuse River Foundation. But the most worrisome family of algae is the tiny cyanobacteria, commonly referred to as blue-green algae, which sometimes form brilliant streaks on the surface of the water in the summer sun. Some types of blue-green algae have the potential to release powerful toxins—strong enough to kill small animals and sicken humans.
JoAnn Burkholder, professor and director of the Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology at N.C. State University, said blue-green algae tend to produce more toxins with more nutrients, but "no one is really sure. You get Russian roulette blooms."
Burkholder received a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2002 to study Falls Lake and 27 other reservoirs in the state for blue-green algae. She found blue-green algae in the lake. "Some are the toxic type, though they aren't making toxin in significant concentrations, yet," she said.
Reducing nutrient pollution, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, will help control the lake's toxic blue-green algae. Yet it's not just nutrient overload and algae that are harmful. Runoff carries fecal coliform bacteria to the lake. Nearly every stream flowing through Durham and into Jordan or Falls Lake fails water quality standards for this public health hazard. Every summer, beaches at Falls Lake in Wake County close temporarily because of high levels of fecal coliform, a type of bacteria linked to dysentery and hepatitis. "You've got people out there fishing, boating, swimming, in full contact with the water," said Grady McCallie, policy director with the N.C. Conservation Network.
Even more disturbing, Durham County, which is closer to the more polluted end of the lake, doesn't test water quality at its beaches; it isn't required to under state law. Last summer, when Wake County closed its Falls Lake beaches because of high fecal coliform levels, News 14 Carolina reported that swimmers simply moved to the beach at Rollingview Recreation Area in Durham County, closer to the more polluted end of the lake.
"Any time you're swimming in natural bodies of water," said Robert Jordan, environmental health supervisor with the Durham County Health Department, "pathogens could be present and that, you know, there's a certain health risk."
So where are the pollutants coming from? Depending on whom you ask, the source of fecal coliform in streams and lakes varies. Ted Voorhees, Durham deputy city manager, and Frank Thomas, director of government relations with the Home Builders Association of Durham, Orange and Chatham Counties, blame geese and seagulls for beach closures in Wake County. John Cox, water quality manager for Durham, said the city completed a study in Northeast Creek, which flows through Research Triangle Park into Jordan Lake and, after fixing some illegal sewage discharges, found domestic animals and wildlife to be the source. Burkholder points to "pet waste off of the streets" as a contributor to the pollution. John Huisman, senior environmental specialist at the North Carolina Division of Water Quality (DWQ), adds that a "high population of malfunctioning septic systems" is a likely source.
The debate over sources is important because the discussions can lead to potential solutions. For example, Raleigh recently passed an ordinance requiring pet owners to clean up after their animals. But Durham relies only on education programs. Durham has known of its pollution problems since at least 2001, when a city-county joint environmental indicators report showed that their streams failed water quality standards. The report found that only one of 13 streams in the city was rated "good." In 2009, every stream in Durham failed at least one state or federal water quality standard, according to the city's State of Our Streams report.
While Raleigh controls only a small portion of the watershed, development in Wake County also contributes to the lake's degradation. Burkholder's data from 2002 to 2009 show a steady decrease in water quality near the dam around Raleigh's end of the watershed. "This is a lake that's poised for problems," she said. "Our state started out with the best of intentions. But then the encroachment began, more and more and more over time." She said, "the more you develop a watershed, it's a no-brainer, you get more and more pollutants coming into the lake."
As often happens with environmental issues, the science behind the policy was the first thing to be attacked. When the state Division of Water Quality was calculating how to bring Falls Lake into compliance with the Clean Water Act, it developed a lake model. The model was based on the percentage of nutrients contributed from each source—runoff, animal feces, treated sewage—and the level of reductions necessary to clean up the lake.
Because lakes and watersheds are extremely complex ecosystems, models are never perfect. And the city of Durham was the most vocal and organized in its critique of DWQ's lake model. Durham paid for its own studies and offered alternative theories about pollution sources.
Durham Deputy City Manager Voorhees said that development in Wake County was a likely greater source of pollution to Raleigh's drinking water intake and that the cleanup should have been focused there. But Kenny Waldroup, assistant public utilities director with Raleigh, said that Wake County argued that Durham's urban streams are "pollution highways right to the lake." Indeed, Ellerbe Creek, which runs through Durham to Falls Lake, is the most polluted stream in the upper half of the Neuse River basin.
Waldroup said that pollution at Raleigh's intake "increased significantly at the end of a drought, or at the end of a major rain event." He said Raleigh had "a pretty defensible hypothesis" that pollution was washing out of the Durham end of the lake.
In an effort to settle the debate over responsibility and pollution levels, the local governments in the watershed are working on a plan to improve long-term monitoring of the lake. Data from that project is expected to inform a reassessment of the rules in 2025. Meanwhile, a lack of usable historical monitoring data on the watershed and a state-mandated deadline for a plan hindered a final answer about the sources of the pollution. The Division of Water Quality had to move ahead with the rules, even if they were imperfect.
"We could sit around for 10 more years and collect data, but you know, there are other drivers behind these things and we have to move forward with the information that we have," Huisman said.
"It's useful to remind people that at some point you do have to act," said Richard Whisnant, professor of public law and government at UNC. "Because you get so much rhetoric about how there are all these new rules coming down, and we didn't anticipate this, and they're surprising us. And a lot of that is just not true. It's just the short-term memory problem."
The rules may not bring the entire lake into compliance with the Clean Water Act, but they are a start. Durham argues that the cleanup will be too expensive; cost is one reason that the state extended the time line for implementation of the rules through 2036, with a clean Falls Lake expected five years later. That 25-year time line, Rindge of WakeUP Wake County said, "is too long, but in this political climate it was the best we could get."
The extended time line provided another benefit to Durham. In a Feb. 18, 2010, work session with the city council and staff members, Karen Sindelar, who was the Durham city attorney and has since retired, said that the time line allowed Durham to ask its legislators to bring up the rules in the General Assembly "every session if necessary" and ask that it "be modified, changed or whatever."
Asked in February if Durham would urge its legislators to weaken or overturn the rules in the General Assembly, Voorhees said, "I don't know that we'll need to do that. I think there are other people that are looking at that."
It's unclear who is looking into overturning all or part of the Falls Lake rules. The public seems to support a clean lake. The General Assembly recently held Joint Regulatory Reform Committee meetings across the state, asking residents for information about legislation that is "outdated, unnecessary and burdensome" and that impedes private sector job creation. Roughly half the people who spoke at the Raleigh meeting on April 21 asked the committee to protect our air and water.
However, the very agency charged with the task of protecting those resources—the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources—is threatened by deep funding cuts. The state budget, now working its way through the Legislature, cuts funding for DENR by 15 percent and the Clean Water Trust Fund by 90 percent, further weakening the state agency's ability to monitor and enforce the rules and pushing more of the burden for the cleanup onto local governments.
Politics, not environmentalism, prevailed during the rulemaking process. Legal and technical advisers from the communities developed a set of principles intended to influence the final rules. While the rules focus on preserving Raleigh's water supply, the principles "didn't totally address the state's water quality standards," said Bill Holman, director of state policy with Duke's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. "But in some ways it was basically more politically sustainable."
Asked why Raleigh signed on to the agreement with the other governments to weaken the rules, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said that "you've got to be realistic. Durham is in the watershed, just like we are in Goldsboro's watershed, and Goldsboro doesn't expect us not to develop."
But the rules don't end development. Low Impact Development (LID) techniques and other technologies are available that allow development while controlling environmental impact. While developers are concerned that LID will lead to fewer homes and thus, reduced profits per project, it is difficult to see homebuilders in the region as victims. In March, Builder magazine named Raleigh-Cary as the healthiest housing market in the country for 2011. Durham-Chapel Hill ranked third.
LID can save developers and local governments money—and help alleviate the Falls Lake pollution—by reducing infrastructure construction costs 15 to 80 percent, according to a 2007 EPA study. LID also reduces future maintenance costs. Streets built without curb and gutter allow rain to sheet onto the shoulder of the road to be absorbed or to evaporate. Sidewalks installed on only one side of the street reduce costs and runoff.
Durham has cleared the way for implementation of some of these practices and, Voorhees said, is "absolutely open to proposals from developers in that regard and has available pathways for folks to get those kinds of plans approved."
But neither Raleigh nor Durham requires this kind of development.
Inadequate regulation has contributed to the problems with our reservoirs. Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Bierma said that without proper regulations, developers can "build a ton of homes on a small piece of property, do the minimum in terms of stormwater management, 20 years down the line it fails, and we get stuck paying for their benefit."
Fixing Falls Lake is going to take time, a variety of approaches and changed land-use practices. The knowledge to fix the lake is available, said Rindge. "But we need the leaders and vision to follow the steps and get there."
Comments (24)
Showing 1-24 of 24
Sewage waste sprayed on farmland... You'd think they'd spray it long before it rains, so it would not run off into the creeks. Our observations of spraying in the Haw River watershed over 3 years indicates the haulers/sprayers are most active just prior to a major, predicted rainfall, such as found with a hurricane or major storm system. The pace of spraying is seen to increase to with 24 hours of the predicted large rain events. This is allowed under the state rules for spraying sewage.
What this allows is for the fields not to cake up with dried layers of waste and be rendered unusable for more sewage. What happens is a large amount of the material sprayed is washed directly into our streams and rivers. To see how it happens, here is a short video from Alamance County, with sewage run-off into Jordan lake, via Cane Creek and the Haw River.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNMFNs5JYSo
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Swigget, I swear. I'd love to be able to read one of your tomes, but for the life of me, your prose is not of this world. Please, if you have a point to make, and you certainly put in the sweat equity, let someone edit your post and then, maybe, we could assess them fairly. Thanks.
The Falls Lake rules are a joke.!!...and will never clean up the Lake, because the creeks that feed the Lake are highly polluted along with the land that is in the watershed of these creeks and ultimately -- watershed into the Lake. Toxic sewage sludge is spread in the watershed and wash into the lake and the creeks [that feed the Lake].... 44,000,000 gallons of toxic sewage sludge PER YEAR are spread in the watershed!!! Has the rules addressed this problem??? In the '80's, sewage sludge was DUMPED in the oceans, and 'dead zones' appeared ---- now the same thing is happening in the Lakes and drinking/swimming waters... TOXIC SEWAGE SLUDGE HAS BEEN SPREAD FOR 30 YEARS IN THE WATERSHEDS OF FALLS AND JORDAN.... permanently making our farmlands toxic waste dumps....AND THE LAKES...
.And highly educated people actually believe "RULES" are going to change this!?!?! really? What is wrong with you people?
Ted Voorhees AND Frank Thomas blame geese and seagulls for beach closures in Wake County!?!!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME.... Common sense should tell these men that if that were the case --------------EVERY BODY OF WATER WITH GEESE AND GULLS--- IN THE WORLD, WOULD BE POLLUTED !! What is wrong with you?.... Ted and Frank-- you actually believe people are buying this?
"John Cox found domestic animals and wildlife to be the source". Ok... so the public is suppose to believe Fluffy and Sparky are actually to blame for polluting a lake with billions of gallons of water in it...???
"Burkholder points to "pet waste off of the streets" as a contributor to the pollution". .. Are the streets of our towns so full of animal fecal matter that the run-off is polluting a 12,500 acre lake!!??. Burkholder gives this lame excuse because she is employed by NCSU, a university that ironically supports poisoning farmland with toxic sewage sludge.
"John Huisman says, "high population of malfunctioning septic systems" is a likely source." As a life time owner of septic systems... THERE IS NO MISTAKING WHEN A SEPTIC SYSTEM IS MALFUNCTIONING and you have to have it fixed as soon as possible in order to continue to occupy the residence.
[The baby poop from babies swimming in the lake with no diapers, as a source of the pollution was not mentioned in this article.... it was my favorite.]
All these excuses are laughable and are insults to the intelligence of the population of the drinkers of the water from Falls Lake.
The irony in this whole story is that NC-DWQ is busy making models of the Lake, writing rules, blaming babies, birds, cats and dogs for polluting the lake.... AND THEN, at the same time, DWQ GIVES OUT ILLEGAL AND FRAUDULENTLY EXECUTED PERMITS TO SYNAGRO TO OVERSPREAD TOXIC SEWAGE SLUDGE OVER THE WATERSHED.
LISTEN UP PEOPLE----- Synagro gets paid per gallon or per ton to over spread poison in the watershed of our lakes. Our local universities and state government are allowing this to happen AND SUPPORTING IT----all over the state.
This run-off pollution from toxic sewage sludge constitutes over 50% of the pollution of Falls Lake, and SEWAGE SLUDGE IS NOT EVEN MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE!!! WHY?????????????
We need to smarten up ---STOP BELIEVING THESE RIDICULOUS EXCUSES FOR WHY THE LAKE IS POLLUTED....and DEMAND THAT ALTERNATIVES TO SPREADING POISON ON OUR LAND AND ULTIMATELY OUR WATER --BE INSTITUTED.... AND stop making excuses.... our drinking water sources and farmlands ARE industrial sewers and toxic dumps! I know my drinking water source is..... thanks to OWASA and Berry Andews Farms.
Myra M. Dotson, Chair
myradotson@hotmail.com
SEWAGE SLUDGE ACTION NETWORK
www.sewagesludgeactionnetwork.com
Just read the follow up and was led to this one. Great story! Thanks for tracking down all this information and putting it together in such a sensible way. It's nice to see investigative journalism make a difference at the local level.
For anyone who may have an ounce of faith in Swiggett's remarks, check out his mental profile and his history of hostility and threats toward state government agencies, requiring the intervention of the State Police and other agencies who briefly assigned officers to intercept Swiggett when he was released from involuntary commitment. He lives in a fantasy world rich in conspiracy.
The problems at the Falls Lake were compounded when Jim Adams and Partners of Wake Forest and McKim and Creed devised a paper swamp of Nitrogen Credits from Pamlico County upstream to Falls Lake. To accomplish a Faulty science, Pay to Play, Pretentious development Scam. The Western Bay River Sewer District and South Granville artificial sewer districts were created by the NC House and Senate to move Nitrogen Limits or Credits from the Wetlands of the Coast and increase the volume of Credits the further away the credits were moved.
The absurdity of the process meant that both upstream and down stream waters from Fall lake were harmed. Upstream surface wasters natural carrying capacities were over loaded. Down stream no improvements were made to water quality. But Jim Adams and Partners was able to make 100’s millions. Adams and his partners were building more houses upstream and create more municipal sewer sludge to spread on neighboring farmlands. While stealing $20,000.00 from the sewer funds of the Low Income people of Pamlico to build his 4 million dollar “Coastal Idea Dream Home at River Dunes. About $1,000,000.00 per house, seven miles across the Neuse River to contaminated wells in Cherry Point.
Hold on just a minute, before Bill Holman was hiding out in the basement of the Nicholas School at Duke, he was the Director of the Clean Water Trust Fund and DENR. When I questioned Holman the Clean Water Trust Fund Funding of Jim Adams & Ed Mitchell’s down payment on the Gum Thicket/ River Dunes Project through a Clean Water Fund Conservation Easements he was really nervous.
When I mentioned he firing of Lana Armstrong and Leland Heath who questioned Bill Holman about Ed Mitchell representing the River Keepers, Coastal Federation, Weyerhaeuser, Granite Partners, and Western Bay River Sewer, & South Granville Water and Sewer Districts, River Dunes. Holman’s response was that the River Keepers had been repossessed by Weyerhaeuser. Leland Heath was quickly moved to Washington N.C. for Basnight to keep a close eye on for he and Gov. Beverly Perdue the creators of the Clean Water Slush Fund.
Bill Holman resigned soon after, and has refused to publicly debate the Waterfront Sportsman Environmental Investigation Coalition about Water Quality Corruption and Misappropriation of EPA, NC State Clean Water and DENR Fund under his approval at DENR and the Clean Water Trust Fund.
Wade Rollins, Holman’s spin doctor at the “News & Observer” soon disappeared when confronted with the “Chain of Custody Reports” and Fines by the EPA that the PCB’s from the Ward Transformer were dumped into the PCS Mine in Washington.
With over 1 billion dollars misappropriated from the Clean Water Trust Fund and dozens of Express Permitting like “Cannongate” Approved by Colleen Sullens.
As the scope of contaminated NC Water at Camp Lejeune and Cherry have been covered up for over 50 years, it is time to stop the corruption get the water quality money back from the thieves, put as many as possible along with those on the NC States Payroll that have let them profit by corruption.
Come join together with Waterfront Sportsman & the Environmental Investigation Class Action Suit # 5 : 10 cv 172 D2 Against criminal polluters Will Mann, DENR, Clean Water Trust Fund, NC Rural Center, Colleen Sullens, Bill Holman, Billy Ray Hall, Jim Adams and others in United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Western Division to “Stop Taxing and Stealing the Funds Appropriated for Water Quality“.
M. Dale Swiggett
Waterfront Sportsman
The Environmental Investigation Coalition
Will,
We are in agreement in principle, but I confess that I'm uneducated about the issue of an Urban Open Space Plan to know where we're lacking. On the one hand, downtown actually already has a fair number of "pocket parks," some intentional, some not, as well as some decent sized full parks (like DCP, of course). On the other hand, I'm not sure what having yet another Plan on file is going to do. Durham has plenty of extremely well-thought out plans rotting away in City Hall after the issue they summarize has ceased to be the flavor of the month. What kinds of actions would an Urban Open Space Plan entail?
As for remediations, one thing that I think would go a long way would be to give a grant to the Museum of Life and Science or some other organization to create a massive pond and wetland restoration on the land behind the old K-Mart shopping Center, complete with boardwalks and interpretive signage that went out into it. At that point, all of the major urban branches of Ellerbe Creek have come together, and it's just ("just") the landfill and treatment plant it has to go past. I'm sure someone's thought of this, though...
Michael,
Sounds like we're in general agreement. We have to face the fact that we're always going to drink surface water in this area, and it'd sure be nice to have it be clean.
Retrofits must be done, and it's not gonna be cheap, and we have to be creative. That's why I've been harping on about an Urban Open Space Plan: using trees and strategically placed pocket parks in the downtown area to reduce runoff, reduce heat island effects, improve air quality, and make the city greener. I've pretty much accepted defeat on that idea, with staff interested only with "prettiness", probably because the DDI and downtown commercial interests have apparently deep-sixed it.
On the broader scale, green spaces must be preserved. Farmland must be preserved. Land use change from forest/farmland to urban must be scaled back, and density increases in redeveloped areas must be tolerated. New development with high impervious surface fractions must be stopped, especially in critical areas (think 751). Developers whining about too many regulations have to be ignored, not pandered to.
And I agree with your point about the shallow end of Falls Lake; it's certainly a contributing factor.
Tina and Will,
My issue continues to come back to, saying things like "Durham is growing in Raleigh's water supply watershed" is absolutely true, but that's because 100% -- every square inch -- of Durham County is in Raleigh's water supply watershed. And my problem with Tina's framing of the issue is that she keeps talking about the problem being growth, when most of the pollution ISN'T COMING FROM GROWTH, but from long-developed areas with inadequate stormwater runoff protections (because nobody thought to build them in 1950). This means that "better technology" is only going to solve a very small part of the problem, and a lot of it is going to be installing very expensive retrofits in dense urban areas. (At the co-op site, we're looking into subterranean cisterns and sand traps, all of which cost a very pretty penny.)
The core issue is not whether Ellerbe Creek and Falls Lake need to be cleaned up, but how much, how fast, and at what level. Most of the problematic pollution is in the shallow, upper reaches of Falls Lake, far from the drinking water intakes. Point-source pollution updates like the Northside treatment plant, stream buffers, and better development rules are all no-brainers, and most are already in planning for implementation. But getting the upper reaches of the lake to pristine condition by 2025 doesn't just involve building new developments smarter, it involves massive retrofit to huge, densely built-out areas. That's where the disagreement is, and it's unfair to cast it as some issue of Durham's negligence or growth-happiness.
Should read: Durham can be doing many things to reduce runoff problems, and many of these things provide additional BENEFITS, like having a rational Urban Open Space plan and implementing it.
MichaelB: Some of the "pro-Durham" arguments I read sound like, "If I stop dumping my trash in my neighbor's yard, it'll cost me more money." Sure, Durham existed before Falls Lake, but we've learned more about the problems stormwater runoff causes since then, too. Some things that we now know is "trash" wasn't thought of as trash, or didn't even exist, back when the lake was created. As I stated at BullCityRising, just because a smoker started when smoking was thought harmless, smoking still kills and should be stopped. I guess I also have difficulty justifying dumping trash in my neighbor's yard on the basis that that neighbor dumps trash in their neighbor's yard or even their own yard. Durham can be doing many things to reduce runoff problems, and many of these things provide additional problems, like having a rational Urban Open Space plan and implementing it.
MichaelB,
I think the development process is complicated for anyone. I am not opposed to growth, I just think we should use the technologies that provide the least amount of environmental degradation. The triangle is not unique in its water quality issues. Many municipalities are dealing with this very same issue. I find this topic interesting and I'm just sharing some of my research. I wish you luck with your grocery store. It sounds like a great project.
Here is the information about Durham and Person County. Hope this helps.
Back in the late 80's Durham was really concerned about development upstream of Lake Michie. About 75% of Lake Michie's watershed is in Person County. Durham commissioned a study called "Watershed Management Study: Lake Michie and Little River Reservoir Watersheds" by Camp Dresser & McKee (June 1989). Durham spent $100,000 on this thorough report. This is why Durham doesn't allow developments in its own watersheds of Lake Michie and Little River. Here are a few interesting quotes:
"If uncontrolled future development causes further water quality deterioration in Lake Michie and Little River Reservoir, it will be even more difficult and costly for Durham to meet the new EPA drinking water standards." (Executive Summary p. 1)
"Finally, a WS-1 classification is likely to have significant economic development benefits for Durham County and the City of Durham since it means that the water supply is among the most highly protected in the State. With future growth placing increasing demands on high quality water sources throughout the State, those areas with well-protected high quality drinking water supplies are likely to have an "edge" in attracting new industrial development." (Section 1 p.4)
"Because such a significant percentage of the watershed area is located within upstream jurisdictions, Durham County cannot effectively protect the water supply reservoirs without the cooperation of the other jurisdictions." (Section 1 p.5)
"In summary, a positive relationship between density/imperviousness and nonpoint pollution loadings has been demonstrated by many studies." "In addition to producing greater per acre loadings of stormwater pollution, impervious areas are also a concern because they are the most likely contributing area for toxic contaminants found in urban runoff." (Section 3 p.5)
There are lots of other interesting quotes from this study, charts, and diagrams. Anyway, that's why Lake Michie and Little River watersheds are limited to 6% impervious surface. Person County (upstream of Lake Michie) has development restrictions because of Durham's efforts. One more quote related to that:
"The fact that the upstream jurisdictions receive no direct benefit from water supply protection efforts is a major impediment to a watershed management program." (1-7)
(I can't seem to avoid the postscripts today)
This is baffling me: "Durham worked hard to impose restrictions on Person County’s growth." Could you provide some sources for this, because it makes no sense to me. The Flat River barely crosses into the southern-most sliver of Person County, and the Little River flows out of northern Orange County. Was there really a fight before my memory about the quarter-mile strip north of the Durham-Person county line that's actually in the Flat River watershed?
And I'm sure there's some official designation, but I'd always heard of Southeast Durham referring to the segment of Durham east of RTP and south of 70. But whatever.
Oh, my.
You seem to think I'm some kind of developer. The only role I have that remotely resembles that is the owner of an 1100 square foot house and my role on the board of a grass-roots organization which is trying to build one 10k square foot building to house a community-owned grocery store for the purpose of selling locally, sustainably raised products. First and foremost, I'm an environmentalist and an activist who's spent most of his life railing at developers for degrading natural landscapes. I'm not frustrated with Durham's slow-walking developers, I'm PROUD of it. (By the way, check your sources. Your "Durham is the most lenient" article is 14 years old. The current Durham governmental bodies are dominated by elected officials endorsed by the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and the progressive People's Alliance. Your article stems from when the more pro-development Friends of Durham had more power and influence. This is like saying Raleigh is dominated by Republicans based on articles from the Fetzer administration.)
I don't follow your logic on the Little River dam. The Little River dam will only affect flow levels into Falls Lake levels during high drought periods, as water rights covenants will mandate a certain amount of release downstream. Otherwise, the water retained in LRR is going to be primarily from high flows, when water volumes amount to thousands of times what they do during low flows. Furthermore, LRR probably significantly reduces nutrient loading for Falls Lake inputs from the Little River, and almost certainly reduces sedimentation, and Durham's preservation of the Lake Michie and Little River Reservoir watershed ALSO helps the water quality of Falls Lake. Why didn't Durham just get water from Falls Lake? Well, aside from the fact that Wake County asserted water rights to it from the get-go, if Durham drew from it then we would all run out sooner! Reservoirs are about having capacity for retaining water from periods of high flow, and as such damming the Little River doesn't somehow reduce Falls Lake's water supply (in fact, it likely makes it more reliable). This is also why backyard rain gardens which slow water down are better both for water quality and water availability. It's not about somehow "flushing it out" -- that would likely just wash the N and P down closer to Raleigh's water intakes, which really WOULD be a problem then.
And, once again, the locales where water has tested badly are in the areas around the mouth of Ellerbe Creek. You seem to be bothered by the fact that Durham would allow 70% impervious surface in the Falls Lake watershed. I must point out that this includes none other than the historic quarter of downtown Durham and 80-90 year old neighborhoods. Of COURSE it should include 70% impervious surface, unless you want to use the Falls Lake watershed to legislate Durham out of existence?
We've all agreed on the Phase I standards, which are going to cost Durham a pretty penny but which are absolutely the right thing to do. The question now becomes whether we implement standards now for Phase II, which won't go into effect until after 2025, and which will likely cost Durham taxpayers over a billion dollars. You say "it doesn't matter who grew the most," but in the end, it DOES matter who's going to pay for it. You have one county that built a badly designed lake that drained a historically heavily industrialized area and grew like kudzu and wants the gravy train of cheap water to continue, and you have a county that's been trying to put the brakes on growth and has been preserving the watershed as fast as it can. Who should pay for the cleanup so that the downstream county can use the water? Well, I say "both" is the obvious answer. Again, Durham needs to clean up its industrial sites, improve its wastewater plant, put more land into weltands restoration and bioretention, and plant more stream buffers. I'm all on board with that, as long as Wake is interested in sharing the burden. But if Wake wants to blame its water problems on development decisions that happened a century ago while rolling out the welcome mat and not taking care of its own watersheds, I'll not take kindly to wagging fingers.
MichaelB,
It doesn’t matter who grew the most…it’s the fact that Falls Lake doesn’t meet water quality standards.
Southeast Durham is in the Falls Lake/Neuse watershed. This area is near HWY 98. You are confused with South or Southwest Durham which is in the Jordan Lake/Cape Fear watershed.
The Northside plant was built before Falls Lake was built. After Falls Lake was built, Durham dammed up Little River which holds back 20% of the entire Falls Lake watershed, water that would otherwise help flush out this shallow, slow flowing area of Falls Lake. Why didn’t Durham just get water from Falls Lake too?
Durham could build in North Durham. The soils are much better and they could successfully use Low Impact Development Practices.
It sounds like you are very frustrated with the building process in Durham. I understand your frustration as the soils in the rest of Durham are very difficult to build on. The Triassic soils are impervious and they don’t perc. Not all developers share your frustration. Regarding development in Durham, The Triangle Business Journal quotes David Lent-Beuws stating “Durham may be the most lenient city in the Triangle.” http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/storie… Durham had a 25 square mile donut hole with no stormwater regs. The strange thing is that everyone else had to abide by these regs years ago. Durham just implemented it recently.
Frank Thomas from the HBA participated in Durham’s Environmental Enhancements to the UDO. I know it is his job to object to environmental regulations as it hurts the bottom line, but I think all those meetings ended up being a big waste of everyone’s time.
Years ago, before both Jordan Lakes and Falls Lakes were impounded, Triangle J Council of Governments TJ operated a Regional Water Resources Program that “consistently ranked as a top priority of its elected membership.” In 1974, TJ became the first agency in the United States to receive a water quality planning grant under Section 208 of the Federal Clean Water Act. Triangle j was primarily responsible for a strategy and guidelines for protecting the Falls and Jordan Lakes water quality from excessive suburban and industrial development. EPA phased out this 208 program in 1981. The recommendations for impervious surface restrictions, Low impact development practices (around since 1976), and regional approach to water quality were ignored.
Durham did become a leader in watershed protection…because Durham was worried about Person County developing upstream of Durham. Durham spent $100,000 on a study about protecting its watershed of Lake Michie and Little River in 1989. This is where the 6% impervious surface restriction comes from. Durham worked hard to impose restrictions on Person County’s growth.
All municipalities argue over money they have to spend. The Durham/Raleigh argument over clean water is not a new one. In 1993, The North Carolina General Assembly appropriated $150,000 for a thorough study of Falls Lake (Cadmus Report). Durham wanted to increase impervious surface in the Falls Watershed and Raleigh wasn’t pleased. There were already pollution problems in Falls Lake, especially in the upper portion of the lake. This study was ignored and now it is even going to be MORE EXPENSIVE to clean up.
I hope ALL MUNCIPALITIES do what they can to protect water downstream.
One more fact I wanted to mention: Between 2000 and 2010, Wake County ADDED more people than the ENTIRE POPULATION of Durham County, and last year was the fastest growing county in the country. Now where is the Homebuilders Association powerful again?
TinaM:
- Southeast Durham is in the Jordan Lake/Cape Fear watershed, not the Falls Lake/Neuse watershed. Yes, the Lick Creek areas are in Falls Lake. Let's compare growth in Wake County vs. Durham County along the 70/98-corridor, shall we, hmm?
- Yes, the Northside plant dumps into Ellerbe Creek, and yes, Ellerbe Creek needs to be cleaned up. But here's a question -- which one was there first, the plant, or the lake? (Here's a hint: http://endangereddurham.blogspot.com/2011/…)
- "The only place left for Durham to grow is in the watersheds of Falls Lake and Jordan Lake." This is correct, but it requires an a bit of expansion. The only places in Durham AT ALL are in the watersheds of Falls Lake and Jordan Lake. What, you just want the city to go away so that Raleigh can grow unconstrained and have nice, clean water for all the new growth?
I fully agree that Ellerbe Creek needs to be cleaned up, and there are new rules for the Falls Lake watershed in draft right now that will be adopted. (The Homebuilders Association is really not all that powerful in Durham. Not sure where you got that idea. They're constantly complaining bitterly that Durham's development requirements are too onerous, unlike good ol' easy Wake..) I'm quite certain of this, as I'm part of a group trying to build a co-operative grocery store in downtown on a brownfields site with compacted soils that don't absorb anything, and stormwater remediation is STILL going to be a significant chunk of our budget.
What makes tree-hugging leftists like me go red in the face is that Wake-based environmentalists STILL SOMEHOW THINK that it's the homebuilders that are holding things up in Durham. No, it's those of us who don't particularly relish the idea of picking up a $2.5 billion tab to fix a lake that Wake made over Durham's objections, removing a quarter of the county from productive use for agriculture, forestland, or development, damned up an already polluted stream, and claimed they'd never use it for drinking water then turned around and did anyway. There's an old saying, "lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part," and yet that's exactly what Wake is trying to demand.
I would suffer the sanctimonious sermons of fools more gladly about the public good of clean water if Raleigh actually practiced what it preached to Durham, but lo and behold, when someone downstream of the Neuse wants to hold Raleigh accountable for its metastatic growth? Nooooooo! http://www.bullcityrising.com/2011/05/so-r… Note that Raleigh belly-aches over the oh-so-dear $25 million it's had to spend, but doesn't seem to bat an eye at trying to force Durham to spend a half BILLION at MINIMUM.
You think clean water is a priority for a growing urban region? Good, so do I. Then get Wake to get in on helping to pay for the cleanup, and make sure you adopt the same regulations for Wake that you make Durham adopt. Otherwise, at the next public meeting, we're going to have an impromptu lesson in geography, and the tones won't be measured.
Durham has a large waste water treatment plant (Northside) that discharges into Ellerbe Creek. Ellerbe Creek is in violation of chlorophyll-a over 84% of the time. Discharging so many nutrients into one of the most sensitive area (shallow) of Falls Lake is a bad idea if you are considering water quality. The Northside plant now treats about 9 million gallons of waste each day, which is less than half of its 20 million gallon a day capacity. The new urban growth area in Durham is Southeast Durham, the water supply watershed for Falls Lake. Durham had a contract to build the largest regional master sewage pumping station about a mile from Falls Lake. This pumping station would then carry the waste to the Northside WWTP to discharge into Ellerbe Creek.
The economic downturn has thwarted development, but there are thousands of acres in the Falls lake watershed in East and Southeast Durham that are in the process of rezoning or have been rezoned. (MichaelB, you are missing some large subwatersheds...two major ones being Little Lick Creek and Lick Creek. HWY 70 is roughly the ridge line for the Falls Lake watershed in Durham). Durham is in the process of permitting a 3 million gallon elevated water tank ($4 million) to service the future development in that area. Durham has pushed off addressing the pollutants in the upper part of the lake because of cost, but Durham is also investing millions in infrastructure to develop in close proximity to the lake. Durham allows up to 70% impervious surface in the Falls Lake watershed (and Jordan Lake watershed) verses only 6% impervious surface in their own watersheds of Lake Michie and Little River. 1/5 of Durham County (North Durham) is in the Lake Michie/Little River watershed and no developments are allowed. If stormwater runoff isn’t a problem, then why doesn't Durham allow development in their watershed? The only place left for Durham to grow is in the watersheds of Falls Lake and Jordan Lake.
Unfortunately, these areas are also highly erosive Triassic Basin soils. Durham had meetings to discuss better development practices, such as bigger stream buffers (which are free), but the Homebuilders Assoc. is too powerful in Durham. The citizens will have to continue to pay for bad development practices with increased stormwater fees for Durham citizens, and increased rates to clean and filter water for Raleigh's water users.
All municipalities want to grow, I'm just saying they should grow responsibly. It is important for all municipalities to be conscientious about the water they are sending downstream. Development practices should keep stormwater on site too.
This article is nicely written. I do hope that there is a followup on how this issue is affecting communities like Creedmoor. Our roughly 3,000 people are being asked to give a blank check to lobbyist types to provide access to the dialogue about the Falls Lake Rules. Creedmoor largely sits in the critical area of the Falls Lake Watershed. The ordinances and money our citizens have spent towards the protection of Falls Lake is going largely unnoticed. Darryl Moss, Mayor of Creedmoor. (Note: I also serve on the NC Environmental Management Commission but had to recuse myself from the Falls Lake Rules deliberations.)
I thought the lake was built for storm water / flood control? It seems that these goals (storing run-off) and using the run-off as a source for drinking water are untenable under the best of circumstances. In any case, nutrients occur naturally in the eco-system and even if were removed all human development in the upper watershed, the lake is not designed to remove nutrients efficiently.
Still, as a resident on the "delivery" end of the watershed, I would like to ask that the air pollution coming up from sprawling Raleigh and Cary be better controlled and that the residents there help pay for cleaning up the air here.
Very informative article about the issues. Makes me very nervous about our water supply now and in the future.
This article does a better job than many in trying to lay out the issues, but it really misses out on the biggest problem of geography.
As environmentalists, we frequently want to fit this story into the familiar narrative -- suburban sprawl causes environmental degradation, and it's ruining our water supplies. On the Durham end, that's just not what's happening.
There are four major streams which feed Falls Lake from Durham County. They are Ellerbe Creek and the Eno, Flat, and Little Rivers. Durham has, at the expense of its own taxpayers and private contributions, set aside huge amounts of land to be preserved around the three rivers. The amount of agriculture has plummeted in Durham County over the last 50 years, as tobacco disappeared, and in the current farm recovery, the growth is in small, frequently organic farms. Everything of consequence is coming from Ellerbe Creek, and that's what makes everything complicated.
Ellerbe Creek is impacted not because of development since the RTP boom, with sprawling post-war suburban developments. The Ellerbe Creek valley is north-central Durham, where I live, filled with dense, walkable neighborhoods that grew up around the tobacco and textile mills in the first half of the 20th century. It's urban development that causes the pollution, but it's from a time when Durham was a town for 40,000 people, not 200,000, and from neighborhoods that were built 30 years or more before Falls Lake was dreamed up. Most of Durham's growth since Falls Lake was built has been on the south side of town, towards the Jordan Lake end. That's a lot easier to address.
The point is, Falls Lake should never have been built there, or if it was, it should have included a cleanup plan for Ellerbe Creek from the very beginning.
Talking about low impact development with regard to Ellerbe Creek is utterly non-sequitur. Any development that will happen there will be brownfields development or infill. Getting Falls Lake into compliance will require getting Ellerbe Creek into compliance, and this has nothing to do with big new subdivisions. It has to do with creating rain gardens and retention ponds throughout northeast-central Durham, in areas with 80-year old houses on .15 acre lots that are already in need of repair, or old textile mill sites with soils that haven't absorbed water in 100 years.
We can work to clean it up, and we should clean it up, and I hope we do, but I do wish people like Karen Rindge would get their fingers out of their ears and realize that this isn't just a simple matter of sticking it to the big developers. It's about old industrial urban neighborhoods and green restoration. Ellerbe Creek *shouldn't* be just an industrial canal, but for 30 years before Falls Lake was built, that's exactly what it was. I'm doing my part -- I have a wetlands restoration in my back yard that retains and filters water from about a 5 block area.
If you want to help, come support the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association at the Beaver Pageant at Duke Park on June 7. (Really, Indy, you COULD have mentioned that in the article...)
(FWIW: I hold a BA in Environmental Biology and a MA in Geography. I'm a Life Member of the Sierra Club as well as a member of the Eno River Association.)
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