Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2010

Falls Lake cleanup will be costly, contentious

Underneath the glassy surface of Falls Lake, pollution threatens the drinking water of a half-million people in Wake County and the growth of a large part of the Triangle.

Five years after the need for a cleanup was recognized by the state legislature, the state Environmental Management Commission is hammering out a strategy to reduce pollutants flowing into the almost 12,500-acre reservoir from streams and rivers in Orange, Person, Granville, Wake and Durham counties that have led to rising levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the lake.

The next few months will prove crucial with Triangle city and county governments, homebuilders, environmental groups and concerned citizens being asked to tell the commission what they think should happen.

The push and pull between the interests of Durham and Raleigh - the two communities with possibly the most at stake - may lead to tense relations between the two cities.

Raleigh, and a large part of Wake County, needs Falls Lake for its drinking water and will spend millions upgrading the city's water treatment plant if pollution isn't reduced by 2016.

But Durham looks as though it will be on the hook for millions of dollars to lower the amount of sediment-laden stormwater that rushes off pavement in its urban core into streams, creeks and rivers that flow into the lake. Durham doesn't get its water from Falls Lake but from Lake Michie and the Little River Reservoir.

"Who pays and who benefits when it comes to reservoirs?" asked state Sen. Floyd McKissick of Durham. "Should some of that cost be shared?"

Draft rules

Answering those questions will require the state to forge through Durham and Raleigh's conflicting concerns, as well as those of other parties interested in the welfare of the lake.

The N.C. Division of Water Quality designated the lake "impaired" in 2008, forcing action on a problem disputed by almost no one.

Last week, the water quality division released draft rules to ensure compliance with state and federal water quality standards. The rules address how local governments must deal with stormwater runoff and how new construction will happen in the Falls Lake watershed. The Environmental Management Commission will use the rules as the basis for a cleanup plan.

The Division of Water Quality rules, which Durham leaders have already said they're unhappy with, looks to lower the nutrient levels in the lower half of the lake east of N.C. 50 within 10 years and gives a 30-year deadline for the upper portion, where most of the pollution is concentrated.

Durham city officials have complained that getting the lake's algae levels down to what the state is proposing for the shallow upper part of the lake isn't possible, even if the entire watershed were forested.

The division's draft rules also don't require evaluation of the lake's improvement over the course of the cleanup, something both the city and county of Durham want to make sure the measures being used to clean the lake are working, said Drew Cummings, an assistant Durham County manager.

"To me, that's good government," Cummings said. "It's how you ensure that you're spending your money most wisely."

Environmental groups are worried that Durham is trying to stall the cleanup by asking for a measurement of improvements.

With the draft rules now out, a window has opened for the public and the various groups with a stake in the lake's cleanup to offer their thoughts to the state agency and attend public hearings expected this spring before the Environmental Management Commission.

The 19-member commission oversees and gives rules to several divisions in the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, including the water quality division. The commission has to meet a January deadline to hand in a final proposal to the legislature.

Sources of pollution

Falls Lake, managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, was created by damming the Neuse River in response to flooding that had damaged land downstream.

Straddling Wake and Durham counties and completed in 1983, the lake serves as the drinking water source for more than 450,000 people in Raleigh and surrounding Wake communities. With more than 25,000 acres of public land ringing the lake, it's also a recreation area and has become a favorite for fishers, kayakers, boaters, campers and families looking for respite from North Carolina's hot summers on the lake's four public beaches maintained by the state parks system.

The Division of Water Quality labeled the lake as "impaired" after scientists who sampled its water found high levels of phosphorus and nitrates that likely washed into the lake from its watershed in Durham, Granville, Person and Wake counties.

Much of the cost to clean up Falls Lake will likely fall on Durham, Person, Orange and Granville counties, communities to the north of the reservoir that are in the lake's watershed.

Durham, with two-thirds of the county in the lake's watershed, will be hit particularly hard. To fix the lake, Durham might have to shell out $20 million over the next decade. City leaders say the cost could rise to as much as $1 billion overall to upgrade a sewage plant and bring existing development into compliance. Among other measures, that could involve encouraging more stormwater to be filtered by the soil, which would help curb pollution in the lake's upper reaches, where pollution is most concentrated.

Durham is not deaf to the concerns about Falls Lake but is just not sure it can pay for it, said Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees.

Raleigh's fears

But money is also behind Raleigh's push to start cleaning up soon.

If the lake quality doesn't improve by 2016, a $115 million upgrade of Raleigh's E.M. Johnson Water Treatment Plant, which handles all the water for Raleigh's system, will be needed. In addition, as much as $200 million in other improvements may be necessary.

That's because high levels of phosphorus and nitrates can also increase the amount of what are known as total organic carbons, which can produce carcinogenic compounds when combined with the chlorine that Raleigh uses to treat its water, said Ken Waldroup, an assistant public utilities director for Raleigh.

The levels of compounds are below the federal maximum but have been steadily increasing, causing concern for Raleigh water officials, Waldroup said. He says that drinking water is safe and that the projected problems are years down the road and will occur only if conditions don't improve at the lake.

Trying to avoid fighting and derailment of the plan, several local city and county governments, through the regional Triangle J Council of Governments, hashed out some differences and released a consensus agreement in February that would reduce nitrogen levels by 20 percent and phosphorus by 40 percent by 2016 by concentrating on two different stages of cleanup.

Some environmental groups, however, don't think the consensus rules go far enough. They say the rules stop at trying to protect Raleigh's drinking water without trying to bring the lake to even lower levels of pollution that would make it a better habitat for animal and plant ecosystems.

"Falls Lake should be swimmable, fishable and drinkable," said state Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh lawmaker active in pushing for the lake's cleanup.

And the state has to figure out what it takes to do that.

Staff writer Jim Wise contributed to this report.