[Durham INC] Column: Durham County should stand firm on lake boundary (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Column: Durham County should stand firm on lake boundary
By William Schlesinger, emeritus professor of Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, Herald-Sun, 12 Oct 2009

On Monday, the Durham Board of County Commissioners faces a critical decision on whether to move the watershed boundaries protecting Jordan Lake from development based on data provided by a privately commissioned survey.

During my tenure as professor and dean at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, I became familiar with the many environmental issues facing the Triangle community's water supply reservoirs, including Jordan Lake. Pollution in Jordan Lake has exceeded water quality standards for years despite being the primary drinking water supply for the communities of Cary, Apex, Morrisville and Chatham County, as well as the future water supply for Durham. Recently, the state adopted a nutrient management strategy to begin the long process of cleaning up the lake. 

For the Board of County Commissioners to take a step backwards now by reducing the watershed boundaries around the lake would be a costly mistake for the community. The Board of County Commissioners should decline to change the watershed boundary and show that Durham County is committed to protecting Jordan Lake. It should convene a panel of scientific experts on water quality to advise the county on watershed boundaries that protect the region's precious drinking water supplies. 

The primary threat to Jordan Lake's health comes from excessive nutrient pollution caused by runoff from development. Nutrient pollution results in algal blooms that are harmful to aquatic life and increase the community's costs of treating drinking water. To protect the lake, watershed boundaries must restrict the intensity of development close to the lake's boundary. 

If adopted, the changes, based on a survey commissioned by a private landowner and developer, would decrease the restrictions on development in the most polluted part of the lake. The private developer's survey results would reduce the lake's one-mile critical area boundary by more than 100 acres of the watershed along the most polluted arm of the lake, along the Upper New Hope Creek. 

Such a new boundary based on the developer's survey would allow several parcels now in the current protected area around the lake and owned by the private development company to be developed for high-density use. Portions of the property outside of the current boundary area are already eligible for such development. 

A survey by a public interest group using different methods showed that the same boundary could be moved further up the upper New Hope arm of Jordan Lake, which would increase the area protected from high-density uses. 

Responsible local governments are stewards of the community's environmental resources, especially water supplies like Jordan Lake upon which everyone depends. Any changes in watershed boundaries and zoning restrictions should be based on sound science and not on developers' desires to use Jordan Lake as an amenity to attract buyers. Local government should not delegate their responsibility to protect water quality to private interests. 

The state Division of Water Quality has delegated the responsibility for determining the location of boundaries that protect drinking water reservoirs to local governments without any clear guidance about how to do so. Ultimately, the state's Division of Water Quality must provide clear science-based guidance to local governments for how to determine the upper reaches of a reservoir in North Carolina's relatively flat Piedmont. In the absence of such guidance, the Board of County Commissioners should seek advice of the scientific community about the appropriate way to determine the lake's boundary before even considering changing it. 

Durham County ought to be upholding more stringent environmental restrictions near Jordan Lake and using methods that are protective of our communal water supply in drawing watershed boundaries. Reducing protections jeopardizes drinking water supplies not only for Durham's future but also for many of Durham's neighbors who currently rely upon Jordan Lake.