NC budget keeps Tar-Pam river protections

Published 5:53 pm Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Legislation that potentially threatened pollution protections for the Tar-Pamlico River watershed has been removed from the 2016-17 North Carolina budget.

A previous version of the Senate budget called for review and revision of nutrient management programs put in place in the Tar-Pam watershed, Neuse River watershed, Jordan Lake and Falls Lake watersheds, claiming that the programs did not work. While the claim that the programs do not work, as well as the call to revise programs for the Tar-Pam and Neuse rivers, was removed from the budget during conference committee, the new budget continues to call for investigation into pollution strategies employed in the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake areas.

“Over the last 20 years, comprehensive watershed nutrient management strategies and buffer rules have been implemented in several river basins and watersheds in North Carolina where surface water quality has been impaired by excess nutrients. … The State should revise nutrient strategies to maintain proven measures already shown to be effective; incorporate new technological and management innovations; recognize investments in water quality already implemented by stakeholders; and share costs on an equitable basis,” the budget now states.

“Obviously, we’re pleased to see that that the Senate provision was narrowed in the final report and maintains protections for the Tar-Pam River and the estuary,” said Heather Jacobs Deck, Pamlico-Tar riverkeeper. “They removed all the broad language. Typically when you get into conference committee like this, you start to see what their priorities are. … This was a provision that appears not to have much support in the House, as well.”

During a state of water quality emergency in the 1980s and 1990s, the Tar-Pamlico River was given a nutrient-sensitive waters designation, meaning the state acknowledged that nutrients such as phosphate and nitrogen in runoff from the land had an adverse affect on water quality. At the time, algal blooms in the river, and the massive fish kills they caused, were commonplace. The state and stakeholders — including crabbers, fishermen and environmental advocates — worked together to create programs to decrease runoff from farms, municipalities and developments. Washington was one of the smallest municipalities required to create a stormwater program under the new nutrient management rules.

Deck said revision of nutrient management programs for Falls and Jordan lakes were the priority in this case — over the past decade, those programs have not been enforced due to resistance from municipal and business interests.

“It’s a do-over,” Deck said. “They don’t like the rules, and (the budget) delays any implementation.”

Deck said several other regulatory reform bills are currently being discussed by committee, so she, and parent organization Sound Rivers, will be paying close attention until the General Assembly adjourns.

“I’m sure that we will continue to have conversations pop up regarding these types of provisions in the future,” Deck said.