RALEIGH -- As state officials inch closer to deciding how to reduce pollution levels in Falls Lake, they will also have to settle some fierce disputes about how clean the reservoir should be and which local governments will shoulder the burden of this billion-dollar fix.
The public has a chance to chime in this week. The N.C. Environment Management Commission will hold two public hearings this week, one in Durham today and one in Raleigh on Thursday, to hear comments about the 25-year timeline to clean the man-made lake. The lake is the prime source of drinking water for Raleigh and Wake towns served by the city's water system.
Critics are lining up to take shots at recommendations by the N.C. Division of Water Quality that propose a two-step process, concentrating first on the lower half of the 12,500-acre reservoir before switching to the shallow, upper reaches. The lake is polluted by high levels of nitrogen and phosphorous washed into its waters from tributaries in Durham, Granville, Orange, Person and Wake counties, and lowering those levels is mandated by the federal Clean Water Act.
Those high levels of nutrients can lead to algae blooms, which in turn affect water quality and leave the lake with a fishy smell. In extreme cases, this can lead to large-scale fish kills.
Ridding Falls Lake of those pollutants could cost $1.5 billion or more over the next quarter-century, a state estimate that some environmental groups, including the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation, think is too high. They worry a high price tag could lead to a less stringent cleanup plan. They also suggest low-cost remedies such as extensive use of rain gardens, a landscaping technique that filters excess storm runoff.
But officials in Durham, the community that will likely end up shouldering most of the fixes, think the cost will be much higher.
"We don't accept the number," said Steve Levitas, an environmental regulatory lawyer representing Durham.
There's a reason for Durham's doubts. State water quality officials released a draft of its fiscal estimate that put the Falls cleanup at $3.3 billion, factoring in inflation and what it would cost over the decades it could take to clean the lake. The lower $1.5 billion is what the cleanup could cost in today's dollars, according to state water quality officials.
Cleaning up Falls Lake and how to pay for it have been contentious issues between Raleigh and Durham, the two communities with the most at stake in the reservoir.
Earlier this year, though, officials in these two cities, along with most of the other city and county governments in the Falls watershed, hashed out many of their differences. They signed a consensus agreement that will focus the cleanup on reducing nutrient levels in the lower half of the lake near where Raleigh gets its drinking water.
But the N.C. Division of Water Quality's recommended rules don't match up exactly with the consensus agreement between local governments. Chiefly, the state recommendations don't include a formal re-evaluation of the costs and effectiveness of the cleanup before moving on to the costly second stage, which would require getting nitrogen and phosphorous levels down in the shallow-upper reaches of the lake.
A pause between stages of the cleanup is merited because the shallow, upper reaches of the lake will make it more difficult, if not impossible, to reach the state water quality division's proposed goals, Levitas said. "We can spend $1 billion, $2 billion, $5 billion, and it's not going to change that," he said.
Durham, with about half the city in the Falls Lake watershed, estimates that the cost of the cleanup could mean residents' water bills go up drastically.
"Everyone is convinced that the impacts are likely to be between a three-fold and five-fold increase in all of our water and sewer rates and our storm water utility rates," said Tom Bonfield, the Durham city manager. "That's pretty modest."
Raleigh officials also favor the plan put forward in the consensus agreement, said Kenny Waldroup, an assistant public utilities director for the city.
But delay isn't an option, environmentalists say.
"We knew when we created Falls Lake that it was going to have problems if we were not careful," said Alissa Bierma, the Upper Neuse Riverkeeper advocating for extensive cleanup of the lake. "The longer we wait, the more we have to clean up."
