Raleigh and Creedmoor are partnering to preserve 162 acres in Granville County - a deal intended to improve the quality of water throughout Wake County.
The neighboring cities, with the help of state funding, paid a development group $2.3 million for the land in the Falls Lake watershed. The plan is to convert it into a Creedmoor city park.
Preserving the land will help limit the amount of harmful chemicals and nutrients that trickle via stormwater into Falls Lake - the water supply for Raleigh and several other Wake municipalities.
"We're reaching throughout the region to stabilize the quality of water," Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said during a news conference Tuesday. "This is the kind of intergovernmental cooperation citizens like to see."
The land grab will provide 150-foot-wide buffers on each side of creeks that feed Falls Lake.
A state commission approved new regulations last month to help protect the lake, which suffers from high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus caused by increased development and agricultural byproducts in the reservoir's watershed in Durham, Granville and Person counties.
The 162 acres belonged to the Barton Group developers, which scaled back plans to build several hundred houses in the area. Barton will still be allowed to build some homes on the north side of the property.
Creedmoor doesn't get its water from Falls Lake. But Creedmoor Mayor Darryl Moss billed the deal as beneficial for the cities, the environment and the developers.
"Recreation is one of our really big needs in Creedmoor," said Moss, who serves on the N.C. Environmental Management Commission. "So it's a win for us, in addition to doing what we can to help protect Falls Lake."
The state's Clean Water Management Task Force gave nearly $1.2 million for the land. Creedmoor chipped in $50,000, and Raleigh spent $150,000. Property owners provided. $973,000.
Raleigh's contribution came from the Upper Neuse Clean Water Initiative, a nonprofit group comprising several land trusts that buy land in the watershed and keep it undeveloped.
Since 2005, the group has acquired more than 5,400 acres.
Raleigh has given between $500,000 and $1.5 million annually to the initiative, which also gets state money.
Much of the public money for land purchases is expected to dry up in the next few years, as states and municipalities tighten budgets in anticipation of deep shortfalls.
