Clean water efforts

Your April 23 editorial rightly urges state and local governments to do all they can do to remove the Neuse River from a Top 10 list of endangered waterways in the United States. At the Triangle Land Conservancy, we are working with a consortium of land conservation groups, the City of Raleigh and the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund to protect land along the rivers and streams above Falls Lake to make sure that our water in that stretch of the Neuse remains clean and drinkable.

Permanent protection efforts like these require money for the purchase of land and conservation easements. The state has been an important donor to such programs through its four conservation trust funds, including the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Unfortunately, the demand for these funds has grown so great that last year they received $350 million more in requests than they had money to grant.

That's why Land for Tomorrow's effort for a statewide $1 billion bond referendum for land and water conservation is so important to the Neuse and to the future of other rivers and streams all over our state.

For more information about how to support this critical proposal, visit www.landfortomorrow.org.

Charles B. Neely Jr.

Board Chairman, Triangle Land Conservancy

Raleigh