Wake's water gamble

When your last watering hole is one of the cleanest in the state, it's hard to see why you wouldn't do everything you can to keep it pure.

But Wake County's commissioners recently rejected tighter development limits around the planned Little River Reservoir than at other lakes.

The same watered-down regulations as those Wake adopted instead haven't worked so well at polluted Jordan and Falls lakes -- where the combined cleanup tab could run in the billions of our tax dollars.

When it comes to providing good public drinking water, it's often pay some now, or pay more later.

But all is not lost.

The county, Raleigh, Wake Forest, Wendell and Zebulon agreed to reconsider the regulations if state or federal regulators require that to approve the 1,100-acre lake.

In the meantime, they've agreed not to annex land in the watershed or extend water or sewer lines there -- unlike Rolesville, which insists on growing in that direction.

They've also agreed to preserve stream buffers and bar development in the 100-year floodplain.

And Wake could buy more open-space land along the lake's upper reaches to help protect it.

"The signatories have agreed to keep the watershed rural, which is key," said Ken Waldroup, Raleigh's assistant utilities director.

And if regulators nix the lake for lack of sufficient safeguards?

We'll have a nice, big, expensive park with a pretty creek to look at.