Wake towns that drink from Jordan Lake should help pay to clean it, UNC report says

Towns in Wake County that take drinking water from Jordan Lake should help shoulder the costs of cleaning it up, says a new report from UNC-Chapel Hill.

The recommendation to spread the costs of Jordan Lake’s clean-up was included in a final report to legislators on how to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus, the nutrients that feed algae.

A “water quality fee” allocated to towns each year — 5 cents per 1,000 gallons of water — would generate about $2 million annually, the report said. Having more money would help pay for projects that reduce pollution and for continuous water quality monitoring.

It’s important to make sure the costs are equitably distributed, said Mike Piehler, director of the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute for the Environment and the study leader, in a news release that accompanied the report last week.

“It is likely that management actions are going to be occurring in places well upstream of the lake,” Piehler said in a statement. “This creates a situation in which areas taking action may not be receiving services directly, such as drinking water. This issue was a focal point of our study and resulted in specific ideas to generate revenue in a fair manner.”

The report did not estimate a total cost for managing algae levels in Jordan Lake. Piehler said an exact cost would be hard to pinpoint because the factors that cause increased algae levels are changing. Climate change, he noted, could cause the region to become wetter and warmer, two factors that would both cause algae levels to grow.

“Southeastern reservoirs are tough because [the region] is where there are big rain events,” Piehler said in an interview. Large amounts of precipitation cause increased levels of runoffs, which in turn feeds algae blooms, he said.

“Additionally, there are lots of long, warm sunny days, and that is perfect for algae to grow,” he said.

Towns affected

Local governments, regulators and legislators have wrestled for years about improving the algae-clogged reservoir that is a source of drinking water for Cary, Apex and Morrisville.

Officials from the towns of Cary and Apex said they haven’t yet seen the report, but underlined the importance of preserving the reservoir.

Sean Stegall, the town manager for Cary, said, “[T]he sustainability of Jordan Lake is of paramount importance to the Town of Cary and region.”

And while the Cary Town Council hasn’t discussed the report, he said, the town remains open to suggestions about how to provide the necessary funding for the preservation of the lake.

“I would add that one of the benefits of water quality fees is that they are restricted to the stated purpose and thus provide an increased level of accountability and transparency for the public and the state, who would have to enact such a proposal,” Stegall said. “So while I am not in a position to state that the town approves of this strategy, we are certainly receptive to it at this time.”

Jordan Lake is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated Jordan Lake impaired in 2002.

How to cut pollution

The state Environmental Management Commission adopted rules in 2008 to reduce pollution in the lake, and the legislature passed what’s known as the Jordan Lake Rules in 2009 to cut pollution from storm water, sewer plants and other sources. Cities in the Jordan Lake watershed, including Greensboro and Durham, objected to some or all of the rules, saying they would put huge expenses on and curtail development in cities that don’t use the water.

Several times after 2009, the legislature modified the rules and delayed implementation.

In 2014, the legislature decided to try a mechanical approach to clearing the water, hiring a company to deploy water mixers called SolarBees into Jordan Lake, The News & Observer reported. Two years later, the state Department of Environmental Quality announced the machines didn’t improve the water and would be pulled from the lake.

The legislature then turned to UNC to study nutrient management strategies and make recommendations, appropriating $500,000 for the project.

The report from the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory said:

▪ “Point sources” of pollution, such as sewage treatment plants, contribute about half the nitrogen and 25% of the phosphorus flowing into the lake.

▪ So much nitrogen and phosphorus is in the sediment, it will take years for pollution control measures to starve the algae and significantly improve water quality.

▪ Water quality measured at 18 monitoring stations across Jordan Lake was far below state standards. The broad state standard should be re-evaluated and made site-specific.

▪ Storm water control should be coupled with sewer improvements and maintenance.

About two dozen researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, and NC State University studied conditions on the lake and throughout the watershed over the last three years to produce the report.

It’s not clear whether the General Assembly will discuss the report’s findings in its next session. Piehler said he hopes the legislature will look at it closely since it spent money to generate the report.

“My hope is that it will be a compelling report, with lots of new information about an important water resource,” he said. “I hope it will have them think about how to move forward.”

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Staff writer Zachery Eanes contributed to this article

This story was originally published December 23, 2019 at 3:19 PM.