Reed Green: SolarBees only part of plan

Regarding the June 20 news article “Senate plan may expand SolarBee use”: The North Carolina Senate budget omitted the fact that few impaired (eutrophic) waterbodies have ever been restored by watershed management alone.

The North American Lake Management Society supports full implementation of the Clean Water Act, adding waterbody treatments with an Adaptive Systems Approach. More rigorous science and cost-benefit analyses are needed to restore impaired reservoirs and stop freshwater-quality decline.

The purpose of the ASA is not to replace watershed management but to accelerate restoration and reduce overall cost. Cost-effective pollutant-input reduction is needed but is insufficient alone.

Reducing watershed loading, while a common-sense and valid approach, does not consider the decades of nutrients already in the waterbody.

Internal-nutrient loads cycle between sediment and the water column, enabling toxigenic and taste-and-odor-producing cyanobacteria to cause impairment. A combination of cost-effective watershed and waterbody treatments is needed to reduce external and internal nutrient loads and suppress cyanobacteria.

The watershed and waterbody should be viewed as one system, without privileging intervention in one part of the system over another.

This story was originally published July 2, 2015 at 5:17 PM with the headline "Reed Green: SolarBees only part of plan."