North Carolina's Failing Falls Lake

June 18, 2010 | Greening Water Infrastructure, Clean Water, Protecting Rivers, Restoring Rivers, Stormwater & Sewage, Small Streams & Wetlands

Peter Raabe
North Carolina Conservation Director

I’ve been engaged over the past six months on the rules proposed for cleaning of a water supply for almost a million North Carolinians - Falls Lake.  It is the source of clean drinking water for the city of Raleigh and some of the surrounding towns in Wake County.  It was built by the US Army Corps in 1978, but since then cities and communities around it have sprawled, and with that sprawl they have dumped huge amounts of pollution into the small streams that feed the reservoir.

The solution to the issue is to develop smarter- using green infrastructure to reduced pollution being washed into the streams. Unfortunately, the polluting communities are resisting the requirements that they need to follow to clean up their act and as a result, implementing green infrastructure has become contentious.  The rules for the cleanup of the reservoir have just been made public and are open for comment.

I’ll be writing more about this issue as it unfolds, but if you want to get a great background on what’s happened and some of the politics behind the mess watch this video.

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