Clean Water Reports
Search
•
RSS Feed
Executive Summary
As the new home of NCPIRG's environmental work,
Environment North Carolina can be contacted with any questions regarding this
report.
As North Carolina's population
continues to grow, our forests, farmlands, and open spaces are disappearing.As
these areas disappear and as people move closer to our rivers, lakes and streams,water
quality suffers. Between 1982 and 2002,North Carolina lost 2,568,700 acres of
cropland and forestland, while it gained 1,849,800 acres of developed land.
The quality of our lakes depends upon the quality of the waters that flow into
it, and on the health of the land around those tributaries. A river basin is
defined as “all of the land that water flows across or under on its way to a
river.i”This report examines growth and development activity by river basin,
and highlights lakes in many of the river basins already showing signs of pollution.
During the period from
1982 to 2002:
The French Broad basin lost 48.4 percent of its total cropland and 8.3 percent
of its forestland, higher rates of loss than any other river basin in the state.
The Cape Fear River basin
saw 14.1 percent of its cropland and 8 percent of its forestland transformed;
losing 171,700 acres of cropland and 281,100 acres of forestland.Meanwhile,
Jordan Lake, which serves as an important drinking water supply and favorite
recreational area, is severely polluted by nutrient pollution from wastewater
treatment plants and polluted runoff from surrounding development.
The Neuse River basin lost a total of 21.2 percent of its cropland and 8.7 percent
of its forestland. Recent water quality data shows that Falls Lake, the primary
drinking water supply for Raleigh and surrounding communities, is showing signs
of pollution and may soon reach impaired status.
Between 1982 and 2002, developed land in North Carolina increased by 1,849,800
million acres.
The Watauga Basin saw a 230 percent increase in developed land, the highest
change in developed land in any river basin.
The Neuse River basin added 313,100 acres of development, a 123 percent change,
the sixth highest increase.
The Broad River basin added 72,200 acres of developed land, an increase of 174
percent, the second highest in the state.
If we do not act now to prepare for this growth and loss of open spaces in the
coming years, the quality of our lakes may continue to decline—imperiling our
drinking water and favorite recreation spots.
By the year 2027:
7.4 percent of forestland, equaling 1,157,592 acres will be lost.
25.4 percent of cropland,
or 1,341,790 acres,will disappear.
Developed land area in the
state will increase 58.3 percent or 2,177,336 acres.
Recommendations
It is important that we plan now so that North Carolinians will continue to
have clean water along with growth and development. Our rivers, lakes, and streams
are the places we treasure for fishing, boating, and swimming and they provide
half of all North Carolinians with drinking water. Preserving water quality
is vital to our health, our communities, and North Carolina’s economy—without
clean water, our state will be unable to continue to support growth.
Waiting until our lakes are polluted to act can be costly and have damaging
effects on water quality. There are several tools our state can use to ensure
that costly, time-consuming clean-up of our lakes is not needed. These tools
include: 1) preserving open spaces, 2) providing our pristine waters with protection,
3) monitoring our lakes for early signs of pollution, and 4) making sure that
the clean up of our already polluted lakes happens quickly.
North Carolina’s leaders should take steps to:
-Establish permanent, dedicated state and local sources of funding to preserve
and restore our streams, wetlands, floodplains, greenways, and other important
lands, including full funding of $100,000,000 for the Clean Water Management
Trust Fund.
- Protect the tributaries to our lakes before they are degraded.
- Improve monitoring of our lakes and report the information to the public.
- Cap new discharges of wastewater into our major drinking water supply lakes
such as Jordan and Falls Lakes; also, quickly clean up polluted lakes.
|
