Summary
"Growth and wastewater go hand in hand," says T.J. Lynch, superintendent of Raleigh's wastewater treatment plant "There's research to be done whether the river can handle additional wastewater."
Bill Showers, associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at N.C. State University, has conducted an EPA-funded study of nitrogen levels in the Neuse. He discovered that extra nitrogen was coming not from treated wastewater, but from the public utility's 1,000-acre application field that borders the river, which winds. around plant property. While the amount of nitrogen entering the Neuse is still within permitted limits, Showers says, "it isn't supposed to go outside the.field boundaries and it's going into the river."Raleigh Planning Commissioner Betsy Kane says while erosion ordinances help curb runoff, those regulations don't apply to all sites. "The silt fences can only do so much," she says. "And site developers aren't always attentive as they should be."See the full content of this document
Extract
Bad News for the Neuse
Volunteers fished more than 22,000 pounds of trash, including 56 tires, two toilets and a boat trailer from the first 50 miles of the Upper Neuse River near Raleigh last month, but the greatest threat to the waterway is what no one sees.
Growth throughout the river basin-from its headwaters near Falls Lake in...See the full content of this document
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