Clock running down on Falls Lake cleanup commencement

Changing behavior is costly but necessary:

Authorities in Wake County pressured the legislature for the lake's cleanup, because the lake provides drinking water for 450,000 Wake residents. But the pollutants reach the lake from streams running through Durham, Granville, Person and Orange counties, whose taxpayers would bear the greatest financial burden for cleaning up Raleigh's reservoir.

It will probably do little good to repeat this, but it needs to be said: Techniques for ameliorating the negative effects of stormwater runoff have been available to county/city governments for decades, and they (for the most part) chose to ignore them. During that time, land development in the Triangle/Triad regions propagated like rabbits, and the combination of those two factors produced an inevitable result. A result that must be dealt with, now.

It may seem an unfortunate twist of fate that this bill is coming due at a time when various municipal entities (and the citizens they represent) can least afford to pay it, but that is the price you pay for perpetual negligence.

The rules take effect Jan. 15 but must still be cleared with the state Rules Review Commission to ensure that they comply with existing law. They remain subject to legislators' intervention during the 2011 session.

The rules affect new and existing development, agriculture, forestry, wastewater treatment and discharge. With that many interests involved, Durham County Manager Drew Cummings said, "I'd be hard-pressed to imagine" some won't press legislators to intervene.

No doubt. And I'm sure the new Republican-led General Assembly will try to undermine the implementation of these costly rules. But it's no longer just a local/state issue anymore. It's the Federal "clock" that is winding down, and we either proceed with a suitable plan to bring that water quality back up to standard, or meet the Feds in court. That would be a Federal court, by the way...