Science in the Triangle

RTI water quality scientist Kenneth Reckhow says we may have trouble achieving mandated water quality standards without making major lifestyle changes.

What happens if we are unable to achieve federally mandated water quality standards in our lakes, rivers, and bays?

In 1972, Congress enacted the Clean Water Act (also referred to as the 1972 Amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act) governing water pollution in the U.S. Among other things, the Clean Water Act regulates the release of pollutants into surface waters. Individual states determine water quality standards for bodies of water within their borders.

Now, a water quality scientist at RTI International is concerned that these water quality standards are unattainable in certain major bodies of water, including Falls Lake, a lake that is valued for recreation as well as being Raleigh’s municipal water source.

Kenneth Reckhow, Ph.D., says that it will be difficult for water bodies like Falls Lake or the Chesapeake Bay to meet current water quality standards without huge changes in lifestyle. He is currently serving as chair of the National Academies Committee on the Evaluation of Chesapeake Bay Program Implementation for Nutrient Reduction to Improve Water Quality. This post gives him a firsthand look at the challenges we face in achieving mandated water quality standards.

According to Reckhow, we’ve done everything expected to reduce pollution from “point sources” such as the approximately 600 wastewater treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. They have been “improved to the limit of technology,” he says, and further changes would be costly for perhaps little additional return.

“But we still have a long way to go to reduce nitrogen or phosphorus loading,” in the Chesapeake Bay and other water bodies, Reckhow says. That’s because those pollutants also arrive in our lakes, rivers, and bays from “nonpoint sources” in the watershed: agricultural fields, feedlots, stormwater drainage from urban areas, and lawn fertilizers. In the case of Falls Lake, Reckhow also notes that nutrients contained in the agricultural soils that were flooded to create the lake could still possibly be emerging into the water.

The effects of these pollutants range from annoying to dangerous. Nitrogen and phosphorus, ingredients in fertilizers, cause excessive algae growth, which in turn can deplete oxygen needed by fish and shellfish. Fish kills can result. Some algal blooms are toxic, causing potential threats to mammals up the food chain, including humans. Also, affected water can become discolored or cloudy and take on odors, impacting recreational activities like swimming and boating.

Measures to control nonpoint pollution are expensive and often imposed on communities that don’t directly benefit from the body of water being protected. For instance, New York state is required by the Environmental Protection Agency to produce a plan to reduce its contributions to Chesapeake Bay pollution. Not surprisingly, local officials in affected jurisdictions are balking at measures they believe would be “exorbitantly costly.”

And here in North Carolina, the state’s Environmental Management Commission has drafted regulations to clean up Falls Lake that may financially impact Durham and other upstream communities more than Raleigh, whose drinking water comes from the polluted lake.

Reckhow believes that our current urban/suburban lifestyle doesn’t mesh with the water quality needed to support desirable uses like recreational fishing, and he says that achieving mandated water quality may require such drastic measures as banning lawns and restricting agriculture within a watershed, limiting development, or even “moving people out of the watershed.”

Given the improbability that we will halt development or curtail agricultural activities in watersheds, Reckhow believes it is unlikely that we can achieve mandated water quality standards in many of our major U.S. water bodies. To him, an important question is what we gain by partial compliance: does a 70 percent reduction in pollution equal a 70 percent gain in water quality benefits? Not necessarily, says Reckhow, and that’s where computer modeling and analysis, his academic specialties, can help support decisionmaking.

“Do we say we want blue crabs and oysters badly enough that we curtail development and forego our manicured lawns?” Learning what measures might lead us to even partially achieve water quality goals is something he believes we need to engage in “earlier rather than later.”

Reckhow joined RTI International in October as chief scientist for the Water and Ecosystem Management Program. His hiring signals an emphasis at RTI in expanding its capabilities in water resource management, and he is serving as a thought leader and principal investigator there. He is currently involved in around a dozen projects and proposals.

Previously, he was a professor in Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment for 30 years and was director of the University of North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute. He is a widely cited expert on the development, evaluation and application of models and other assessment techniques for managing water quality.