Water purity in the Catawba drops steadily from its headwaters to the algae-riddled lakes 50 miles south of Charlotte. As Mecklenburg officials mulled whether to join four other counties in a large waste-treatment plant proposed for Lancaster County, S.C., the S.C. House passed a bill this year limiting N.C. wastes to 10 percent of any S.C. plant's treatment capacity. If approved by the state Senate next year, the measure could cripple the ability of Mecklenburg and Union counties to take part in the kind of regional venture most experts laud. Lake Wateree homeowners feel similarly victimized by Charlotte. Nutrients flowing into Wateree from upstream, apparently including a portion from Charlotte sewage-treatment plants, fertilizes an algae crop that is unrivaled in South Carolina.
Algal blooms can strip life-supporting oxygen from the lake.
In the N.C. foothills, Caldwell County commissioners are already considering whether future limits on Mecklenburg's water intakes and discharges could affect communities upstream. I believe we'll have that within 20 years. Larry Olmsted, Duke Power's environmental science chief, believes communities in the basin will protect their resource, such as by building greenways and protecting open space. The water-quality team of Voices and Choices, an outgrowth of the Regional Environmental Summit held in 1998, recommends a plan to manage the river based on voluntary consensus. Voices and Choices will host a regional forum in March in Hickory to start talks on the issue.