The groundwork is in place to get the job done, says Barbara Doll , Sea Grant water quality specialist. Doll has been preaching the water quality gospel since the earliest days of her career with Sea Grant. That's when she launched a campaign to promote awareness that whatever is dumped into the neighborhood storm drain affects water quality in that particular river basin. As a Sea Grant specialist, Doll collaborates with other Sea Grant extension specialists, university researchers, North Carolina Cooperative Extension, the NC State Water Quality Group and a number of state agencies to conduct water quality workshops across the state. In recent years, North Carolina adopted a basinwide approach to water quality planning, developing maps and pollution reduction goals for each of North Carolina's 17 river basins.
Doll says basinwide management offers real possibilities for reducing nutrient runoff.
Local stakeholders help select best management practices that are tailored to meet specific site or watershed needs. It's even better news when practices become policy in regions where rapid growth is stressing natural resources. Recently the piedmont town of Cary adopted a 100-foot riparian buffer rule to protect environmentally sensitive streams and lakes that drain into both the Cape Fear and Neuse river basins. The state's 50-foot stream buffer rule, expected to be approved in November, applies only to towns in the Neuse basin. Riparian buffers include the land along creeks, rivers and lakes, Doll explains.