Agenda 11-02-23; 4-a - Resolution Endorsing Consensus Principles II for Revised Falls Lake Rules

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=24 For more disparate watershed related water quality issues, the conventional framework is mostly ineffective. There are extremely limited situations where such regulatory efforts have been successful in reducing the impacts of non-point sources to the degree necessary. One well-known example of the struggles of managing a watershed-based water quality concern is the Chesapeake Bay program. With the application of tremendous financial and management resources, improvements have been elusive. Progress has been and continues to be made, but it remains a challenge to meet. The Chesapeake Bay Program STAC states in their May 2023 Comprehensive Evaluation of System Response that"the legal requirements of the Clean Water Act [the water quality goals in the Bay] divert attention away from considering multiple means of improving living resources [support of aquatic life as the designated use]." The "dead zone" at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico provides another example of the monumental difficulty of achieving significant mitigation of existing land use within a watershed. Individual degraded streams throughout the country have similar challenges. The Federal 303(d)- process identifies streams with degraded biological integrity, among other programs, usually resulting from watershed-based impacts. In NC, many of these situations do not lend themselves to establishing a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) or do not have the regulatory authority to establish a Water Quality Management Plan that will effectively address the degraded biological integrity of the stream. Most of these streams stay on the 303(d) list of impaired waters and do not have actions in place to manage the pollutant sources within the watershed. Nutrient issues are predominantly caused by watershed impacts and non-point sources distributed throughout the watershed feeding the reservoir, estuary, or slow-moving stream or river. The long- established framework of"put limits on the sources and solve the problem" does not work in these situations. This is not a failure of intention but rather a failure to identify the true need for a management framework and to define a feasible management system to address the real problem. Faced with similar challenges,the Chesapeake Bay STAC indicates that "additional funding of existing implementation efforts is unlikely to produce the intended nutrient reduction outcomes" and that "achieving and sustaining substantial nonpoint pollutant reductions will likely require development and adoption of new implementation programs and tools." In other words, the conventional The conventional source-control framework framework does not work for watershed- does not work for watershed-based water based water quality issues. That is certainly true based on the findings of the quality issues, particularly for the Falls Lake scientific work on Falls Lake. To move this watershed which is mostly unmanaged lands. process forward with broad support and An updated approach is required to move this allocation of resources to maintain and process forward with broad support and improve water quality in Falls Lake, an allocation of resources to maintain and improve updated nutrient management strategy for water quality in Falls Lake. Falls Lake is essential. In order to develop a more scientifically valid approach, a comprehensive reexamination effort was undertaken by the UNRBA as allowed by the Falls Lake Rules. The Falls Lake UNRBA reexamination effort and the research funded by the NC Collaboratory provide a unique and deep understanding of this watershed and reservoir. It is now the most monitored and studied reservoir in NC. The careful assessment of the data and information by subject matter expert review, statistical comparisons, and watershed and lake modeling provides clarity on how this watershed and lake behave. This level of information is not available for other NC reservoirs and was not available when the current Falls Lake Rules were developed. 5