Develop and begin implementing basinwide plans to protect and restore water quality in each basin according to the schedule established by the Division of Environmental Management's Water Quality Section. The plans would include provisions for basinwide wetland protection and restoration.
Management Action 2
Establish total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) and associated control strategies for all impaired streams in the Albemarle-Pamlico region by 1999.
Management Action 3
Renew all discharge permits in a river basin simultaneously by 1999.
Management Action 4
Consider the potential for long-term growth and its impacts when determining how a basin's assimilative capacity will be used.
Management Action 5
Improve the scientific models for understanding the estuarine system, the effects of human activities on the system and the viability of alternative management strategies.
Management Action 6
Continue long-term, comprehensive monitoring of water quality in the APES system, collecting data to assess general system health and target regional problems.
Objective A:
Implement a Comprehensive Basinwide Approach to Water Quality Management
Strategy: Effective management of water resources ultimately relies on the consideration of system-wide processes and the cumulative impacts of activities across a river basin. To this end, the Division of Environmental Management (DEM) is approaching water quality research, management, and discharge permitting from a basinwide scale.
This approach allows for a balancing of point and nonpoint source contributions and control strategies. The goal of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is to protect the basin's surface waters while accommodating reasonable growth and development. Using this framework requires the availability of river basin models. Several agencies are working to develop models that can be used to demonstrate how all these factors affect water quality.
The Water Quality Section of DEM has recently initiated a basinwide approach to water quality management. The Neuse River Basinwide Management Plan is the first of a series of basinwide plans that will be prepared by DEM for all seventeen of the state's major river basins over the next five years. The basinwide approach to water management considers the assimilative capacity of a river basin as well as the relationship between wetlands and water bodies.
Water quality modeling at the basin and sub-basin scale enhances the ability to establish realistic pollutant loading estimates for development of proper management strategies and will eventually assist in the prediction of impacts to water quality and flows from land use alterations including wetland loss and restorations.