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Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop and Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman gathered with fellow Riverkeepers in Raleigh on Earth Day to advocate for better water-quality standards.

The Waterkeepers Carolina group weighed in on the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Triennial Review draft, a document that lays out state standards determining impaired waterways and thresholds that constitute healthy ones.

“Waterkeepers Carolina collectively commented on a few different parameters, because this is a big deal — it only happens every three years,” Samantha said. “We had been organizing about it, writing comments and researching for a while.”

Each Riverkeeper in attendance gave public comments about specific standards in the draft. For Katey, it was PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and harmful algal blooms; Samantha spoke about turbidity standards, for which she has a wealth of experience from her work addressing sediment pollution in southeast Durham.

“So DEQ has proposed this draft set of standards, and some of the things we focused on were things we felt need to be tweaked in the draft and other things were missing entirely,” Samantha said.

One tweak was E. coli standards, a recreational water-quality standard proposed for the first time in the current draft.

“The state is proposing in the draft a new standard for surface waters, but they’re only to be applied to Class B waterways,” Samantha said. “The classification doesn’t match the reality because people recreate in all Class C waterways, too. The entire Neuse River from Falls Lake down to New Bern is class C, so the E. coli standard would not apply to those waters. We’d like to see them apply the standard to all surface waterways, not just those that are classified as Class B.”

Missing are surface-water standards for 1-4 Dioxane and PFAs, both of which have been linked to harmful health effects in humans and animals.

“There is a PFAS standard, but it’s only for drinking water, which puts the burden of testing for these chemicals on drinking water treatment plants rather than those putting those chemicals in the water, the polluters themselves,” Samantha said.

The Riverkeepers also stressed standards for cyanobacteria, toxic bacteria produced by harmful algal blooms, should be included in the draft to help address issues in waterways that experience those harmful algal blooms.

Samantha said the public hearing lasted only an hour and was attended by the Riverkeepers, and experts from Duke and N.C. State universities.

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