What does controlled drainage hold for the Neuse River Basin?
Evans says that roughly 450,000 acres of cropland in the Neuse River Basin have the potential for controlled drainage. This area represents the crop-land acreage within the Neuse Basin that has undergone stream channeliza-tion or other forms of drainage improvement in the past. Of that por-tion, the 175,000 acres situated primarily in the Lower Coastal Plain and Tidewater regions of the basin “should prove to show the same water quality benefits [as in his earlier studies] in regards to nitrogen impact,” Evans says. “Fields in the lower basin are flat, have been extensively drained, and thus have excellent potential for controlled drainage, he says. “In areas like Pam-lico, Craven and Jones counties it just doesn’t make any sense not to be using controlled drainage.
