Focus On...Water Quality

Program Description

To the average homeowner, the chemical fertilizer that will be keeping the grass growing this summer may mean more trips through the yard with the mower. To the fishermen on the Neuse River, however, it means fewer healthy fish to catch.

Focus On..Water Quality calls North Carolina's attention to terms like "nonpoint source pollution," "nutrient loading" and "sedimentation." In a panel led by North Carolina Now's Shannon Vickery, four experts from North Carolina's universities and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources discuss the status of North Carolina's streams, rivers, lakes and coastal waters and how every person contributes to water purity.

Joining Vickery are Coleen Sullins, section chief of the Division of Water Quality at NC DENR; Richard Whisnant, specialist in environmental law from UNC-Chapel Hill; Dr. Joseph Ramus, expert in marine ecology and wastewater management at Duke University; and Dr. Stanley Riggs, researcher in coastal systems and wetlands at East Carolina University.

To springboard the discussion, clips of North Carolina Now features on water pollution introduce the audience to the stressors on North Carolina's water resources. Thomas R. Linden, M.D., Glaxo Wellcome Distinguished Professor of Medical Journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, collaborated with North Carolina Now producer Julia Cox on four features about water pollution between September 2001 and March 2002. Students from Linden's fall 2001 Medical Reporting for the Electronic Media course and spring 2002 Science Documentary Television course decided on topics, researched the background, set up interviews and wrote the scripts for the features, while UNC-TV videographers filmed and edited the final pieces.

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