Marc Alperin with UNC-CH Marine Sciences examines a sediment core collected from the bottom of Jordan Lake. (Photo Credit: UNC Marine Sciences)
The SePro Corporation is receiving as much as $1.3 million in taxpayer money to chemically kill the algae in Jordan Lake, but the company is keeping key details of its proposal — including a full ingredient list of the products and the amounts to be released — secret from the public. The proposed chemical treatment of a drinking water source for 300,000 people is yet another questionable technique backed by some lawmakers and business interests, who have been reluctant to instead enforce rules limiting development in the Jordan Lake watershed.
SePro’s proposals were marked “confidential,” but Policy Watch obtained them under the state’s public records law. However, more than half of the eight-page document had been redacted by SePro, under a state statute allowing companies to refuse to divulge material they deem as proprietary or a trade secret. “Without more information, this is a useless document,” said Marc Alperin, associate professor in the UNC Marine Sciences Department, who reviewed the proposal at Policy Watch’s request. Alperin is also studying the lake sediment for the NC […]