The city of Durham is facing one of its most concerning water-supply situations in recent years. As of November 9, Durham had an estimated 78 days of easily accessible water remaining in its reservoirs. The city’s combined reservoir storage had fallen to approximately 30%, and Stage 2 water restrictions remained in effect, with Stage 3 restrictions looming. 

These numbers should alarm us. They should also prompt a much bigger conversation about what protects our water supply in the first place. 

Forests do. 

Forests and wetlands are critical infrastructure. They capture rainfall, allow water to infiltrate into the ground, filter pollutants, and help mitigate downstream flooding. Healthy forest soils act like sponges, absorbing and holding rainwater and helping to sustain streamflows during dry periods. Forested wetlands provide additional storage, slowing the movement of water across the landscape. 

When we replace those forests with pavement, rooftops, parking lots, and subdivisions, we fundamentally change how water moves through our communities. Rain that once soaked into the ground becomes stormwater runoff, rushing into streams and creeks. The consequences are familiar: flash flooding, overwhelmed waterways, eroding streambanks, polluted drinking-water sources, and less water stored to resupply our drinking watersheds during extreme droughts like the one we are currently experiencing. 

In other words, protecting forests is also protecting our water supply. 

Yet Durham continues to approve development that destroys some of its most important remaining forestland. 

The recent INDY article, “Despite Development, the City of Durham’s Tree Canopy Continues to Grow,” celebrates the city’s reported increase in tree canopy coverage. It highlights an impressive 15,000 trees planted over the past decade, including a commendable investment in historically underserved neighborhoods. But the headline tells only part of the story. And the story it leaves out is one of accelerating forest loss on Durham’s developing outskirts. 

The problem is that planting many young trees is not the same thing as forest conservation. A satellite image can register a newly planted street tree and a 100-year-old hardwood forest as tree cover. But these landscapes are not interchangeable. A mature forest is an entire functioning ecosystem: its roots stabilize soil; its organic layers absorb rainfall; its canopy moderates temperatures; and its vegetation provides habitat. These functions take decades or centuries to develop. Clearcutting removes them immediately, increasing erosion and runoff, destroying habitat, and warming streams. 

There is another major problem with the way Durham’s canopy statistics are being presented: they do not tell us enough about the forestland being lost as development pushes outward. 

But there is a glaring omission: Much of the land annexed into the city has either been cleared since 2024 or is already slated to be cut for development. Because the areas with the highest remaining tree canopy are also where the most annexations are happening, the city is systematically absorbing heavily forested land right before it gets stripped. Furthermore, it can take years after a property is annexed for it to actually be cleared and graded, creating a lag time that masks the true impact of growth. A more honest analysis would account for the tree loss that is already baked in simply because those properties have been annexed for development—even if the bulldozers haven’t arrived yet. Measuring conservation success by looking at a snapshot of standing trees ignores the massive losses already queued up in the pipeline.

At nonprofit Sound Rivers, where I am Neuse Riverkeeper, we have documented a pattern of rampant deforestation around Falls Lake as county lands are annexed into the city. Consider just a few examples from the approximately 23-square-mile Lick Creek watershed, part of the larger Falls Lake drinking water supply area. 

  • Sweetbrier — 216 acres annexed and developed: Sound Rivers documented more than 300 permit violations and sediment pollution in nearby waterways regularly 10 to 20 times higher than the state standard. A lawsuit settlement in 2025 required the developer to improve pollution controls, pay $30,000, and protect 62 watershed acres. 
  • Ovation — 239 acres annexed and developed: A large residential subdivision directly adjacent to Sweetbrier. 
  • Perry Farms — more than 280 acres annexed and currently being developed: Forestland that includes mapped Natural Heritage Area in the Lick Creek bottomlands. 
  • Howards Place — 86 acres annexed and currently being cleared: Proposed development threatening mature bottomland hardwood forest in a Natural Heritage Area; rare species including the Carolina darter fish and the Douglass bittercress flower have been documented nearby. 

Each of these areas was annexed into the City of Durham as forest before being clearcut, graded and developed. 

And on November 16, the City of Durham is planning to hear the Rocky Branch Reserve rezoning proposal, which would convert 51 acres of currently forested land in this same heavily impacted Lick Creek watershed into new development. 

This is only a snapshot of one watershed over a few years. How can Durham claim to protect its trees while approving development that consumes entire forests? 

The city’s urban forestry work deserves recognition. But those accomplishments cannot become a smokescreen for destruction elsewhere. Urban tree planting and mature forest conservation serve different purposes. Street trees shade neighborhoods; mature forests and wetlands protect drinking water, reduce flooding, stabilize streambanks, cool waterways, and preserve habitat. These services have real economic and social value. We need both. 

Durham’s development regulations also deserve a more honest assessment. The 2023 Unified Development Ordinance changes were presented as meaningful protections, but they remain inadequate. A 50-acre mass-grading limit still allows a 50-acre clearcut. If development is phased, another 50-acre clearing can follow. Limiting how much land is disturbed at one time does not limit how much forest is ultimately destroyed. Community members spent years pushing for stronger protections. Their concerns should not be erased. 

Durham can continue to celebrate its tree-planting numbers and its citywide canopy percentage. But those numbers will mean very little if the city continues to approve the destruction of the mature forests that protect its water and make its communities resilient. 

We are in a drought. Our reservoirs are low. Our waterways are under pressure from pollution and increasingly intense development. Climate change is making extreme weather, including both prolonged dry spells and destructive rainfall, more unpredictable. This is precisely when we should be treating forests and wetlands as essential public infrastructure, not expendable land awaiting its next rezoning. 

You cannot plant your way out of deforestation. And you cannot protect a drinking-water supply while destroying the natural systems that keep it clean and flowing. 

Durham needs to stop measuring its environmental success by how many trees it plants and start demonstrating that it is willing to protect the forests it has left.

Samantha Krop is the Neuse Riverkeeper, director of advocacy with Sound Rivers, and a newly elected Wake County Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor.