SHALLOTTE, N.C. | The N.C. Coastal Federation has gotten $40,000 from the N.C. Division of Water Quality to develop stormwater control retrofits at the Brunswick County Government Complex, said Mike Giles, Cape Fear Coastkeeper.

The work is being done as an extension of the two-year Lockwood Folly River Watershed Roundtable which developed a series of strategies to improve water quality in the river so that shellfishing could return to areas now closed because of pollution.

The retrofits at the complex will be designed as a demonstration of what communities and homeowners along the river can do to halt stormwater pollutants that flow from them into the river.

The roundtable effort, which was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was the first of its kind in North Carolina that encompassed an entire watershed in its planning. Its work is being called a blueprint for other areas to follow. The 150-square-mile Lockwood Folly watershed is entirely in Brunswick County.