Right now, the General Assembly is finalizing the state’s 2016-17 budget. Like any government budget, the process, of course, determines how much money state agencies, nonprofits and more receives from a pool of taxpayer dollars.

This budget, however, does something a little bit different; something to which everyone here should be paying attention.

Tucked into the N.C. Senate’s version of the budget, is a provision that addresses the Tar-Pamlico Riverbasin, along with those of the Neuse River, Falls Lake and Jordan Lake watersheds. It requires that the rules and regulations determining how much nitrogen and phosphate — pollution from runoff — be reviewed and revised, because the programs don’t work.

According to many stakeholders, who worked tirelessly over a years-long process to put those rules in place, that is untrue. They do work, as anyone who was around during the 1980s and 1990s can attest. There is no comparison between the state of the river now and that state of emergency it was in then.

But the Tar-Pamlico River Nutrient Sensitive Waters Management Strategy is under scrutiny, lumped into the Senate version of the budget along with watersheds with programs that have failed — programs that failed because treating already polluted water just doesn’t work. The only way to keep waterways healthy is to prevent the pollution from getting there to begin with.

There are some who say the rules present an economic burden for municipalities, landowners, agricultural entities and developers are too stringent. Others say the rules aren’t stringent enough.

Should those rules be done away with, or lessened to the point that the river is once again in a critical state, the economic damage would be much greater. Think of the crabbing industry, an industry that still hasn’t completely recovered from the past.

Think of a beautiful waterfront home, its beach covered with dead and decaying marine life; a fishing charter on a river with nothing to catch; a boat tour dodging an army of dead fish — these are just a few examples of very real results lessened restrictions could create. Not a single person here would want any of those things to happen. No one.

There’s a disconnect between what happens in Raleigh and what happens here at home. Perhaps the assumption is made that any local legislator is doing what he or she claimed they were going to do when they were campaigning: look out for the best interests of their constituency.

When it comes to the health of eastern North Carolina waterways, making the same mistakes of the past is not in anyone’s best interest.

The things that happen in Raleigh do not stay in Raleigh — they flow right down the river to wash up on our shores.