County to examine water supply issues, alternatives

With the end of winter and the onset of warmer weather, the future of Orange County’s water supply and conservation efforts needs further examination.

To facilitate community discussion, the Orange Water and Sewage Authority will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. today at the Carrboro Century Center, located at 100 N. Greensboro St.

OWASA will use the outreach forum to present various issues affecting the local water supply, such as planning for future increases in water demand, changes in water supply in the instance of a drought and the importance of water conservation.

The meeting also will be open to questions and comments from OWASA consumers.

“A very important focus will be looking at future water supply,” said Greg Feller, public affair administrator for OWASA.

Mark Marcoplos, chairman of OWASA’s board of directors, hopes that people will see during the meeting that OWASA not only meets basic water supply needs, but also is involved in noteworthy conservation projects.

“Irrigation is a big residential use of water in the summer, but we can do this more efficiently,” Marcoplos said.

Of the total water use in Chapel Hill and Carrboro — amounting to an estimated 9 million gallons per day — drinking constitutes a small percentage.

“A little more than half of the total water supply is used for residential customers,” Feller said. “Four percent of that is used for drinking.”

Toilet flushing constitutes the largest usage of residential water, followed by washing machines and showers and baths.

Officials think that the public should be more mindful of its water usage.

“People take water for granted,” said Bernadette Pelissier, political chairwoman of the Orange-Chatham Group of the Sierra Club and an OWASA board member. “There is a finite supply of water, so we should use it wisely.”

A recently introduced bill in the N.C. Senate might be one way to help with those efforts.

The bill, introduced by various senators representing areas around the Jordan Lake and Falls Lake watersheds, targets drinking water reservoirs across the state for conservation.

“Jordan Lake supplies water to a large part of the Triangle and is becoming polluted. Falls Lake is becoming impaired,” Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson said on why the bill was introduced.

He added that the purpose of the bill was to clean up Jordan Lake and keep Falls Lake from becoming polluted.

While OWASA customers have plenty of water now, Marcoplos said there likely will be more than one severe drought within the next 25 years.

Water supply in reservoirs peaks in the winter but then decreases in the spring as water usage increases. If reservoirs are unable to replenish themselves in the winter, he said, increased usage during spring and summer can cause droughts.

Droughts are also the result of a lack of rainfall, but determining when they begin is not an easy task, Marcoplos said.

“You don’t realize you are in a drought until one or two months in,” he said.

Droughts also greatly affect the environment because most plants and animals cannot survive under such strain, Pelissier said.

To prepare for future droughts, OWASA looks at long-term water supply and demand and promotes conservation, Feller said.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.