I. INTRODUCTION
The CAN Water Symposium was designed for a better understanding of the quantity and quality issues of our water resources, what individuals can do and the difference between surface water and ground water. I never knew it was so complicated until we started this. We have a distinguished panel that will be introduced in just a few minutes.
CAN has been around for several years now and we believe that our purpose is to raise public awareness for a sustainable community.
We are fortunate to have with us Mr. Rick Bolich, who is the Senior Hydrogeologist with the Division of Water Quality of the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources as our moderator today. Rick is a graduate of the University of Miami and holds a Masters Degree from North Carolina State.
NOTE: Click here for Orange County data
II. RICK BOLICH, MODERATOR FOR DROUGHT/RAIN
Here is a brief introduction for the presentation and an introduction of the panel members. Our panel members are Dr. Charles Daniel, Consulting Hydrogeologist, Pat Davis, Utility Manger at OWASA, and Tom Konsler, the Environmental Health Director at Orange County Health Department.
So the question is, “Are we going to run out of water?” The drought from 2007-2008 was one of the worst on record since keeping records for a little over 100 years. So we really do not know just how severe droughts can get. About 5-1/2 million people in the state of North Carolina, about 80%, are now subject to either mandatory or voluntary water use restrictions. A week ago, February 26th, the nationwide NOAH Drought Monitor Record Map of Continental United States shows the southeast having one of the most severe climatological droughts in the country. This has probably shrunk considerably in response to the recent rains we have had. Keep in mind that the area affected by drought grows and shrinks in response to recharge events, but the bottom line is we are still in a drought and that it is going to take a long time for us to get out of the situation we are in now. So even when you see the area of drought shrink, that doesn’t mean, “Oh, we don’t have to worry, we are heading in the right direction,” it can just as easily increase in response to decreased rain fall.
This slide shows ground water levels from a well the U.S. Geological Survey has been monitoring for 60 years. It is in Chapel Hill, a shallow well and a good drought indicator well. On the left hand side is the elevation of water in feet and on the other axis is time starting out in 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, and up to the present day. You see fluctuations in this water table over time. What is interesting is that we are now at a level of 465. But in the past, we have gotten down to a 465 level quite a few times, but we haven’t gotten below it. Also it is remarkable how stable the oscillations have been in response to our climatological events in that the oscillations of drought last for a relatively short period of time. I think that is a good sign that shows the system’s ability to replenish itself. Charles Daniel will go into some detail about why this is the case. That gives some hope on the horizon. Now, looking at NOAH website’s Seasonal Drought Outlook Map for the Continental United States, towards the Atlantic Ocean, close to the coast, climatologically it shows some improvement and some reason to be hopeful for more rainfall but in the Piedmont there will still be some level of drought.
Here is a short explanation of the hydrologic cycle. The basic hydrologic cycle is a cycle, so you can start anywhere to illustrate the point. So starting with precipitation – rain falling on the ground; some if it runs off as surface water, some of it goes through evapo-transperation from trees and grass, some of it evaporates from surfaces, some of it transpires through plants roots and leaves into the ground and some of it infiltrates down into the water table. Once it gets in the water table as ground water, it isn’t static, it is going to find its way horizontally back into surface water, then into the ocean, and eventually evaporate from the ocean to be part of the cycle again. So it looks like we can’t control any of this, can we? Except for one thing - there is one thing humans can do to effect this cycle, and that is to control the run off. We can’t make it rain more and we can’t make it evaporate less. But one thing we can do, engineering-wise, is to control run-off. The important issue is controlling runoff to manage, maintain and conserve the quantity of our water resources and also improve the quality of water.
Orange County has figures that you will find interesting. An acre of land gets 27,000gallons of rainfall from 1” of rain. Orange County has an average yearly rainfall of 46 inches so one acre receives a little over 1 million gallons of water per year. Orange County has about 256,000 acres so gets almost 7 billion gallons of water from 1 inch of rainfall. So if one acre gets 1,242,000 gallons of water a year, Orange County gets 300 billion gallons of rainfall a year. In 2006, the population of the county was about 120,000 people. That translates to a yearly water demand of a little over 4 billion gallons of water per year. Some of this water recharges back into the water table, about 70% used by wells. Since Orange County receives 300 billion gallons of water a year in precipitation and only uses 4 billion gallons, there is plenty of water to go around. What is our challenge? We need to be a little smarter about how we use it and conserve what we have. There is plenty of water, much more than we can use. We could also get water from surface water systems outside of the county if needed.
For those of you that have wells at your home, you ask, “Well that’s great, but how does it affect my well? How much water is available for my well?” Dr. Daniel and Tom Konsler will detail this, but an interesting fact is that an acre of land stores about 3 million gallons of water in the subsurface with an average typical saturated thickness of about 20 feet. It is a little conservative for this county, but on average a 20 foot thickness of saprolite will give you about 3 million gallons of water underneath your 1 acre. That is pretty fascinating, to realize how much water that is. Of course, that water is not readily available to you, but it is there and locked up in the matrix of your silt and clay and the saprolite.
You are fortunate in Orange County more than other counties for being very proactive in water protection. You have had a number of watershed protections passed over the years. In 1981, you were the first county to institute watershed protection. In 1989, the University Lake Watershed was protected. In 1990, the Little River/Lake Michie Watershed was protected for Durham County. In 1999 Cane Creek Watershed was protected. In 1992 you maintained more stringent watershed protection standards than the state instituted. The rural property surrounding in these watersheds must have larger lot sizes, less impervious surface and greater stream buffer setbacks. Dr. Daniel has been involved in and will discuss today findings from the three technical studies of Orange County’s surface and ground water resources, the 1996 USGS Ground Water Recharge Report, the 1999 Ground Water Contamination Susceptibility Map report and the 2001 Ground Water Investigation Report.
So are we running out of water? The answer is no. There is plenty of good quality fresh water available. We just have to make sure that we manage this resource properly. The one message you should take home is to slow it down. The water is out there. It is part of this cycle. So the burden for us is to figure out ways to slow it down, keep what we have, not let it run off in order to maintain our quantity and protect its quality.
III. Dr. CHARLES DANIEL, HYDROGEOLOGY
Rick Bolich: Our first speaker is Dr. Charles Daniel. Dr. Charles Daniel has a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He worked for the U.S. Geological Survey from 1973 until his retirement in 2002. He has over 50 publications on topics related to water resources. I have had the pleasure of knowing Dr. Daniel professionally for several years now and you guys indeed have a unique homegrown resource and a good quality scientist that specializes in water resources.
Dr. Charles Daniel: It is a real pleasure to be here today and certainly a pleasure to participate with some of my colleagues from past work.
I’d like to talk about the results of the USGS studies which Rick mentioned. We started working on these studies back in the early 1990’s and completed the last one in 2001. I want to talk about ground water in Orange County specifically, but I want to reference them to conditions in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge of the state because they are relevant studies which have been conducted and are currently under way and provide us additional insight into the conditions in the county.
There are a number of issues I will address. One is the nature of the ground water system. Others are the amount of water available, how we obtain ground water from wells and the effects of ground water withdrawal. I’ll address the concern that neighbors’ wells diminish the resource of neighboring wells or lower the water table. I will talk about the recharging, replenishing of the ground water system and how the water budgets correlate. I want to emphasize that this is a renewable resource, that there is a lot of water out there and show you what the water budgets we have.
First of all ground water represents the largest reservoir of readily available fresh water. The news media and our local elected officials talk about their concerns for the water resources, but invariably they show you pictures of Falls of Lake, Jordan Lake. They talk about reservoirs drying up with not much mention of ground water. Let’s talk about the importance of ground water versus surface water and base this on work by the Russian Hydrologist, L’vovich’s water inventory of the hydrosphere. We’ll ignore the salt water in the oceans. Of all the fresh water on earth, about 85% of the fresh water is tied up in ice sheets and glaciers, 14% is in ground water. Water in lakes, reservoirs and rivers is a little over 0.5%. So not counting the ice that is tied up in ice sheets and glaciers, just look at the fresh water that we have access to. Ground water is a little over 94% of all the available fresh water on earth. The water that we might tap from lakes, reservoirs, and rivers is under 4%. So when they show you pictures and talk about the problems with reservoirs and surface water resources, which is 4%, they are ignoring the vast resource of so much water in the ground, which is 94% of the available fresh water.
So where does this water occur? It occurs in the openings in the soil and rocks beneath our feet. Underlying the majority of the county is metamorphic metavolcanic and metaigneous crystalline rock formed and later folded and fractured by mountain building processes or other tectonic forces. This is covered by varying thicknesses of regolith composed of saprolite, alluvium, and soil. The Triassic Basin of sedimentary deposits is in the southwestern corner of the county. Most of the water moves through the fractures, soil and residual material resting on top of the bedrock.
A cross-section profile of our ground-water system, starting at the bottom, shows the fractured crystalline bedrock structure of high angle and stress relief fractures and sheet joints. Above that is the lower regolith of unweathered rock. Above that is the transition zone between weathered bedrock bolders and the clay-rich completely weathered in-place rock called saprolite. Within the saprolite layer is the saturated zone of the regolith containing the watertable. On the very top is the unsaturated zone of the regolith containing the organic layers of surface soil. The regolith is a mixture of clay and fragmental material ranging from grain size silt to boulders. Because of its porosity, the regolith provides the bulk of the water storage.
Let’s look at the term, porosity. Porosity is the ratio of openings for the total volume of a soil or rock. In soil, the porosity may be as much as 55% of that body of rock by volume. In a well-sorted sand, it may be as much as 25% and in a granite 0.1%. In the Piedmont, slates and other metamorphic rocks have fractures of porosity of 1 to 3%. Think about the soil beneath your feet being 55% air or air and water. That is a lot of volumetric space.
So, where do these different porosities occur?
To see how water is in fractures is a picture taken in Western Wake County during the construction of I-40 showing high angle near-vertical fractures. In fact, there are so many of them that they form a network, intersecting each other in the rock, and can be broken out in blocks. Then we have low angle fractures, stress relief or parting fractures, through which the water can move. As Rick mentioned, the rainfall can soak into the ground. It will eventually percolate down into these fractures. If we want to drill a well, what we want to do is drill a well that will intersect these fractures at so we can remove the water from that fractured network.
Typically, we find that the water table, when we drill a well, is within the regolith part of the profile. So how does this fit in with our water resource? Here is a reservoir pipeline conceptual model that I would like to talk about. Remember the porosity and the regolith, or soil, may be upwards of 55%, so the storage in the regolith is very high. The storage in the fractured bedrock decreases with depth, because the number of fractures decreases with depth and the fractures at depth are held closed by the increasing weight of the overlying rock, which is called lithostatic pressure. In order to obtain a good well, a high yielding well, we will typically drill through the regolith and use casing to keep that lose material from coming into our well as sediment or muddy water. But then, we drill through the bottom of the casing into the fractured bedrock to have a self-supporting open hole and hopefully, intersect fractures. These fractures serve as pipelines. There is very little water stored in them. Remember 1% to 3%. What we want to do is intersect this fracture network and bring water down into the wellbore from the saturated part of the regolith.
It gets a little more complicated, as most of these things do. Here is another conceptual view of the North Carolina Blue Ridge and Piedmont with the unsaturated zone lifted up to show you the shape of the water table. The water table is a subtle replica of the surface topography. The greatest depth to the water table is beneath hills and ridges. The shallowest depth to the water table is along valleys and streams, and in fact, if you have a lake that is the local water table the water surface elevation in the lake is the local water table. Notice how I have drawn this diagram with these stream valleys and these little tributary ravines localized over zones of fractured concentration, in this case, a fault. Breaking a dense fracture network facilitates weathering of the rock at depth. It also facilitates weathering, erosion, and downcutting by the overlying streams. So, streams would tend to localize over these zones of fractured concentration. They follow the weakest rock. The reason we have hills and ridges is because there are fewer fractures so that rock is more resistant to weathering.
Another fact is that we have recharge areas and discharge areas within this topographic setting. Most of the recharge will occur within the inner stream divides, the ground water will move towards the topographic low areas and those are the discharge areas. The water moves from the high areas to the low areas, these arrows show the direction of ground water flow.
Another point is, where would you want to drill a well? Probably the last place to put it, in terms of getting a high yield, would be on a hill, the highest part of the property. The water table is further below the surface, the saturated thickness of regolith is thinner and the ground water is always moving down and away from that well site after it is recharged. The best place for a well, is lower in the topography but not in a floodplain. You hope to intersect fractures at depth which would produce a high-yielding well.
To simplify here is a picture with an unconfined aquifer. Here is our water table with the unsaturated zone above it. The ground water movement occurs in three dimensions. It moves laterally and it is moves downward through the system. These little arrows are flow lines showing that recharge starts on the higher topography. The water moves down and eventually comes out of the ground in the discharge areas of the streams. It moves laterally in a downward gradient. So groundwater moves hydraulically down the hydraulic gradient from an area called highhead to an area of lowhead.
Here is another cross-section diagram to make a couple of points. The last one did not show a feature which I think is important for us. Here we have a recharge area, a discharge area. We can see the flow lines. Two points that I want to make about this, is that the flow system serves two functions. It stores water to the extent of its porosity and it also transmits water from the recharge areas to the discharge areas. Thus a ground water system serves as both a reservoir and conduit for ground water flow.
Something important to remember is that you see these flow lines flow line going off to the left and some other flow lines coming in from the right then converging on this stream. You also see something called the water table divide that becomes a flow boundary. People are concerned about contamination of their water supply. If you were to drill a well here, and there was a source of contamination across the stream over here, there is almost zero chance that this well would be contaminated by a source of contamination on the other side of a perennial stream. As long as that stream flows year round, the ground water flow system is going to come up against this flow boundary and discharge into the discharge area. The same thing happens on a hill, if there is a source of contamination on one side of the hill, you are not going to pull it into a well or have a contaminated well on the other side of the hill. That contamination is going to move off to the left to the next discharge area. This is called closed flow cell mechanism. Where you would have to worry would be if you had a well below a source of contamination up-gradient, uphill from your well. A few years ago people that lived across a perennial stream from Orange County landfill on Eubanks Road were worried about contamination of their well water. S I really don’t think there was much for them to worry about because of this flow cell mechanism.
How do we tap this resource? We drill wells. Tom is going to talk about the Orange County regulation well.
Most of the wells that are drilled in Orange County are done with air rotary. To transport the drill rig, the mast hinges to lie down over top of the cab. At the site the mast goes up and hydraulic leveling pads and cylinders on all four corners level the truck. Sometimes you will see the truck entirely lifted off the ground. The idea is to get the truck level so that the mast is vertical to have a plum well bore when you drill. For water wells we don’t like to do angle drilling.
How do we drill a well? It is done with pneumatic hammers and button bits, the most common drill bits. To drill through really hard material of crystalline rock the button bits, little balls, are usually made of tungsten carbide. They are set into the bottom of the bit, the bit is inserted in the pneumatic hammer which is screwed onto the drill stem. It is the same principal as a jackhammer. It operates on compressed air at a pressure of anywhere from 200 to 300 PSI and as it drills, the air comes out from the hammer. It is exhausted out flutes, passes up a hole and carries rock cuttings and any water out with it. Often you will see a drill rig followed by a support truck with a big water tank on it and extra well casing. The water is needed in the well bore, if it is dry while drilling, to cool the bit so it does not wearout prematurely.
This is a well that would look familiar to one in your backyard. The well casing extends down into the unweathered rock, is seated with a drive shoe going all the way through the regolith. The annular space would be filled with grout or cement or perhaps concrete with pea-sized gravel, so the gravel would go around the hole. Then into the bedrock is a self-supported open hole with the discharge line, pump, and motor suspended in the hole. The one thing I want to point out for homeowners to not have the pump motor below the lowest producing fracture zone. These pump motors are cooled and lubricating by water flowing past them. If you put the pump down below that last fracture, it is going to be in stagnant water, fresh cooling water will not flow past that pump. The water will move down the well bore reservoir then into the pump intake and then back up the discharge line, prematurely shortening the life of the pump. Also, you do not want to introduce air into your water producing fracture zones. If you lower the water level in the well, below the producing zones, air can go back up into the fractures and airlock those fractures. So have the pump above the high-yielding producing zones for saturated flow to keep the pump cool and don’t airlock the producing zones by overuse.
How deep do we drill in Orange County? Here are actual results from the USGS Orange County research. We took several hundred well records and looked at how much water they produced for different well depths. You can see that the yield diminishes with depth and by the time we are down to 700 feet, the average well-yield gallons per minute is down about 3 or 4 gallons per minute. I showed you earlier that the fractures diminish with depth. So you get the maximum yield between 100 1nd 200 feet. Below that the chance of intersecting fractures diminishes and the well bore becomes storage not water producing. If I was drilling a well and had not gotten much water at 300 feet, I would consider asking moving to another site on my property and would not want to drill more than 600’.
This is a map of the hydrogeologic units in Orange County. Most of the county is metamorphic metavolcanic and metaigneous rocks with an average yield of 17-1/2 gallons a minute. The Triassic sedimentary rocks in the southeastern corner has the lowest yielding compacted dense rocks in the state. Well yields across the state for the various units is based on data from over almost 5500 wells. The average well yield corresponds to the different hydrogeologic units. The statewide average for Piedmont/Blue Ridge is a little over 18.
Rick mentioned ground water and storage. How do we estimate the real saturated thickness of regolith? If we assume that the depth of casing to the top of fresh rock is our thickness of regolith and we measure the water table from land surface down to the water table and subtract that depth of the water table we end up with an estimate of the saturated thickness of regolith from many wells, we come up with an average for Orange County of 27 feet similar to the Piedmont of 24 feet and the Blue Ridge of 28 feet. If we are considering where to drill wells again, we might think about different rock units. Here is a ranking of all the hydrogeologic units in North Carolina from the lowest yielding to the highest yielding, in order of their saturated thickness. Notice these units are presented in order of increasing saturated thickness of regolith. We can see that the saturated thickness increases from about 18 feet for units near the Triassic area up to a thickness of near 50 feet in the northwest and southwest areas of the county. That translates into a lot of water in storage.
Here is some core data where a number of samples were taken out of cores and analyzed for their porosity specific yield. This is water that will drain out of a rock due to gravity drainage. A rock is like a wick. Just because it holds 50% water by volume, doesn’t mean that all of it will drain out into a well. Some of it is going to be retained by capillarity or capillary forces. That is a specific retention. The part that we can use is the specific yield. That is the water that actually drains out and is about 20 to 25%. If we talk about available water, here is the total water in storage. Rick was talking about 3 million gallons per acre of water stored in saturated thickness that is an average of 27 feet. The amount we can access is a little less than 1 million gallons per acre. That is a lot of water. If you think of a house using 400 gallons per day how long would a million gallons of water last you? Almost 7 years. One of the beauties of the ground water system is that it carries you over in droughts like we have had. Ground water systems are very stable. They are not nearly as affected by droughts as surface water supplies, and there is a lot of water in the groundwater system.
So what are the distributions of wells in the county? The gray area has a maximum well yield of about 25 gallons a minute, but we do have two areas with very high well yields, maximum yields. The green to red is 25 gallons per minute to over 100 gallons per minute of the maximum well yields in those two areas. Again, there is a variation because of differences in well depth. We can correct that by dividing the well yield by the total depth of the well, but we still see these two areas of higher than average well yield trending, following the composition of our hydrogeologic units or the bedding of our hydrogeologic units from northeast to southwest.
If someone needs to drill a high producing well or plan a subdivision and wanting to use ground water, where would be the most likely place to suggest them to drill? Go up above Cedar Grove or go out on the old Greensboro Highway; just a suggestion for planning purposes.
Mapping the number of wells in the county shows that large areas of the county have fewer than 40 wells per square mile. The northern end of the county only has 0 to 20 wells per sq. mi., as does public service areas served by surface water.
How many people depend on ground water? The russet and red areas, most of the northern and western area of the county and directly above Chapel Hill, 80 to 90% of all the households have wells.
To conclude I want to talk about two things; one is the interference between wells and the recharge to the resource. First, understand that a cone of depression occurs when you pump a well, drawing water into the well, lowering the water table around that well. As you can see in this diagram, it creates a cone. We call that the cone of depression, created by the withdrawal of ground water. In an unconfined aquifer, the cone doesn’t spread out very far. In confined aquifers, such as the coastal plain, it can spread out great distances. However, in the Piedmont, in the confining bed, the regolith acts as a semi-confining bed. It is not a perfect confining bed. It is also a reservoir, so that wells in the Piedmont and the Blue Ridge often have some of the properties of both systems. Withdrawal of water from regolith fracture rock aquifer system may produce draw downs that combine characteristics of unconfined and confined, depending on properties of regolith. Often the regolith fracture rock system behaves as a semi-confined aquifer with water derived from storage in the confining unit, with the regolith being the confining unit. But the point is, that these cones of depression still do not spread out very far. For example, there was a test well drilled near the old Greensboro-High Point Regional Airport back 1983. The well produced about 50 gallons a minute. We also drilled another 19 wells on this site, around this well in a grid, to measure the water level decline around this well, so we could accurately create a topographic map of the shape of that cone of depression. We pumped for 62 hours for over 2-1/2 days. The entire time, we pumped an average of 38.5 gallons a minute or 143,200 gallons over that 62 hour period. That is enough water in 2-1/2 days to supply a house that uses 400 gallons per day for a year. Or if you only use the European standard or rural people only use 265 to 300 gallons per day, maybe a year and half of water. But in spite of all that water being pumped, the cone of depression only extended over an area of 3.7 acres. Converting that into land area, it is a box 400 feet X 400 feet or circle with a radius about 200 feet from the well. So if another well was maybe 250 feet away it would have never seen the effect of the pumping in this well for 2-1/2 days straight at that rate. What is the pumping rate in your domestic well? 1440 minutes a day? You use 400 gallons per day that averages out to about 1/3 of 1 gallon per minute. What kind of cone of depression do you think you are going to have? You will have a hard time detecting it.
Last thing, recharge. Ground water is a renewable resource. We have a lot of water going into the ground, as Rick mentioned. I want to show the seasonal variation of this recharge and the monthly variation from wet to dry. This shows 10 years worth of records for three watersheds in the Upper Cape Fear River Basin showing the seasonal variation. Notice June and July, these are our lowest months of ground water recharge. Ironically, these are the two wettest months in North Carolina in terms of rainfall. The longterm average rainfall is greatest in June and July. Because of evapotranspiration mentioned by Rick; most of that water is captured by vegetation in the growing season and sent back into the atmosphere. It never reaches a water table.
When we get most of our recharge is in the late fall and winter. This is a summary for all the watersheds in Orange County and this is a duration statistics plot. Here is the median recharge for these 12 watersheds. The average recharge for these 12 water sheds is a little over 300 gallons per day per acre. If we were to do some land use planning, we might say we need an acre or an acre and half minimum to supply the water to a house, 400 gallons per day, but we will have to account for impervious area, land use changes, and some other factors in that planning process. But, we could use this data to do land use planning throughout the county.
In my summary I wish to call attention to these points:
1. Ground water is the most abundant available fresh water resource.
2. Ground water systems serve as both a reservoir and a conduit.
3. The aquifer system in Orange County is a two-part system composed of fractured bedrock overlain with regolith.
4. Most ground water is stored in the regolith with an average thickness of 27 feet of available water in storage slightly less than 1 million gallons per acre.
5. The saturated thickness of the regolith varies with topography and hydrologic unit.
6. Ground water is less affected by drought than surface water. The reservoir function of the ground water system provides carryover storage during droughts.
7. It is a renewable resource that is recharged by precipitation at a rate of 365 (gal/day)/acre.
8. Recharge varies seasonally with precipitation and evapo-transpiration.
9. In Orange Co. the average well yield is 17.6 gal/min., 50% of all wells yield more than 10 gal/min. and 90% yield more than 2 gal/min.
10. Two areas of the count yield 25 to 100 gal/min., the northwestern and south western.
IV. TOM KONSLER, WELLS
Rick Bolich: Our next panel member speaker is Tom Konsler. Tom Konsler is the Orange County Environmental Health Director. Tom has over 25 years of experience in the Environmental Health field, including food protection, on-site waste water systems, and ground water protection. Tom is going to talk about ground water and wells related to Orange County. From my perspective, as a state regulator, I mentioned in the introduction that Orange County is in better shape than most including ground water protection. Compared to other counties Orange County has fewer problems with wells going dry and higher well water quality in large part due to the proactive measures Orange County has taken and Tom’s Department is enforcing.
Tom Konsler: It is really a pleasure to be involved in this symposium today and echoing Dr. Daniel’s comments, to be working with the folks who are experts in this field.
Here is some background about ground water and wells in Orange County. About 40% of our population relies on ground water for drinking water and other purposes, both through private water supplies of homeowners owning their own wells, as well as public water supplies that may come from ground water wells. Some of our subdivisions are served by those kinds of systems. During 1980, when the State Watershed Protection Regulations were being discussed, the Orange County Board of Health adopted one of the first set of ground water regulations to be enforced on the local level. In the rest of the state, at that time and still in many counties, the ground water construction of wells is regulated on the state level with little to no local involvement. So, we have had 28 years of experience permitting wells and testing them. That regulation adopted by the Board of Health was expanded to ground water protection regulations in the mid 90s.
Each time a well is put into the ground, it is making a perforation in that regolith down to the ground water and we have a real interest in protecting that ground water because that shaft being drilled is a potential source of contamination. It can carry things from bacteriological contaminations, to inorganic to organic contamination, and affect our ground water. So, the emphasis of the permitting process is for proper location of the well, proper construction and proper materials so that we are protecting the ground water resource from contamination. Some regulations only are concerned with the safety of the drinking water that is pulled out of that well. We are emphasizing the protection of the ground water and that is why our regulations cover not only drinking water wells, but also irrigation wells, some types of monitoring wells, and geothermal wells for heating and cooling. which are increasing now as people are looking for alternative energy sources used as a means of heat exchange an Those tw if they are constructed improperly or in bad locations, can threaten our ground water quality. Our regulations also cover well abandonment for protection of the resource.
The Health Department also provides services for drinking water protection and protection of public health by we water sampling of wells and we consultation on appropriate remedies when there are problems with the ground water quality. We won’t be able to talk very much about water quality here, but just so you know, iron and manganese are the two top inorganic elements that are nuisance-type problems for people on wells. They cause staining of fixtures, staining of white clothes, a muddy appearance to the water. To some lesser extent, hardness of water/low pH is what we typically see in this region of the state. It can react with copper pipes and cause that blue green stain on the fixtures. It also leaks lead from some of the older homes that have lead in the solder, so we work with folks on ways to remedy that, particularly if they have some health concerns about lead exposure. Two more concerns on the rise, are radon and arsenic. We do have some levels of arsenic that are detectable in some water. For the most part though, they are still below the EPA drinking water recommendations. But the state has really issued some public health concerns for any arsenic that is detectable in our drinking water. So when we have any detectable that is over 1 part per billion arsenic, we do an arsenic advisory to the home owner to let them know that there is some concern there for health long term and what kind of things they can do to remedy that.
We are still having about 350 wells drilled per year. It has consistently been between 300 & 350 a year for the last decade. So, we are not seeing a great increase. Most of the wells, as Dr. Daniel said, are about 300 feet deep, about 59 to 60 feet to that consolidated bedrock. The average casing depth in the county over the last 20 years has been 70 feet, which is an indicator of the average thickness of that regolith. In Orange County, we have a minimum casing depth now of 63 feet. The joints of pipe come in 21 foot lengths so putting three of those together you have the minimal amount of casing required. Prior to 1980 the minimum was 21 feet of casing, and in many parts of the state that is all that is required. In our geology, we had problems with poor quality water using that short amount of casing. In our average well yield, over the last 20 years of data, is about 18 gallons per minute. We have the records on file for all wells constructed since 1980 and we provide that to the public, as well as water sample records.
Here is a simplified profile of what is underground in Orange County. Typically, we have the soil layer which is roughly 1 to 5 feet in depth before it transitions into the thicker zone of saprolite that is about 30 feet thick on average. That saprolite layer is divided into an upper unsaturated zone where our water recharge is moving down through pores, but it has not pooled-up yet and a lower saturated zone where the water slows down as it hits the bedrock pervious layers and piles up on top of the bedrock, again to a depth of about 30 feet or so of saturated zone on average. We have a transition zone of broken material before getting into consolidated bedrock. Water travels from this saprolite reservoir through these fracture zones in the bedrock.
We also have something called a perched water table that we encounter frequently in the county. When there is a saturated zone, just below the soil layer, and it may actually be in the soil layer, it is being held up there by an impervious clay or a high shrink-swell type clay that won’t let water pass down through it, so it saturates the ground above that. When we dig post holes in the ground and we hit water at 18 or 20 inches, we are more likely hitting the perched water table.
I had the opportunity last week to go down in a quarry. This is about a 50 foot section where the earth is peeled away to see a really clear depiction of the transition zone. The saprolite that used to sit on top has been stripped off to prepare for the mining operation. As you go deeper there are fractures and seams where it is broken up. This was a day after a lot of rain so we actually had water just pouring out of some of the fractures as it was traveling down from what would have been the overburden and coming out, similar to what you would encounter in well construction. It shows some of the angles of the horizontal fractures and the high angle fractures that might move water quickly versus moving water fairly slowly.
Typical well construction in Orange County is: setting up the rig to drill an oversized hole through the soil layer, down through the saprolite layer, down through the transition zone then down into the consolidated bedrock. After getting down into bedrock they set the 6 inch diameter galvanized steel casing with a drive shoe at the bottom. In Orange County the casing is going to be at least 63 feet, average being about them 70 feet. The purpose of the casing is to not allow what is in storage in the saprolite, to fall down into the well immediately. It really needs to travel through these fracture zones to get into the well to be of better quality. The idea is to seal off the material that is still loose and could cave into the well, but also to keep that lower quality water out of the well. They set the casing with an effective seal. Then they put on a smaller bit and go down inside the casing down into the consolidated bedrock. It is just a core hole in granite and eventually, they will encounter some intersecting fractures that are feeding from the saprolite reservoir up top. After the well is done the well fills up with water, and we have an area that we refer to as a static water level. The water is going to come up into the bore hole, into the casing, at a point where we say that is the static water level. It reflects somewhat the saturated zone in that saprolite outside the casing, although that is not always the case. You have heard of an artesian well. That is where this static water level is all the way up and over the top of the casing. That can happen when you have a storage that may be up on a hillside here and it is actually down gradient and it is feeding sort of under pressure and over the top of the casing. We have may get two wells a year that are artesian wells.
This is a comparison of where the water comes from for a modern drilled well and a bored and hand dug well. In the 25 years I’ve been here no bored wells have been constructed, they have all been drilled wells. Although we do have many older bored wells and some old hand-dug wells out in the county. Bored wells and hand-dug wells get their water by going down just into that saturated zone of the saprolite and picking water up immediately from there. As a result, they are generally poor quality and they are more subject to activities on the surface, such as contamination from leaking underground tanks, from septic systems, pesticides, and things like that. In a drilled well with proper casing we have sealed that immediate route off and have a much better chance of getting good quality water. During times of extreme drought, water quantity is an issue, as this saturated zone may vary 5 or 10 feet up and down. So these types of shallow wells suffer water quantity function as well.
How is yield estimated? How many gallons a minute does a well make? That is done by the well contractor. They set up a little weir at the top of the well, they blow air down into it as they are constructing it, and they make an estimate, based on how much water runs over the weir, as to how many gallons per minute it is making. The true way to get a well yield is going to be to conduct a 24-hour well yield test, where somebody monitors that static water level as the well is being pumped at a known rate to get a much better long term well yield estimate. Right now homeowner wells, privately owned wells, are not required to do a well yield test like that. It is based on the estimate by the driller. Public water supplies on the other hand, do have to conduct one of those long term tests to make sure that it is a viable well to sustain a neighborhood.
Is one or two gallons a minute enough to sustain a household? Well, it depends on well depth, is what we usually advise people. If they have a well that is 400 feet deep and they are only hitting 1 gallon per minute, that is enough to sustain a household. In that 400 foot column of water, they have 600 gallons in storage just in the cylinder of the well itself. That is not counting what may be running in at one gallon a minute. So, 600 gallons in storage is certainly enough for a household that may only draw an average of about 300 gallons per day out and it has time enough to recharge before the next day’s demand on that well. Some people like to hear that they are getting 5 or 10 gallons a minute but the lower yield wells can be viable if they are deep enough and have enough storage within that casing and bore hole. If, on the other hand, they are wanting to do a geothermal system that pumps it out of the ground and dumps it on the ground then they have a problem. A one to two gallon a minute well will not sustain that or an irrigation system that has a high demand on it. That is based on a good estimate of 60 gallons per person per day. Some of the newer homes with water saving fixtures use 45 gallons per day or so, although if they put in a large tub and 15 head shower, it can increase significantly. So, it really depends on the household and what their practices are. A question we get, “Will our wells go dry in this drought and are we seeing problems with wells?” What I use as an indicator is, how many people are coming in for permits to replace wells that have gone dry. It is not reasonable to think that somebody’s well goes dry because of the drought and they sit there without water until it rains again. So we do have people coming in for replacement wells. We have kept records since 2002. There has been a fairly steady level of about 5 replacement wells per quarter. Replacement occurs not necessarily because the well went dry. They may be getting a replacement because the well had bacteria in it, had poor quality water, or activities on the lot requires them to abandon the well and drill a new one. We had a peak in the drought of 2001–2002, when wells were going dry. It tapered off then in the middle of 2007 we started seeing an increas again. The first quarter of 2008 has stayed pretty steady and we are not seeing it go up drastically since this past January.
What we are seeing is that most of those borderline wells were replaced back in 2002. We still have people drinking out of springs, but a lot of the springs went dry, the shallow bored wells, even drilled wells went dry that were acting like bored wells, because they just stopped 75 feet at bedrock and didn’t hit a fracture zone. Those were the wells that were going dry during the last drought and this one. We have had no observations yet of a viable producing well being diminished to the point of going dry as a result of the drought. So it is encouraging and it points to what both speakers have said already, we have an adequate storage in the saprolite and if we can tap into in a responsible way, we can make it through these worsening droughts.
The other activity we see is an increase in irrigation permits. Well, partly because of the drought, but mainly because of restrictions in the Water Utility areas of the County. Many of these wells were drilled within Chapel Hill, some in Hillsborough. Again, we had a large number of those permits back in 2001–2002. They tapered off then there was an upswing in the last part of 2007. We are getting more requests for irrigation wells and also getting more requests for agricultural wells. The increase in agricultural wells is because farmers rely on springs, ponds, and creeks, which we all saw going dry during this drought. So, they had to do something to maintain their livestock and crops and drilling wells was the solution.
With hydrologic cycles, as Rick pointed out, we really only have control over one aspect and that is slowing down surface run-off which illustrates that ground water is a really big component of that hydrologic cycle. The main thing that we are able to do something about is how we landscape and how we do developments. We should not encourage curbs and gutters, trying to get the water off lots and into a concrete gutter then into storm drains as quickly as possible, or rather, we should encourage maintenance and retention on the site to allow recharge of the ground water through absorption through the soil, and I should say treatment through the soil. When you send runoff through pipes and gutter drains, it will be fairly poor quality water when it reaches our creeks and reservoirs. On the other hand if it is allowed to soak into the soil there is a tremendous capacity for filtration and treatment in that soil layer and in the saprolite layer. So it actually gives it an opportunity for treatment before it ends up in the reservoirs.
Another thing that really points to reduction of run-off would be encouraging smaller lawns. Lawns become hard packed as the equipment goes over them and packs that surface soil causing you significant run off from that versus a natural setting, where she you have trees and a leaf litter that is going to help absorb the precipitation into looser top soil that hasn’t been manipulated.
To a lesser extent but still quite important are a couple of other things we can do. We can control the withdrawal--how much water we pull out of wells. Water conservation is something that we emphasis in some of the educational programs we are doing with H2Orange. We promote water conservation for ecological responsibility. Using as much well water as you want is irresponsible. Overuse of wells can cause the water level to drop below the well pump causing airlock and bacteria to get into the fractures. If the pump is not running as much, they will save on their electricity bill. There is going to be less wear and tear on the equipment. The pump will last longer, the electrical switches, the pressure tank; those things will last longer if they have lighter duty. Homeowners bear the cost of replacing equipment that wears out. And if they have a treatment system like a water softener it is less maintenance on that equipment and cost for softener. So we encourage lower water use as a cost savings in many ways.
Another place we can control to help with water quality and recharge is the septic system. Most of our folks on ground water are also on septic systems and a septic system will benefit the more water is conserved. It treats the waste more efficiently, it will enhance performance of that system and ultimately again save the home owner money, because you get a longer life span out of that system. Putting too much water at once into a septic system for example by washing several loads of clothes and multiple showers in a row is bad for the septic system. Looking at the pie chart for water conservation, we encourage folks to look at the big slices of the pie. They are showers and faucets, dishwashers and the big one; over 1/4 of our water is spent flushing toilets. We encourage retrofitting, repairs and replacement, and changing our behaviors as a holistic approach to water conservation. It makes all the sense in the world. This part of the pie really surprised me, that’s leaks. Leaks account for a pretty good portion of this water use pie chart, so we encourage people maintenance-wise it makes sense to repair them.
Returning water to our septic system is important. I propose that if we pull water out of the ground, it would be a responsible approach to put it back in the ground. And true enough, when we have a septic system in a drain field, which is typical for Orange County, about 80%, of what we draw out of the ground, is then returned to the ground. This whole system works because we again have tremendous potential for treatment in that soil and saprolite layer. I like to think of this as a mimi-hydrologic cycle, because it does go around. It is a complete cycle that recharges itself with cleaned water.
I want to touch on some of the efforts in Orange County. I will wrap up with these last couple of slides about H2Orange. It is a multi-departmental group. Dave Stancil is our appointed leader. Several departments in the county--Engineering Department, Planning, Health Department--get together and take a look at some of the pressing issues around water resources and obviously, the one that is the big one on everybody’s radar right now, is the drought response. We have held three workshops in the county and various areas with really good attendance and interest. Rick and I talk about the ground water and where we get our water. We talk about conservation, responsible landscaping by maintaining your landscaping being mindful of the water you use. There is a website www.H2Orange.org where the PowerPoint presentations are available, as well as other resources about the forecast and such.
Orange County has an environmental responsibility goal. The county will be hiring a Water Resources Coordinator very soon to supervise water resource issues here. In our own county, through Rick’s guidance, the Division of Water Quality and USGS studies are being conducted at Duke Forest off of Mount Sinai Road, looking at some ground water movement issues, well construction issues, with a special interest with arsenic in the ground water.
Some other recommendations from the Water Resources Committee in 2001 is a ground water monitoring system throughout the county, so that we can take a look at what the storage in the saprolite is doing over time. Also further research into radon. We also have some efforts going on with arsenic research. There is a poster in the lobby of Environmental Health where we have pinpointed where there are arsenic spikes in the county. We are looking at a water budget approach to water resource planning. Sustainable ground water in development decisions and considering a well repair area or reserve area if a development that initial well doesn’t yield good quality or good quantity of water, they have another area on the lot to try and get a viable well. Orange County Environmental Health is just promoting overall water conservation through educational efforts.
V. PAT DAVIS, MUNICIPAL WATER SUPPLY
Rick Bolich: Our next speaker and panel member is Pat Davis. Pat Davis is the Utility Manager Generalist for OWASA, where he has worked for more than 12 years. He works on a variety of projects from water re-use and conservation, to utility financing and planning. Pat did his undergraduate work in Environmental Sciences and his Graduate studies at UNC Chapel Hill, in City and Regional Planning with an emphasis in water resources planning. In addition to working at OWASA, Pat has been a Water Resources Program Manager for Triangle J Council of Governments for seven years. Pat also served for 7 years as a member of the OWASA Board of Directors and on the Orange County Economic Development Commission.
Pat Davis: I, too, appreciate the opportunity to participate in this and it is really interesting to see some of the folks in the audience I have known over the years. One is Ed Kiser, a former Professor of mine in City Regional Planning at UNC, who taught me a lot about the principles and practices that I try and incorporate into the work I do. Milton Heath, a Professor at UNC who was my Natural Resources Law Professor, and also served on the OWASA Board of Directors. Terry Buckner and Matt Clark, both who, along with Milton, served on the OWASA Board of Directors, as well. Milton still serves on the Board. So, it is great to see all you here.
I just want to give you a quick update on the current status of our supplies and demands. I will give you an introduction on some of the long term supply plans and demand management outlooks and approaches, some of the emerging strategies that are coming out of all of the evaluations that we have done following the 2002 drought, and then also the ongoing drought. I also want to touch a little bit on water quality protection, as is relates to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community drinking water supply sources. And then of course, I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions on the many challenges that we face.
Our community, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, has about 80,000 residents. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is what you might consider our industry. We have no customers that are classified as industrial or manufacturing in nature. So the University and the Hospital Community are essentially our nonresidential demand, plus some basic commercial business-type demands, as well. Our two water supply water sheds are University Lake, which was built in the early 1930’s when the University owned and operated the water system, with a usable storage volume of about 500 million gallons of water and Cane Creek Reservoir, which is located about 10 miles west of Carrboro. Cane Creek has a water shed area of about 30 square miles. It has a storage volume of about 300 billion gallons. And then also in the University Lake water shed, there is the existing stone quarry, at American Stone out Highway 54 West. We acquired the small, inactive quarry back in the late 70’s early 80’s and that has a storage volume of about 200 million gallons. I will tell you a little bit about our plans for expansion of that quarry operation in partnership with a number of parties.
Just to give you some drought headlines. The rains that we have received here in the last several days fortunately have increased our remaining supply from about 40% of capacity, up to about 53% of capacity, as of yesterday. But even though we have had some improvement in conditions here in the last week, our reservoir levels are at unprecedented low levels for this time of year; since Cane Creek reservoir was built in 1989. So, our conditions have improved and we are very fortunate that that has occurred, but the drought hasn’t ended and the water supply drought hasn’t ended. Weather forecast is still showing below normal rainfall expected through the spring. Our Board of Directors declared a Stage III water shortage in effect as of March 1st and that has a number of increasingly severe restrictions that are in place. Also, as part of that action, the Board of Directors set in place effective March 17th a series of increased water rate surcharges that go into effect and become increasingly steep as the severity of the drought conditions increase. So, the key take away is that conservation is certainly needed by all our customers through the coming months to ensure an adequate supply of water is available through the rest of this year.
Folks talk about rainfall deficits since the first of January 2007 but for us a key statistic is what has been the deficit since our reservoirs were last full, at the end of last April 2007. We have a rain gauge at our water treatment plant in Carrboro and we also have one out at Cane Creek Reservoir, and that is important because that is our largest reservoir. This graph shows monthly rainfall, compared to the historical average out at Cane Creek, and the accumulative rain fall deficit. The take away from this is as of the end of February of this year, we were more than 15 inches below normal for the period of April 2007 to February of 2008. That is a dramatic deficit affecting in our community’s largest reservoir. Here is a shot at Cane Creek; it is 12 feet 5 inches below full, as of this morning. This was taken a few days ago. I think the lake level here is about 16 or 15 feet below full, so it has come up a little bit compared to that picture. This is University Lake on March 3rd. It was about 5 ft below full and I am pleased to report that as of this morning there actually was some water flowing over the dam at Cane Creek, a dramatic improvement. But remember, an increase of 5 ft at University Lake, compared to an increase of 5 ft at Cane Creek, is dramatically different because University Lake only stores a total of 500 million gallons, but I am not complaining. My wife says you are not being very optimistic when you still talk about how bad this situation is, but I am certainly thankful we are getting the improvement in water supply.
This is our Stone Quarry Reservoir, the existing small quarry that we have had since the early 80’s with 200 million gallons approximate usable storage. It is about 200 feet deep. The significant feature of course is the active quarry, and Tom your shot was of the upper reaches of this quarry. We entered into a partnership with American Stone Quarry, the land owners out in this area, with assistance from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and of course the Regulatory Approvals from Orange County for the Special Use Permit, to actually expand this active quarry in operation. Bethel Hickory Grove Church Road was relocated to here, so that the quarry in operation could continue eastward. The long term plan is that between now and 2030, as much quarrying will occur in this whole area as is possible, given economic conditions and the technical feasibility of getting it out. But the plan is to expand this total water supply storage from the current 200 million gallons, to somewhere around 2.5 to 3 billion gallons of storage volume. At the rate that the quarry in operation has been going, we anticipate that by 2030 the volume of that quarry will be a minimum of 2.5 billion gallons of storage. Again, compare that to Cane Creek Reservoir, which has a storage volume of 3 billion gallons. So, this is one of the key strategies of OWASA to meet long term water supply needs in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community.
Now this quarry is within the University Lake watershed. The quarry itself has a really small drainage area of maybe of 1-1/2 square miles and so when you draw this down and the future greatly expanded quarry, natural run-off from the surrounding water shed is not going to fill it. Well, it may take some geologic time, I don’t know. But one of our challenges will be how do we pump water from Cane Creek water shed, University Lake water shed, or other supplemental places in order to fill this quarry after extended periods of draw down. That will be an expensive and complex, technical challenge for us, but we know that we will have this expanded reservoir online sometime in the early to mid 2030’s and available to meet long term needs.
So, the challenge for us is how do we meet needs between now and the time the quarry comes online? This graph shows our reservoir level, showing red, with that flat line horizontal kind of area up there being 100% full. These are times of the year throughout different years dating back to ‘96, that our reservoirs were full and what you see is the draw down that starts to occur. Here is the 2001-2002 Drought. You see it was drawn down in late 2001. We had some recharge occur during the spring and then it was drawn down to about 35%, 33% of remaining capacity during the height of the 2002 drought that occurred in early October. Then, we had the miracle rains of early October that continued and our reservoirs refilled to full by the end of 2002. You see we had a draw down in 2005, but they rebounded late in the year and then here in 2007, what we saw was the steepest and longest continuous decline of our water supply reservoirs. Now with the recent rains, you see an upturn starting to occur. One of the real nice things, and I hope this holds true for the current drought, is when you see these draw downs stop and start to turn the other direction, you see some fairly dramatic uptakes. So, we are certainly hoping that that is the case here in the current drought.
This is a picture of daily water demands for the last three or so months. It is a little bit busy, but the green line is what we were projecting would have been our average day demands within our service area. Those numbers are fed into our budget development and process. They help us estimate how much revenue we are going to receive from our water and sewer services. Well, when the mandatory restrictions went into effect and we asked people to start conserving, we have seen that our daily water use is substantially below the projections that we used in developing the current fiscal year budget. So, there is a revenue impact issue for us certainly, but more importantly is the protection and conservation of the community’s water supply.
Our local water conservation ordinances and water conservation standards we have in place, call for or set targets of certain percentage reductions in water use associated with the different levels of restrictions that are in effect. The red lines show what those stated goals are in the local conservation ordinances, and this shows what actual monthly use has been. So, our customers, while they have been conserving water, we haven’t had the conservation down to the level that is stated in the local conservation ordinances, but we have been pretty close.
This is monthly average demand in our service area for the last 11 years or so. What is interesting about this, a couple of lines; this green line shows the average day demand by year for our service area. So, you can see steady increases through 2001 and then we had the extreme drought with the water use restrictions. We also implemented conservation pricing in our service area. We also did some things that resulted in us reducing the amount of water that we had to use for treatment of drinking water to provide to the community. So, the results of all those measures, and plus the return of more normal precipitation levels, was that demand dropped considerably in 2003 and it hasn’t rebounded to close to the 2001 average day water demand level. So, what this tells us is that our customers are collectively hardening their demand for water through measures such as installing water efficient toilets and fixtures. The University has done a number of measures to reduce their demand and the hospital, as well. So that is a really good sign for the long term and we know that in new development we will be able to keep those numbers down lower than what they otherwise might have been.
A quick shot of where the demand in our service area comes from. The single family residential sector, about 36%, multifamily residential apartments and townhomes/condos, about 18%, commercial and other, 17% and the University and the UNC Hospital is a little bit less than 30%. This pie chart has remained remarkably stable for many years. It is really interesting how uniform that proportionate share of water demand in our community has been over the years.
In response to the current drought, what we try and look at is, okay if demands continue, precipitation levels are at different levels in the coming months, then what might happen with our water supply conditions and then how might we respond to what those future conditions might be. So the series of charts that I am going to show you, show where our water resources were as of March 1st. Of course, you remember they are now up to over 50%. So, these grafts are out of date and we will update them early this coming work week, but this just shows you some of the types of analysis we do and then it will talk about as we do these analysis, how do we incorporate this into the drought response planning and worse case response planning. What this graph shows is that when we were looking into late February or so, that if the drought had continued and we received no additional rainfall, then assuming different demands, 7 million gallons per day and 9 million gallons per day, when might our supplies be depleted? So, the bottom of this line would represent 9 million gallons per day, which all rate no rainfall. The top would be 7 million gallons per day rate of demand with no rainfall. So just a half of month or so ago, what we were looking at is the potential if no additional rain fall occurred and demands being within 7 to 9, to our community’s water resources could be depleted by mid-July to mid-August. A scary thought when you are responsible for providing water to 80,000 people, the University, and UNC Hospital complex. Certainly this scenario is not an acceptable scenario for us. We cannot, in any way, let our community run out of water. As we look at then, okay, that is a fairly scary scenario--no additional rainfall at all. We know that there will be rainfall and that will change that outlook and extend that date by which our supplies might be depleted. So, what we look at are the worst droughts that are on record for this community. The 1941 drought was one of the worst droughts on record. So what we do is, do the same analysis, but now we plug in the reservoirs inflows that actually occurred during the 1941 drought. You can see with that drought, which was one of the worst on record, that if precipitation and inflows occurred like they did in 1941, we would be in reasonably good shape through the end of the year.
This is the 2002 drought, which five or six years ago was the drought of record, and here we are six years later saying may be we are in another drought of record. But if you apply the 2002 drought, you can see that we have some increase in inflows and lake levels and then a drop into the fall, but then you have the miracle rains of 2002 that occurred.
Then, this is the 2007 drought. What if we applied inflow conditions that occurred last calendar year? So, you would see significant stream flows that came in from March through May, but then that significant drop in reservoir levels.
So again, we are using this to try and identify, well, what steps and when might we need to take them in order to avoid total depletion of the community’s reservoirs? So another piece of this analysis is, well let’s assume we take those droughts of record the ‘41 and 2002 drought, and let’s reduce the reservoir inflows by 40% for this scenario and see what would happen. So you can see here is the draw down. Now this was the one that we had done in late January, so that is why this starts in February. See the draw down the depletion occurred in June to July, but then if you took the ‘41 and 2002 droughts and knocked out inflows by 40%, you see some scary prospects for later this year. So not only is the drought response planning certainly critical in the current event, but then what are we learning from this drought that might affect our future planning and response for the long term? This graph shows our historical and projected water demands with some different assumptions in that. These bars here show the safe field of our reservoirs. Currently, the combined the safe yield of Cane Creek, University Lake, and our stone quarry reservoir based on the 2001–2002 drought, was between 11-1/2 and 12 million gallons a day. So, that is how much you could continuously withdraw over the course of the year and not deplete your reservoirs. The 30 year safe yield, is, well, here is how much you could withdraw and have a probability of depletion, say once every 30 years. So that is about 13 to 13-1/2 million gallons a day.
Here is the expanded Stone Quarry coming online in the early 2030’s and you can see that that is projected to increase the reliable yield of our community’s water resources to between 16.5 and 17 million gallons per day, assuming the 2001–2002 drought conditions, and as much as 19 million gallons per day with a probability of, say, having a failure of that system once every 30 years.
Now one of the questions for us long term as we deal with the current drought is the 2001–2002 drought, will that turn out to be the drought of record for which we do these types of analysis, or might the current drought that we are in continue and actually cause us to re-evaluate the yield of our existing reservoirs. This drought, when it is over, it might tell us that the historical drought of record that that the yield of our reservoir system is actually lower than what we previously thought. This is part of the continuous learning and refinement of the information and analysis upon which we based all or our decisions. To come up with these estimates of yield, the historical estimates, we have had to rely on a limited 80 or 81 year period of record. So each new year that we add, gives us a little bit more information upon which to base those estimates. Not a whole lot more. We talk about flows out in the Colorado River and they are saying that in 100 years or so of record they have used to design those reservoirs, turns out are much wetter than have occurred prior to those 100 years. And they do tree ring analysis and other analysis to reach those conclusions. But, one of the challenges that we will face is if our reservoirs yields turn out to be lower than we thought previously, then that means that we will have to either try and reduce demand or increase supply in order to meet the long term community’s needs, assuming the projected demand conditions stay the same as, say, in our current long term planning.
Historical water demands have increased following most linear of any water utility of our size in the country, but here you see the 2002 drought kick in and our conservation pricing, the year round water conservation standards, and other measures, and you can see our average day demand has dropped dramatically. Our long term plan, which is based on Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County, and the University’s growth plans, project that water demands will increase fairly steadily for the future. You can see that between 2015 and 2020, we are projecting our average day demand would reach about the yield of our reservoir system. So, what that means is once we get closer to that period and then beyond it, between then and the time the Stone Quarry comes online, our community will be facing an increasing risk to droughts. So, we need to be looking at a number of measures in order to reduce that drought risk and also to meet long term demands in an orderly manner between now and time the quarry comes on line.
So, one of the strategies that is represented in this green line is to develop a reclaim water system, which is now under construction in partnership with the University, and the University will meet a number of their non-drinking water needs on the main campus with reclaimed water. Reclaimed water is the highly-treated affluent from our Mason Farm Waste Water Treatment Plant that normally is discharged into Morgan Creek, which is a tributary to Jordan Lake. We are estimating that when that reclaim water system comes online in March or April or so of next year, that it will have an initial demand of about 600 thousand gallons per day, which is roughly 6 to 7% of the average day demand in our service area.
Long term, the demand for reclaimed water on the main campus could grow to somewhere around 1.2 to 2 million gallons a day. So, that is a significant new water source for this community that can help bring down our long term demand for drinking water, thereby freeing up our high quality drinking water resources out of Cane Creek and University Lake.
I am going to wrap up here real quick, but two droughts of record here in the last six years, face an increase in uncertainty, long term global climate change, may present a number of challenges for us in planning and in managing our water supply resources. We are facing security risks, operational risks, and other types of uncertainty, that is going to require us to take some different approaches than we have historically taken. Those approaches are going to involve, I think, much greater conservation and demand management. That will be essential to everything we do. As Tom, Rick and Charles pointed out, that should be a cornerstone strategy of our sustainable management of our water resources. The use of reclaimed water, as I mentioned, will be critically important. As some of you, who are our customers, may know we have been really aggressive in full cost pricing and in conservation pricing. Using pricing to promote more efficient use of the resource and that is going to be an important strategy, as well. But then even with all these strategies to reduce and manage demand, we are still going to need to obtain additional water supplies in order to reduce our drought risk, to improve our reliability, to provide us with redundancy, as we develop reclaimed water system. If that system is online and we have a problem with it technically for a short term period, we may need additional supply options in order to meet the University’s demands when that reclaim water system is not in operation.
So, we face a number of important considerations and challenges. So we look forward to your input, you comments and suggestions, as we face those challenges.
VI. QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
RICK BOLICK: But what we would like to do is entertain questions from the audience to the panel members. If you would, please come up to the microphone, state you name and any affiliation that you might have, and direct a question to the panel members and we will try to figure out what to do with it.
Q. I am Dianne Vanbrook, I also serve on the Chapel Hill Parks and Rec Commission and our Director has been saying this could be a problem in some of the new parks that are coming online, like the Southern Community Park and also the pools. Now how can we consider these big developments like Carolina North, if we don’t have enough water to take care of our present citizens for swimming? The current residents have to be so restricted and then planning a big development?
A. I am glad she started out with an easy question. That is a real important question that our community is going to have to discuss, debate, and consider for the long term. The short term situation that we are in, the Stage III restrictions, certainly have an impact on the business community, on pool operators and owners, and folks who are in the landscaping industry, the green industry, and we really regret the impact that those restrictions are having. But first and foremost, we need to make sure that our drinking water supplies are preserved for the highest use for the coming months. Not knowing what lies down the road. But long term, our challenge will be to look at how we are using water, how we going to be much smarter in the ways we use it, and then where we are going to get the resources necessary in order to ensure the water needs of the community are met in an orderly manner and adequate manner. Some of those strategies that I mentioned up there are going to be all part of that. Our contractual requirements, obligations to the two towns and to the University, are that we must meet their water supply needs and waste water needs to accommodate the growth and development that the towns and the University decide is appropriate. So, we are not going to make decision regarding what are appropriate development levels. What we will do is take the steps necessary to ensure that we manage demand, promote conservation, and increase the reliability of our water supplies through reuse and other supply options where necessary to meet our obligations. So, that is a huge question and I am sure it will get a lot of consideration by the OWASA Board and the local elected Boards, as well as the public in the future. Sorry for that long winded answer.
Q. I am John Thomas, an OWASA customer and I work at the University in Parking Facility Maintenance. I would like to thank CAN for put this together and you all for coming here. The burning question that I have had lately since this drought of 2007 and the current, it seems like it would be. My question is, what is the viability of putting in place some large municipal wells to supplement, especially during surface water depletion drought times, given that the treatment costs of water from wells is generally less, could even be almost negligible. The security risk would probably be lower, and the source is much more reliable. Especially Dr. Daniel and Pat, what are your thoughts on viability of putting some large municipal wells in place to supplement during droughts? Thank you.
A. Dr. Daniel: Lets think back to that diagram that I showed you of the ground water system. It is a very extensive reservoir laterally. It is also very thin. There is a lot of water in that thin layer, but the cones of depression do not spread out. What we call the catcher area, does not spread out very far from the pumped wells. The furthest I have seen some of these have been on the order of may be a thousand feet. Consequently, it would take a lot of wells. Even though some would have high yields initially, the storage would be depleted if you pumped a well, at say, 100 gallons a minute, probably within a year’s time the yields would be less than half of what they started out. So in order to meet that demand, you would have to have a lot of wells tapping a thin reservoir. I don’t say the water is not there, you would just have to have a lot of straws in that reservoir. Does that give you an idea of the problems being faced?
Q: (unidentified) I think the economic viability to supplement during droughts when the surface water is going down, maybe carry almost one million gallons per day out of 12 wells. So you put these wells in place, use them during drought when you are not getting any inflow, is that an economically viable emergency source?
A. Dr. Daniel: If the panel will allow me just a couple of seconds, let me mention that Cary work. One advantage of obtaining those high yield wells for the town of Cary was having the latitude to do to the geological mapping for the entire Cary Municipality and surrounding areas. Cary was determined to drill wells in the most favorable locations, even if they had to go through eminent domain or get leases form private land owners. So, the most favorable sites were those selected for drilling. We looked for fracture zones and we tried to tap fractures zones in areas where we knew there was thick regolith. That was how they obtained wells that average 60 and 70 gallons a minute. The problem there would be if you were outside of a service area. Being inside the service area for Cary, it was not too great a financial burden to construct pipelines from the well sites to some of the municipal lines. The water was treated. It was chlorinated, phosphated, and treated on site at the well head. So yes, there was not much infrastructure involved in treatment and putting the water into the system and not much cost involved in putting in pipes. However, if we were to look at the two big areas in the county, and if we had to build a pipeline from say Cedar Grove or out nearly in Alamance County, I can see a considerable infrastructure problem there.
(unidentified) John, we did actually look at that as a potential option for the current drought and based on the work that was done in Cary, also up in Orange-Alamance Water System, where they drilled four wells, and previous work done by the University. The University drilled 16 or 17 wells back in the 70’s. They had an average yield of about 47 gallons a minute, I think. But the University, when they have gone to use some of those wells, whether it to be for a cooler tower, make up water, or other purposes that require higher quality, they have shut them off because of quality issues and I think, also, in some cases, because of yield. So, they may be a consideration in an emergency situation. But, we think promoting conservation and preparing for the long term is the better strategy. There are costs and technical considerations, and as Charles has pointed out, we have evaluated those. One of the things that we have been focusing our attention on, the most cost effective short-term emergency drought response strategy for us, would to be to put in a temporary intake and pump station and above ground pipeline at the Haw River and pump that water to Cane Creek Reservoir. You get substantially greater yields, faster even, you can implement that faster than drilling what probably would be 20 or 30 wells in our service area, and the economics of that are far better than a well option. We also are concerned about the linkage of the ground and surface water interface, and then the impact of what we might do on surrounding property owners who are dependent upon wells as their own source supply, as well.
Q: Thank you, that was my follow-up question. My name is Susan McClanahan. I live in the Stone Ridge Sedgefield neighborhood that is serviced by a community well system that Aqua takes care of. That was my concern. I know that surface water has its limits, but certainly ground water must have its limits, too. Just as if we spread surface water too thin, could ground water be spread too thin, also, so that not enough people have it available, who depend upon it?
A: Milton Heath, long time resident. 80th birthday coming up next Sunday. (clapping) I had a “retirement party” at the Institute of Government where I have worked for a long time, also. But, it wasn’t really a retirement party, because I now have a yearly time contract and what I am working on right now is something of related interest here. I have a projected 15 chapter book, 300-400 pages, on water law in North Carolina, that I started several years ago and I hope to finish it off by next April, not this April, but April to go. So, that is where I am now. I have 1 to 1-1/2 questions or so for Mr. Daniel. Nice to see you in person.
Dr. Daniel: Same here.
Milton Heath: We talked on the phone not too long ago.
Dr. Daniel: Several times.
Milton Heath: Yes. (laughs) One relates to the cost of the three studies that you did for Orange County and what sort of funding was available, other than dipping into the county’s tax revenues? What was the total cost of those three studies? Do you remember? Any idea of what they cost?
A: (unidentified) It was paid half by one town and half by USGS.
Dr. Daniel: These were cost-share programs, co-op programs, between the USGS, Department of Interior, and the county. It was a 50/50 split. As I remember, the first study that we did was the ground water recharge analysis and we did a little bit of creative financing by spreading it over three fiscal years. We did about three months at the end of one year, a full year, and then about three or four months into another year, and that allowed us to take little bits out of three years’ money. But the total for that was, as I remember, about $17,000 or $18,000 each side, for a total cost in the low $30’s. The large study, which included all of the radon and water quality sampling, all of the analytical work, that was a 2-year study, and as I remember, the total cost on that was about $200,000. But, we split that 50/50. The other report that came out of this, which was the Susceptibility of Contamination document, that one piggybacked on the 2-year study, and it was a study that the Survey funded itself as a research project to see what we could come up with in terms of looking at susceptibility for ground water contamination in a fractured rock environment. What have not mentioned is the number of Masters theses that came out of this while I was on faculty here at UNC. We had three or four theses, which I supported, and people got their Masters and one Doctorate degree out of that, and that was supported out of my research funding, which was part of that work. So, there has been a lot of literature generated out of this.
Q: Milton Heath: 200,000 or 300,000 or in that range, something like that altogether. I am asking not only for Orange County, it was just interesting to us. But, I get questions on this from 99 other counties and I am curious whether I can give them some idea of what to expect if they undertake this sort of work that was done for Orange County. The other question I have as the result of that is, looking on the impact side of individual wells. Let’s say, take an irrigation well, 400 feet or whatever it may be, a deep irrigation well. What sort of protection, buffer protection, does one need, probably on the average in Orange County to prevent that kind of well from having any likely adverse impact on neighbors’ wells? We have talked a little bit about that. Would acreage limits be appropriate or some other sort of limitation in order to protect neighboring wells, from an irrigation well?
A: Dr. Daniel: Of course, mentioning irrigation wells, you are looking at a demand that is much greater than for a household supply. And what we usually fall back on, is some analysis to estimate the capture area. If we know something about the hydraulic properties of the soil, regolith, and the nature of the bedrock fracturing, we can come up with an idea of the shape and orientation of the capture area, or the cone of depression, and the area that will be affected by the cone of depression. It almost has to be done on a site-by-site basis, knowing what the pumping rate will be, the hydraulic properties of the regolith and bedrock, and the fracture orientation of the bedrock. So, to use our old regulation by exclusion, just saying move off a few hundred feet, may or may not work, particularly in fractured rocks.
Q: Milton Heath: If Orange County Commissioners were asking you for a basis for some sort of recommended action that they might take by ordinance, could you give them, or would you be in a position to give them, on the basis of what you have done already, some reasonable estimates, like an acre or two acres, or would you have to undertake another much more detailed study in order to help them reach a conclusion on that?
A: Dr. Daniel: There have been some guidance documents provided by Ralph Heath to the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources Ground Water Section that show how to make these calculations to determine or estimate well head capture areas and Mr. Heath used…
Milton Heath: Ralph Heath, that is. I have a cousin, Ralph, who is much more of an investigator than I am, a little older.
Dr. Daniel: Anyway, Ralph sat down and looked at a lot of the data that I had for aquifer tests and incorporated some of those numbers into those estimates, but he has provided a guidance document that was done under contract. I think that would probably provide a starting point for the county to come up with those protection areas.
Milton Heath: So, it would take some more study to come up with a reliable answer, based on what Ralph Heath has done.
Dr. Daniel: I think that someone who wanted to be a large user might be able to get a ground water hydrologist or an engineer that was versed in ground water hydraulics and take that document and come up an make an estimate for the individual users.
Q: Milton Heath: One question for Pat. Pat, speaking of the Haw River and Jordan, what is the state of progress, if any, of the pre-negotiations? Are the negotiations underway with Durham and Chatham on the possibility of going to Jordan? Not for this temporary line to the Haw River, but the possibility of going to Jordan for a noticeable improvement in our total capacity.
A: Pat Davis: On March 3rd, the City of Durham passed a resolution saying that Durham was headed towards Jordan Lake in the fairly-near future; that they were going to be conducting preliminary design work and a number of other evaluations, related to Jordan Lake. The Council, by resolution, was asking OWASA, Chatham County, and Orange County, which has a Jordan Lake allocation as well. They were inviting others to participate in discussions relating to a potential collaborative approach to obtaining water from Jordan Lake and developing the facilities necessary for doing that, in what might be a more economical and environmentally acceptable way. In response to that, the City Staff had a first meeting on Friday, just to say, “okay, here is what the Council did, and here is our timetable to move forward.” That timetable is probably being driven, even more critically, by Chatham County right now, because they are in a situation where they need to either expand their water plant at Jordan Lake and some piping, or they need to partner with others to obtain an increased supply of water to allow them to defer, spending $25 million to $34 million down at Jordan Lake. So, what Durham has essentially said is that they are going to do whatever they can to help Chatham County meet their needs, so that Chatham does not have to do that. So, it is a rather complicated set of timetables and financial considerations. Our need is certainly to increase our system reliability, particularly during extended droughts like we are in now. So, obtaining a supplemental source of water, such as Jordan Lake, could be very strategically important for us, not only in the near term, but long term, even after the Quarry is online. Again, so many uncertainties, that it would be smart for us to do that. Our Board, just at its last meeting at the end of February, unanimously concurred that we needed to be at that table discussing those strategies or opportunities with Durham and others. The Board also said that we need to do that in the context of updating our long term water supply master plan in work and updated analysis of the benefits and costs of conservation, expanding our Reuse Program, and other things, so that we can make that decision in a comprehensive and long term context. So, you are certainly going to hear more and more about that in the coming months. I think the Assembly of Governments here in Orange County has this particular items on their agenda for their March 31st meeting and there may be some discussion and direction provided at that time.
Milton Heath: Okay, that is about it for now.
Q: I am Judith Firster and I work with the Orange-Chatham Sierra Club. We recently sent a letter to the Orange County Board of Commissioners about the possibility of ordinances that would demand certain things of developers, so that they are putting in facilities in their developments for using gray water, low flow fixtures and appliances, and also, rain barrels and outdoor cisterns, and also regulations about lawns. I think it would be lovely to require them to minimize lawns. So, I wondered what you advise the Board of Commissioners, as ordinances are being re-thought and plumbing codes are being re-structured.
A: (unidentified) Well, I will start. I am sure that Tom and Charles will have some comments to add. Just, well, within the last year or so, OWASA Staff has been participating with the local Planning and Inspection Staffs and Public Works Staffs from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Orange County to talk about this very thing. What might we be able to do collectively to increase water use efficiency in new development and in re-development, such as Lot 5 Greenburg and other things that are happening, as well as then what might we be able to do to also go back and retrofit existing development to be more water efficient in the future. Those increased efficiency measures are not only going to save water, they are going to save future residents and businesses money on water and sewer bills, and energy bills. They are going to compliment greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies and a number of benefits that it is important. One of the initiatives that has been put forward by this joint local government workgroup studying collaborative conservation measures is the concept of water use efficiency requirements as conditions of receiving OWASA service. We presented that recommendation to our Board of Directors and the Board concurred with that in concept. That concept has been forwarded to the local governing boards, saying the OWASA Board concurs and we are recommending that we move forward to the next step and that is develop and implementation plan, identify roles and responsibilities, funding requirements, timetable, and also what might specific conditions of service include. By those conditions of service that we potentially would require in order to get our water and sewer service, we have been talking about essentially setting those at the cutting edge. So, new development would be required to go above and beyond just the basic building code requirements and plumbing code requirements. Install high efficiency toilets, the 1.28 gallon per flush toilets are better, and a number of the dual flush toilets are in that high efficiency category. Waterless urinals, you know, a whole series of measures. And so, we will be putting forward that draft list of conditions, what the specific conditions of service might be, and getting public input and having significant discussions with the local governments, the development community. We actually said that we were pursuing that concept in a meeting with the Homebuilders Association of Durham, Orange, and Chatham counties. So, we have started to put folks on notice. Time was expiring, but one of my next slides was that very issue, conditions of service requirements for new development.
Q: Judith Firster: And what is the name of the organization that you formed to do this?
A: (unidentified) Well, it is simply an inner local staff workgroup. It does not have a formal name. It is just staff from OWASA, the Orange County Planning Department, Chapel Hill and Carrboro Planning Departments, and Inspection and Public Works Staffs.
Judith Firster: We brought some copies of our letter to the Board of Commissioners and I will give them to you guys. Can I ask also, everybody is planning on drawing from Jordan. I have heard that Jordan is one of the biggest resources around here, but if everybody has got their straw in the glass, and it looks so awful right now, with so much beach exposed, that is not usually there. Can Jordan take it all, or I mean give it all?
(unidentified) Actually, I think Jordan has been above full, or above normal pool elevation, for a month or so now. So, it is not like looking at Falls Lake. But, that is not to say that Jordan is not susceptible to extended droughts and won’t be in the future.
Judith Firster: You know, it is very shallow.
(unidentified) Yes, it is very shallow. It has a 1700 square mile drainage basin and there are certainly water quality issues, not only current, but long term. So, all of those things will be important considerations, certainly, in our plans in the event we do decide to go to Jordan Lake. You know, we are looking at Jordan Lake, if we were involved in something there, not to use it on a daily basis like Cary and Chatham County are doing, but to use it as essentially an emergency reserve supply. So, that like during the current drought, we have a 5 million gallon per day allocation of Jordan Lake water right now, but don’t have any effective way to get it to our service area. And so, we could possibly not have to be in Stage III water use restrictions right now, if we had a way to supplement our supply with water from Jordan Lake. Again, it is another complex question.
Rick Bolich: Out of respect for your time, I think we will take two brief questions that we have. (discussion)
The Panel has agreed to stay around a few minutes if you would like them to ask them individual questions, but we are dropping off quickly here, so we would want to respect your time this afternoon.
Q: Don Cox, Orange Soil and Water Conservation. I had three, just real quick questions. Charles, you indicated in one of your drawing, a low water level switch. Is that a standard thing that can be added to keep from burning the pump up when you pull it down too far?
A: Dr. Daniel: Yes, they are readily available and it was something that we insisted on in the Cary municipal supply wells.
Q: Don Cox: Tom, you were saying that 80% return to the ground water from septic fields; that exceeds what I had thought in the past, since we are only a foot-and-a-half, 2 feet down, and usually grass for some vegetative cover and its root zone goes into there. And so, evapotranspiration, I was thinking it was more like, 80% of that was lost to evapotranspiration. Is that, um?
A: Tom Konsler: At this point, they are all estimates. There are a lot of variables, as you know, whether it is in a forested area or grassed area that is exposed to the sun. Maybe I should have actually said that 85-90% of the waste stream, or of the water use, ends up in the waste stream. And then there are variables as to how much goes up, how much goes down. But, certainly the majority of it would be moving down. As we are putting this about 2 feet in the ground beyond most of the root zone, except for the large trees.
Q: Don Cox: Is there a device that can be economically added to a well to monitor the water height in the well?
A: Tom Konsler: Probably the most accurate way to measure that would be a pressure transducer that is lowered and sort of sits in the column of water, and it is able to measure how much water is in there. But, they are not very affordable at this point. You can go out and manually measure it with a very cheap instrument. But to continually, like a data logger, they are available, but probably out of the reach of most people’s wells.
(unidentified) You also want to keep in mind, too, that you could measure it by hand. Each time you do that, you are going to have to break your sanitary seal and I would not advise that. The data logger, the transducer that Tom is referring to, they cost about $1,000 to $1,500.
Don Cox: Nobody has come up with an acoustical or a light beam, or something that can monitor that?
(unidentified) There are various ways. That is certainly one of them. An acoustic is one way that you don’t have to break the seal. Even with the data logger/transducer combination, you still need to get it down in the well into the water, to be able to monitor effectively.
Dr. Daniel: That diagram that you referred to with the low water level switch, also in there was what we refer to as a drop tube that is like a small stilling well which is installed inside the primary well casing. These were anywhere from a 1/2” to 3/4” in diameter and had a small port at the bottom. Those were installed to a depth greater than the pump intake to avoid entanglement of a data log or line, or electric water level sensor. So, you could install one of those in a well, so that you would bypass the plumbing and the electrical wiring going to your pump to avoid entanglement, and also to provide some sanitary safety. But then, you could use an electric water level sensor to go down that drop tube and measure the water level. In terms of cost, I have actually made some of those by hand and I probably had less than $20-30 in the total cost.
Dan Cox: Well, that might be of interest to share that information. Let me just mention with our Soil and Water programs, we have a new program that was passed through the legislature in 2006 and we are implementing. It is called Community Conservation Assistance Program. Tom mentioned the well closures. We have been cost sharing on well closures here in the county. Typically, we can cost share up to $1,500, but most of them have been running $400-$600. We can also cost share in urban and suburban areas for cisterns, rain gardens, and other infiltration structures and things in existing urban and suburban areas. Not in new subdivisions. But that is a new program we are bringing online and seeking additional funding for. So, call on us.
Q: Good afternoon. I am Ron Butler, and I am from the Town of Hillsborough. I am on their Water and Sewer Advisory Commission. One of the things of recent interest to us has been Governor Easley’s proposal or ideas about having more statewide control and influence over municipal water systems as an effective means of dealing with the drought. And I am just wondering if it is more advantageous to encourage more statewide directives, as far as with conservation and green development. Especially in some of the large cities, like Raleigh and Charlotte, where it is my understanding that they do not really to a lot as far as impact studies with water usage and some of the development issues. I just wanted to get a feel from the members of this presentation.
A: (unidentified) You know it is interesting, as you look back on the drought response materials that were put together in 2002 and I see reference to some fairly high ranking state officials, including the Governor, of certain drought response strategies and issues back then. Since the 2002 drought, a lot of utilities at the local level have made some really significant progress, that is in our region and throughout our region. At the State level, I think it has been a bit slower in coming. We are hearing it again and certainly a lot of those things that you mention, whether it is more water use efficiency measures that should be put in place state wide, or other things, there is certainly strong justification for doing those things. So, the State needs to, I think, be a leader in the sustainable management of our resources. They also, I think, need to lead in providing incentives for better responses, for partnership approaches where those make sense. But I think whatever it does, conservation and reuse need to be cornerstones of what the State strategy is, as well. Promoting, or even requiring, conservation pricing to more appropriately reflect the value and the full cost of providing water and sewer services. I think the State does have a role in there, but part of the reason we get in this situation we are, the State has traditionally allowed independent, fragmented approaches without much of a consolidated management framework or vision, and we are trying to deal with that. We are seeing some signs of progress.
VII. CLOSING
Please join with me in giving our panel a big round of applause. (applause) I also want to pay special thanks to Dolly. Dolly, would you standup and wave? (applause) I wish more people were here to see you acknowledged. She has worked very, very hard on this. One of the things that we discovered as we went along, there are a lot of misperceptions out there and I think you have done a great job in helping us to understand. There are people in Chapel Hill that do not realize that folks have wells. There are folks around here that don’t realize that there are subdivisions on wells. Everybody just thinks you turn on the tap and the water comes from somewhere. I think that this has been very, very good for understanding quantity, quality, and where we fit in. So, thank you very much. If you didn’t get a handout they are on the table. If you want to receive emails when we get things online, please make sure you have provided that information and the panelists will be up front for a few minutes, if you want to go beat them up a little more. Thank you very much.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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