This month on “Wonderful Water” join 97.9 The Hill’s Brighton McConnell for a conversation with Todd Taylor, executive director at OWASA.

OWASA treats an average of 7 million gallons of drinking water each day for customers across southern Orange County. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted every aspect of our community in 2019, including a decrease in water demand as some larger institutions were forced to close due to the pandemic – including UNC and Chapel Hill – Carrboro City Schools.

“It was a lot of new territory for us to cover, but I’m really proud of the OWASA team and how we managed to adapt to this new circumstance and continue to support the community through 2020,” said Taylor. “The challenge isn’t over for us yet, we’ve got to finish this thing out.”

According to Taylor, OWASA worked to continue providing an essential service to the community while making sure employees were working safely — and 2021 has more in store as several large projects underway to help improve drinking water and wastewater system resiliency, including movement on OWASA’s Long-Range Water Supply Plan.

“The long range water supply plan is the tool that we use to make sure that OWASA can continue to provide the community with drinking water for several generations into the future,” said Taylor. “So, we’re working on the plan right now that’s actually looking at where our water supply needs will be all the way to 2070.”

You can listen below for the full conversation between Brighton McConnell and Todd Taylor below, and visit the Wonderful Water page here for more interviews and stories about the work OWASA does. 


Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents use roughly 7 million gallons of water a day, and “Wonderful Water” is a monthly conversation sponsored by the Orange Water and Sewer Authority highlighting its work to keep our community growing and water flowing.