Do you ever thinking about where your drinking water comes from? The Orange Water and Sewer Authority does often and is working to update its plan to ensure customers have plenty of water for the next 50 years.
This month on “Wonderful Water,” join 97.9 The Hill’s Brighton McConnell for a conversation with Ruth Rouse, Planning and Development Manager at OWASA.
The water service agency is working to update its Long-Range Water Supply Plan. Rouse said OWASA’s current primary water supplies – Cane Creek Reservoir, University Lake, and the Quarry Reservoir – are doing well so far this spring. Being 100 percent full, those reservoirs should provide the necessary amount of water for the community even in dry periods.
But, as Rouse and OWASA knows, planning for the future is just as important has currently having water and its Board of Directors has been investigating options to augment the local water supply.
“We’ve been working on this plan for a while now,” Rouse said. “Providing the community with clean, safe water for 50 years…is really one of our core objectives. We also want to make sure we can meet those needs not just 50 years out, but also when we’re looking at potential droughts. It’s not if we’ll have a drought, [it’s when] — we know it’s going to be coming in the future. With climate change, we want to make sure we’re addressing that potential issue.”
The OWASA Board of Directors is exploring getting guaranteed access to water in Jordan Lake, just south of Orange County in Chatham County. Since Cary and Apex jointly own the only intake on the lake, OWASA could use interconnections those towns have with Durham to eventually travel treated water to our community.
Jordan Lake (Photo via the Chatham News + Record.)
But OWASA is not the only group looking to use the water in Jordan Lake as an additional reserve supply. Rouse said the Town of Pittsboro, the City of Durham and Chatham County’s government are collectively weighing whether to build another intake and water treatment plant. She said OWASA’s leadership is now considering joining that partnership to ensure they have access.
“Do we want to partner with them and if so, to what extent? That’s really the question that’s next for our Board of Directors,” said Rouse. “We’re going out right now and speaking with community groups, talking to some of the local elected officials, some of their advisory boards…just trying to get the word out so people know this is going on and they can provide feedback to our Board of Directors.”
As part of the community outreach, OWASA and Rouse will be holding an event at the Chapel Hill Public Library on Saturday, April 23.
“We’ll set up the Water Wagon outside the main entrance of the library so you can come say hello,” said Rouse, “and we’ll be there from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. And at 1 o’clock and 3 o’clock on the library’s back patio, I’ll be making a presentation that will provide more information to the public and they can ask questions. Let us know what questions you may have and if there’s anything you’d like our Board of Directors to know.”
You can listen below to the full conversation below, and visit the Wonderful Water page here for more interviews and stories about the work OWASA does in our community.
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.
