Local officials want to make sure Chapel Hill residents don’t forget to address basics — like where their water will come from — as they plan for the town’s future.
Ed Holland, the planning director for Orange Water and Sewer Authority, took center stage at a Monday Chapel Hill 2020 presentation on water supply.
Holland presented reasons for Chapel Hill to add Jordan Lake to its list of emergency water supply options — an option town council members have rejected in the past because of concerns with lake pollution and cost.
OWASA draws its water supply from University Lake, Cane Creek and Quarry Reservoir. Holland said allocating Jordan Lake into Chapel Hill’s emergency sources could help the town during droughts.
Within the last 85 years, the most extreme drought occurred in 2001 to 2002, he said.
According to a rough simulation done by OWASA, if the 2001 to 2002 drought had continued, Chapel Hill would have had to draw water from emergency sources within six months, and water supplies would have been gone within a year.
Holland emphasized that Jordan Lake would only be used in times of emergency.
“For now, we’re talking about Jordan Lake only for an insurance policy,” he said.
But in April, some Town Council members rejected the idea of using the water, regardless of the situation.
“No public official in the last 20 years has ever been willing to say that they would drink Jordan Lake water,” then-Councilwoman Sally Greene said.
In the meantime, OWASA is planning to expand the water supply of Quarry Reservoir by the early 2030s.
Chapel Hill residents and the University are also stepping up to help with water conservation, Holland said.
He said residents’ water conservation efforts are right in line with those taking place in Cary and Durham.
“We’re using 30 percent less water today than ten years ago,” he said.
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