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"Severe" Drought


Jones_

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A new reservoir is on the way. Wake County has acquired property along the Little River (a tributary of the Neuse-their confluence is in Goldsboro) in the northeast portion of the Co. near the town of Lizard Lick, kinda near Wendell. Planning for the reservoir continues but the land is bought and paid for.

This is just a freak year. It was kind of like this in 2000 (or am I thinking '01?) but not nearly as bad.

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I would think though that after the big scare we have been having with water that plans would be accelerated to get some new water sources up and running. I would imagine that at this point, it would not be all that hard to request more state(which is probably already planning on providing more resources) and federal govt. money & assistance in speeding up the process of getting these new sources operational. If lakes nearly completely gone and Easley issuing a state-wide ban on open burning because of a lack of water to put out fires, on top of severe water restrictions in most of NC isn't enough evidence of an emergency, I don't know what is.

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If we're in severe drought conditions, then the govenor should declare a state of emergency. Local officials can save face (we'd let you water all you want, but the govenor says otherwise) and the govenor can look like a leader in the situation.

It just rained here (near the 40/Durham Freeway intersection) but it has already stopped. That kind of rain won't help replenish our water supply any time soon.

Other than using the gas station window cleaners, I don't remember the last time I washed my car. The grass hasn't been watered this year, and we only can water the flowers once a week. I never run the water while brushing my teeth (is using a cup that hard?). I hate the stubble but use an electric razor except for special occasions to conserve water. It bugs the heck out of my wife (and probably co-workers) but I only shower every second or third day, and wear outer layers of clothes a few times before washing them. I don't know how I can save any more water other than building an outhouse, which I'd rather not do.

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If the state doesn't start doing some thing soon, we could end up in a situation like CA is in right now. With all the sprawl here, that would be a real disaster :o . What we are in is a very dangerous situation and it needs to be treated as such. I am glad Easley banned open burning, but more needs to be done. The state needs to make sure we have enough water around to fight any fires that may occur in these dry conditions and impose tough penalties on all violators.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I have been at a "water" engineering conference since Sunday, and one of the final speakers was the Corps guy out of Wilmington who controls the 5 corps operated lakes in the area, Jordan and Kerr are more or less ok for now he said because very few people pull water from them. Falls, however is really hurting and they are looking at getting the State to pay for treating the sedimentation pool at the bottom of lake and setting the rules for who gets how much...Falls actually supplies water to many downstream communities too with intakes on the Neuse. I did not realize that Falls has a sub-impoundment called Beaverdam that has controlled release into Falls Lake and the Corps has withheld that water to date. The big lesson I took from it, though engineers are carefull not to take sides on development issues, is that the seriousness of the drought is strictly a too many people using too much water issue. Per capita water usage in America is about four times that of China. Utilities all accross the State are looking at building interconnects with low rain forecast for the entire winter. Raleigh is about to build a big reuse trunk line from its wastewater plant on Battlebridge and running it to Cetennial campus golf course with connections to Cargill and many small schools along the way that water athletic fields. Reuse, though does not put water back in the river for communities downstream so reduction in usage, likely permanent reductions are the only solutions. It is possbile, that in our lifetimes, there will be a point from which grass will never be watered with you regular spigot again...Raleigh has no plans to offer "gray" water for residential use though 20 years out the Wake Forest WWTP could be converted to a "scalping" plant that can pull wastewater off the main trunk line to Raleigh and treat it to Reuse (grey) standards for use up around Heritage, Falls River and Wakefield.

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:lol: But seriously, this problem (perhaps along with climate change and peak oil) is a big wake up call that we just can't sustain business as usual with respect to all of our resources. Jones, as you point out, the US uses astronomical amounts of oil, water... just about everything compared to other nations. I've held this view for a couple of years now: if your lifestyle revolves in some way around being in or near a city like most people (jobs, school, etc), in the coming years you will have a strategic and economic advantage if you live in an urban/downtown environment... less water use, more walking, less oil dependence, less carbon footprint, less physical footprint, more discretionary money in your pocket, on and on...
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Well I have to disagree with you here. I for one live in the burbs and use far less water than many people I know that live in downtown areas around the country. I use around $5 a month in water. In contrast I have a friend that lives in NYC and has a rooftop terrace that she waters EVERYDAY. I also only have to put out my garbage every 3 weeks because I recycle so many things. I know people that live in the burbs in CA that produce so much electricity with their solar panels that their meter runs backwards and the power company pays them for the electricity the put back out on the grid.

I have also known people that would live downtown and STILL drive to the corner store, despite being less than a block away. In contrast, I see people walking up here to the corner store all time that is about a quarter mile away, despite the fact that there is no sidewalk and they have to cross Capital to do it. There is also a CAT stop across the street from the subdivision that usually has a number of people waiting at it. People are to do things the way they want to despite where they live. There are downtown condos in some cities that are as big as a house in the burbs, while there are townhouses and condos in the burbs like you would find in a downtown/urban area. It all comes down to how you choose to live, not where. A good example of that is the people buying houses near downtown Raleigh and tearing them down to make way for larger houses.

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Two things happen.....similar to gas prices....either the true price of providing water gets instituted because desalinated water gets piped in from the ocean at astronomical cost (think 200/month water bills) or growth stops by virtue of having encountered a limiting factor in how many people this planet can hold..fresh water.....in the U.S. that factor also has the caveat of *how many people living this way*.....its almost time to pay the piper....be happy about this drought happening now for us...Atlanta is in so much worse shape because they have so many more people....I hope we learn as a population and not just our utility directors...

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not running the water while you brush your teeth, collecting the water while it is running in the kitchen or bath waiting for it to get hot, and watering once a week with a good soaking instead of lightly every day are all behaviors I hope lots of people take to heart, even after this drought eases...I daresay if everyone did those three things, we'd immediately lower water usage another 5-10%.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Some people never used much water. I would guess my daily average at home has always been around 25-30/day. And now because pepsi, broken pipes and Wakefield depleted our supply my efforts get whitewashed and go unnoticed. [theoretical]-I now get punished for always doing right. The heavy user who runs the dishwasher every night, assumes his daily shower routine is not the problem and who puts off buying viagra as long as his lawn is green is complaining too because this proverbial arm twist to their indifference will indeed be noticed. Where peole may rightly be mad is that the daily minimum to live, whatever that amount is, probably should not be double charged. How do you determine this...bedrooms per house? Dependants claimed on your last tax form? Rationing per house hurts big families. Charging per bedroom hurts retirees. One thing the paper never draws a distinction on is that average per capita water use will not reflect residential conservation efforts. Industrial, Commercial, Institutional, Agricultural and leaking pipe waste probably have changed little yet their usage goes into calculating daily demand at the City water treatment plant. Residential use may be scraping closer to the 25 gallon number than we think. Average residential water billing is the number tied to we the people.

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