Agenda - 03-16-1999 - 10c - Laserfiche WebLink

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3 months. There was some discussion about asking the state legislature to address the need for a western intake/pumping facility in this yeaz's session. Insofaz as Orange County interests aze concerned, there aze several potential implications to any decision as to how a Jordan Lake raw water intake/pumping facility is constructed and controlled. Jordan Lake represents a future (ten or more years in the future) supply of water for at least the southern part of the County. It is incumbent on the County -probably through OWASA - to insure that whatever option is chosen to construct and control the raw water withdrawal facilities preserves the ability to use Jordan Lake as a County water supply. It is highly probable that any scenario will physically impact OWASA's Jordan Lake property. Therefore, under any construction/control scenario, OWASA and the County must take the precautions that aze required to preserve the overall usefulness of that property for the purposes for which it was originally intended. These uses include, but aze not necessarily limited to, locating OWASA raw water pumping and transmission facilities, and perhaps water treatment facilities as well. Insofaz as the entire region is concerned, it is probably best if the western intake/pumping facility is financed, constructed and/or controlled by the state. The state could then ensure that all holders of withdrawal rights on the western side of Jordan Lake have adequate access to the water. Apex and Cary own and control the east side facilities and thus control access to the water drawn through those facilities. They have, for all intents and purposes, shut off or drastically limited access to Jordan Lake from the east side. The issue of the Apex/Cary control of the east side of Jordan Lake is the primary reason that Chatham County has been forced to seek another means of accessing the lake. If the state does not agree to take responsibility for the western intake/pumping facility, the second best option is for all of the potential water suppliers that would normally use the western facility to move forward with a regional effort to finance, develop and control the facility. While this option does create difficulties in terms of coordinating financing, construction, operation, management, etc., it could provide perhaps the best means of avoiding the access problems evidenced at the eastern intake/pumping facilities. Another option would be for Chatham County to construct its own intake and pumping facility. It is unlikely that Chatham would be able to finance development of intake/pumping facilities of a capacity sufficient to meet the ultimate demands of all water suppliers seeking access to raw water through these facilities. Accordingly, this option would provide no opportunity to coordinate western side access to Jordan Lake's water supplies. An advantage inherent in either the state or Chatham County taking responsibility for the intake/pumping facility would be that the OWASA customer base would not be financially affected by the associated capital expenditures, at least in the short term. ENGINEER'S NOTE #2 (Mazch 9, 19991: I have spoken «ith Tom Fransen of the Division of Water Resources, the state agency chazged with the responsibility for allocating Jordan Lake water resources and, to some extent, regulating physical access to the lake itself (in conjunction with the US Army Corps of Engineers). Mr. Fransen advises me that the Division of Water Resources is currently working with Chatham, Cary and Apex to determine if it really is impossible to provide Chatham access to its allocation through the existing Cary/Apex intake/ pumping facilities. He also advised me that it will probably be years, if ever, before the state could and would accept responsibility for constructing, owning, operating, maintaining, etc., anintake/pumping facility on the western side of Jordan Lake. Such a process would require enabling legislation in which the Legislature would: 1) adopt regulations establishing the process by which the state would move forward with such a project and process; and 2)