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Commissioner Jacobs said that the Town of Chapel Hill is not going to be ready by the <br /> JPA Public Hearing in October, so before the JPA date is released, it should be used for <br /> something else. <br /> PUBLIC COMMENT: <br /> Chris Heaney from UNC Epidemiology submitted a handout. <br /> Date: 8/18/09 <br /> Preliminary findings of a household survey of water and sewer infrastructure in the <br /> Rogers-Eubanks community <br /> Background: <br /> Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public <br /> Health (UNC) and Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association (RENA) community members <br /> collaborated to develop a household survey of water and sewer infrastructure. Household <br /> survey data and drinking water samples were collected during the summer of 2009. <br /> Response rate, number of households and individuals: <br /> By reviewing records provided by the Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) in August, <br /> 2008, RENA identified 73 households as located in the Rogers-Eubanks community. Of these, <br /> 38 (52%) were approached. Of the 38 households approached, a total of 27 households (71%) <br /> completed a survey, with one adult household member providing responses for additional <br /> household members. A total of 58 individuals lived in the 27 households surveyed. A total of <br /> 21 drinking water samples were collected from 20 of the 27 households surveyed (74%). <br /> Demographic and household features: <br /> Twenty-six households reported African-American (96%) race/ethnicity and one reported <br /> White/Caucasian (4%) race/ethnicity. Just over one-third of the respondents were above the <br /> age of 65. Nearly two-thirds of households reported an annual household income of <$30,000 <br /> and 79% of households reported up to 2 or more people living in a household. One quarter of <br /> the respondents reported that they had a job or occupation, which included keeping house or <br /> going to school, as well as working for pay or profit. Forty-one percent of the homes were built <br /> 30 or more years ago and just under half reported living in their home for 30 years or longer. <br /> Forty-six percent of respondents reported needing urgent home repairs including plumbing <br /> (31%), roof (31%), ceiling (23%), floors (15%), windows/doors/winterizing (31%), electrical <br /> (15%), and other (disability ramp) (15%). <br /> Characteristics and vulnerability of household wells: <br /> Fourteen households (52%) reported having an operating private well. The median year of well <br /> construction was 1962 (with the oldest constructed in 1949 and the most recent in 2005). <br /> Signs of well vulnerability were common and included failure of the well pump (85%); a <br /> cloudiness, taste or smell of well water (79%); and a need for disinfection of the well with <br /> chlorine (21%). All of the well owners surveyed had one or more of these signs of well <br /> vulnerability. Half of well owners surveyed reported using their well as their primary drinking <br /> water source. <br /> There was evidence of higher drinking water turbidity and fecal coliform concentrations at <br /> households with wells than at those with regulated public drinking water (turbidity: x2 <br />