Orange County NC Website
many of us have lakes in our backyard in our service area that we could go and turn to. We <br /> simply do not know the answer. What about our role in supporting our neighbors? Remember <br /> that chart that we had that showed all of the interconnections between all of the utilities. If we <br /> have a supply, which is satisfactory and has not been contaminated, but we then go and supply <br /> it to somebody that has, is there a potential for cross-contamination? Do we, as a single utility, <br /> or as a regional community, have the capacity to supply water to those communities that are <br /> close by to Shearon Harris and may in fact be in an impacted area? It is a very difficult question <br /> to answer and one that we do not know the answer to. Could we as a community, for example, <br /> supply Cary and Apex or Chatham County with drinking water if their Jordan Lake supply were <br /> shut down? Yes, possibly, for some short period of time, but we do not know if we could <br /> prolong that period of time. And in this period of drought right now, that makes those <br /> opportunities even less for that kind of supply. What other issues might there be? What <br /> equipment? What personnel? What kind of resources are we going to have to share during <br /> such an emergency? We'll hear from emergency management shortly, but we are not sure we <br /> know the answer to that. We do not know that the answers exist in any one particular place, but <br /> we really do believe that we should be working together to define what those answers are - <br /> together, as a series of utilities. In the emergency phase, you have a reaction plan that has <br /> been developed by the North Carolina Division of Radiation Protection and the Public Water <br /> Supply Section of the Division of Environmental Health. And they have a responsibility for <br /> environmental monitoring and guidance to local water supplies. That plan appears to be in <br /> good shape, and according to those emergency plans, those agencies would inform us if our <br /> lakes were safe to use as a water supply. But from a local perspective, we believe we also <br /> need to take the same kind of precautions and understand how we might act in the event of <br /> such an emergency and how we ought to be advising our customers. We need to be able to <br /> react relatively quickly and we believe the plan has some of the elements of that in it, but there <br /> needs to be further discussion about that. <br /> In the post-emergency phase, it is a little bit more complicated. In here, the <br /> issues that need to be dealt with have a greater number of questions —questions that we do not <br /> yet have answers to, but which we have posited to the authorities. We have not been able to <br /> identify any consistent standard or procedure for determining and certifying the long-term safety <br /> of surface water supplies that may contain low levels of radiological contamination that persist <br /> beyond that initial emergency period. We simply do not have the answers. When would it be <br /> safe to use the water again? Could long-term exposure resulting from the ingestion of low <br /> levels of radiation cause our water plant and distribution system to become contaminated? The <br /> thought of having to replace all of our hundreds of miles of water and sewer lines just in Chapel <br /> Hill is daunting. If not, would the residents of southern Orange County be stuck with the bill for <br /> paying for the repair or the replacement of all of those systems? And then how could it be done <br /> in a timely fashion in order to be able to accommodate the community as it needs to have <br /> water? We have not been able to find the answers to those questions, or even to identify <br /> people who can answer those questions. <br /> Finally, the issue with respect to whether or not you have an environmental <br /> record of protection, which we do, becomes critically important. As I had said earlier, Jordan <br /> Lake is the supply source for a variety of our communities and is the single largest resource <br /> available to the communities in the Triangle as we begin to grow. So these water supply <br /> sources are irreplaceable. But the fact of the matter is that OWASA's record on environmental <br /> protection has some very significant tales to tell. As people who work with water, which is what <br /> our business is, we have a very long-standing concern with environmental protection and with <br /> environmental issues. We have expended a great deal of effort and money protecting the <br /> watersheds upstream of our lakes. The state has given us money to do that, and we are <br /> pleased for that. We are now preparing for the likelihood of fairly major expenditures on our <br /> wastewater plant in order to protect the downstream users who happen to be in Jordan Lake or <br />