Agenda - 02-05-2013 - 4b - Laserfiche WebLink

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DROUGHT RESPONSE OPERATING PROTOCOL 9 JANUARY lO, 2013 Purpose To describe the procedures and criteria that OWASA will use for making water supply and demand management decisions during an extended drought, including provisions for public notice of potential Water Supply Shortage declarations, water purchases, and /or use of OWASA's Jordan Lake water supply storage allocation. The protocol outlined below will provide OWASA's customers, local elected boards, and the overall Carrboro - Chapel Dill -UNC community with timely notice of a potential water shortage due to extended drought and the opportunity to reduce water consumption in order to avoid and /or minimize the need for more severe water use restrictions or emergency actions. The statistically derived drought responses described below were based on the risk of depleting OWASA's existing Cane Creek /University Lake /Quarry Reservoir system to the Emergency Storage level. Those risks do not assume that Jordan Lake is part of OWASA's existing or primary water supply portfolio (University Lake, Cane Creek Reservoir, and Quarry Reservoir); instead, Jordan Lake is only an "insurance policy" for use during extended drought or operational emergencies. Protocol 1. OWASA shall monitor OWASA's water supply and demand conditions, short -and long -term weather forecasts, regional water supply conditions, and other factors which may affect the risk of a water supply shortage due to drought. 2. The attached graph, which is a modified version of the 7 million gallon per day (mgd) "trigger table "* in OWASA's State - approved Water Shortage Response Plan, shall guide OWASA's drought response decisions when raw water demands are at an annual average of 7 mgd. (When annual average demands are greater than 7 mgd, the corresponding trigger table graphs from the Water Shortage Response Plan shall be used.) Any drought - related Water Supply Shortage declaration at storage levels above those indicated on the trigger table, and /or any decision to purchase water from a neighboring jurisdiction (and /or to use OWASA's Jordan Lake allocation) during a drought, shall be made only upon approval by the OWASA Board of Directors. 3. OWASA shall declare a Water Shortage Advisory no later than when the total water stored in the reservoirs drops to within 10% of the mandatory Stage 1 trigger. (This Advisory stage is represented by the black dashed line on the attached graph). At or around that time, OWASA will initiate communications with the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, Chapel Dill Town Council, Orange County Board of Commissioners, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Dill — and shall give public notice to customers and other stakeholders — regarding the likelihood that Stage 1 water use restrictions will go into effect, and that it may be necessary to begin purchasing water from the City of Durham and /or Town of Cary if current drought conditions continue or worsen. OWASA will carefully consider the advice and feedback from the elected boards. The OWASA Board of Directors will continue to exercise its sole responsibility and authority for decisions about water shortage declarations and water purchases, consistent with this Protocol. As in the past, OWASA will expand its standard conservation messaging before declaring the Water Shortage Advisory in order to encourage * The graph is based on an average daily raw water demand of 7 mgd. Trigger levels for greater or lesser demands will be correspondingly higher or lower than those depicted here.