Agenda - 12-01-1987 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

PACKGROUND. The Long Range Water Management Strategy Committee, created by the Board of County Commissioners in early 1987 , convened its first meeting on 15 March 1987 . Since then, the Committee has met seventeen times in its efforts to create policy guidelines for the long term management of Orange County ' s water supplies. The Committee was given two primary charges. The first was outlining short term water transfer options available to Orange County ' s water systems with associated costs, contract conditions, and methods of financing. The second charge was to recommend what new sources of water should be pursued and utilized in the long term, along with the appropriate organizational structure and financing strategy necessary to support the project. During its eight month existence, the Committee' s discussion has taken a broad view of its second charge. The question of how a new reservoir should be operated is not the only one with which the Committee has grappled. How all of Orange County' s water resources should be managed has also been a focal point of Committee discussions. The Committee first looked at transfer options, reviewing current actions by Orange County' s three systems involving inter-agency transfers. The Committee has made no recommendations involving transfers at this time because the individual systems have either completed or are in the process of establishing their own major links in a regional water network. OWASA has the ability to bring between 3.6 million and 4. 0 million gallons of finished water daily from Durham and Hillsborough voters recently passed the bond issues necessary to construct its connection with Durham. Within the County, the completion of the booster pump station at Celvander will allow two-way transmission between OWASA and Hillsborough. The one inadequate link is that which connects Burlington and Graham on the west with Hillsborough on the east. The Committee did review alternative strategies, though, for transfers from Burlington and Mebane to Hillsborough. The alternatives were contained in the report "Feasibility Study for Finished Water Transfers to Hillsborough, North Carolina, " prepared in July 1986 by Hazen & Sawyer, P. C. The reason no recommendation was made on how this link should be established was because of the additional problems posed by the Orange-Alamance Water System in establishing the connection. Orange-Alamance, as a private corporation that crosses both watershed and county boundaries, presents problems above and beyond those of simple transfers. It is best that the issue of management structure be addressed before recommendations are made on regional connections that require OAWS to act as a conduit for other systems. Pane