Agenda - 06-03-1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: June 3, 1991 1 Action Agenda Item No. V T-T -A SUBJECT: Eno River Capacity Use Weir Construction and Monitoring Gage Modification DEPARTMENT: County Manager -------------------------- - - - - -- PUBLIC HEARING YES: NO:x ATTACHMENT(S): Report INFORMATION CONTACT: County Engineer TELEPHONE NUMBER - Hillsborough - 732 -8181 Chapel Hill - 968 -4501 Mebane - 227 -2031 Durham - 688 -7331 -------------------.._-_----------_----------------------------------- PURPOSE: To present to the County Commissioners, for information only, a report on the status of construction of flow monitoring and control weirs in the Eno River below the dams of each of the three Eno River reservoirs and of the modification of the flow recording instruments in the Hillsborough gaging station. BACKGROUND: In the spring of 1989, the Town of Hillsborough, the Orange - Alamance Water System, Piedmont Minerals and Orange County formally entered into a Capacity Use Agreement which was to be conducted under the supervision of the NC Division of Water Resources. This agreement bound the participating parties into a framework of rules and cooperative effort to limit water withdrawals from the Eno River and to maintain a minimum of flow in the river by means of releases from the Lake Orange reservoir during periods of low natural stream flow. At the time of the ratification of the Capacity Use Agreement, each of the parties involved in the Agreement had primitive systems for releasing water from the respective reservoirs and no way of accurately verifying the quantity of water released from any reservoir. The only equipment available to determine the quantity of water released into the river was at the USGS stream flow monitoring station in the Eno River on the eastern edge of Hillsborough. This gage's location put it some six hours of flow time downstream from the nearest reservoir release point. In its entirety, the existing system for river flow control was extremely cumbersome and totally inadequate to maintain minimum stream flow while conserving the maximum amount of water in the reservoirs.