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UNC qualms about handling of February water crisis surface 3-30-17 Turns out that UNC-Chapel Hill officials have some doubts after all about the handling of February’s water crisis in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. As voiced recently to university trustees by Brad Ives, associate vice chancellor for campus enterprises, they concern what he termed the “rather drastic steps” at the height of the crisis to order people not to drink or use water from the Orange Water and Sewer Authority’s piping network. Ives told the trustees’ finance committee that campus officials think that in a similar situation, it’s “going to be more important to have some senior-level staff” at Orange County’s emergency operations center. They also believe they “could’ve worked more closely with state environmental officials” who they suspect influenced the decision in February to issue the twin alerts. Combined, the Feb. 3 alerts shut down the towns’ restaurants, and prompted UNC to issue a rare advisory of its own urging students to leave campus for the weekend. Officials believe 50 percent to 60 percent of the students who reside on campus actually left. The crisis had its roots in events the day before, when errors at OWASA’s Jones Ferry Road water treatment plant triggered an “overfeed” of flouride into the plant’s water stockpile that rendered it useless and took the plant offline. Matters escalated the morning of Feb. 3 when a water-main break in northeast Chapel Hill dumped a lot of the utility’s remaining, in-network water supply. Repairs proceeded quickly, and officials were able to lift the don’t-use/don’t-drink orders mid-afternoon on Feb. 4. Ives, who in the immediate aftermath of the crisis called OWASA “a trusted partner of the campus,” told trustees it’s obvious an emergency existed. OWASA’s water stockpile on Feb. 3 dropped below the 2 million gallons officials consider the bare minimum needed. But in a later interview, he said campus officials now believe the decision to call the alerts resulted from “a state determination by” the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. “Had we had more information at the time it was happening, I think we could have stepped in and talked to” the department, Ives said. “But we didn’t know exactly what was going on at the time as to who was making the determination. We assumed it was a local determination.” UNC’s environmental safety director, Mary Beth Koza, in an interview added that “procedures were followed” in that local officials consulted state regulators and heard back from them that “we should have a do-not-use.” Both she and Ives noted that given the situation, the menu of potential responses changes and often involve less drastic measures. Koza cited the example of an early-March boil-water advisory in northeast Chatham County, in response to a water leak there and resulting pressure drop.