Agenda - 08-29-2002 - Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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customers of Hillsborough and Orange-Alamance are facing very stringent water use restrictions and Piedmont Minerals is facing a potential complete shut-down of its operations. However, the first time availability of raw water from Hillsborough's new reservoir (which has never cazzzpletely filled) has helped not only the Town, but Orange-Alamance and Piedmont Minerals as well, delay the imposition of ever more stringent (Stage Vn water use restrictions (and associated costs or losses) for an additional two or tbz'ee weeks. The availability of water from the new Hillsborough reservoir has been and continues to be a significant asset to this area at a time when water chemistry issues (different methods/chemicals used to disinfect treated water) and the water supply shortfalls experienced by almost all area utilities (excepting primarily the Mebane/Graham and Burlington systems) have severely impacted the ability of those water utilities to provide water for use here. County engineering staff anticipate that, given the existing water level at Lake Change ($' 11"below spilling as of 8/23) and the current rate of fall in the water level (approximately 1" per day), Stage VI water use restrictions will be implemented an or before Wednesday, August 28t'' (absent significant rainfall in the interim). Water use restrictions already imposed on individual water customers of the Hillsborough and Orange-Alamance water systems {through Stage V of the County and Hillsborough drought ordinances) have prohibited all outside uses of water as well as the filling or refilling new or existing indoor or outdoor pawls and have "strongly" encouraged the use of a number of techniques for conserving water far various indoor water uses. The provisions of the Eno River Capacity Use Agreement (analogous to the Stage VI level of the drought ordinance restrictions) call far the Town's Ena allocation to be reduced from 1,130, 000 gallons per day (gpd) to X80,000 gpd; Qrange Alamance's allocation to be reduced from 620,000 gpd to 370,000 gpd; anal Piedmont Mineral's allocation to be reduced from 190,000 gpd to 0. Ha~uvever, Hillsborough can supply its full current demand (approximately 1,000,000 gpd) from its new reservoir far approximately 100 more days; and Orange-Alamance has been able -thus far - to obtain sufficient water, by pumping from its three grouzxd water wells and purchasing treated water from bath Mebane and Graham, to meet its current demand (approximately 1,000,000 gpd}. Piedmont Minerals is in the worst shape in that it will only be able to obtain the untreated water it needs for its production processes by utilizing and recycling water stored in a few an-site ponds. All available information on Lake Orange indicates that that the imposition of Stage VI drought ordinance restrictions coincides with a remaining water storage capacity of 30 percent of the total capacity ar approximately 140 million gallons. At the current rate of water demand (620,000 gpd for Qrange-Alamance, 190,OOp mgd for Piedmont Minerals}, in-channel loses and evaporation, these numbers indicate that Lake Change has approximately 100 days of storage left. Hillsborough, has not been using its Eno/Lake Orange allocation far the last three weeks, but will probably begin using its allocation within the next week. A calculation incorporating the additional release would show the remaining days of storage capacity to be halved (50 days). Froze a practical standpoint, however, Lake Orange may have only between 20 and 30 days of storage left since it appears that a large portion of the remaining storage maybe inaccessible. That is, the lowest gate in the intake structure {which opens upward and is intended to be the means for draining the lake} is now known to be malfunctioning to the paint of inoperability (it appears to be binding sa tightly that it cannot be raised). Furthermore, the gate also appears to be completely buried in the silt that has collected around the outside of the intake structure. If the gate were opened and then could not be closed as a consequence of silt filling the lower