Agenda - 10-30-2002 - 1 (AOG) - Laserfiche WebLink

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13 to our water board as well as the Commissioners in helping us to think through some of the issues of water supply and distribution that I think that's got us to the point where we are now. Commissioner Bob Atwater: I really can't improve on that much at all, other than to say that I think we have an increasing awareness of protecting the watershed. In the first instance, it's the right thing to do. But a number of other opportunities are presented in terms of some of these formula based approval processes at the State level for water allocations that we're rewarded in that area by protecting the watershed and it's always nice to be a good neighbor as well. Commissioner Pollard: Ron, you might want to mention our water conservation policy as it relates to pricing our water. I know we've done some thinking along those lines. Ron Singleton, Chatham County Public Works Director: I'm not sure what Hillsborough's per unit charge is, but the last time I looked, I think ours was the highest normal charge in the area. That stems from the fact that, Orange Alamance was talking about how their system is strung out, we've got water systems strung out all the way from Governor's Club in the northeast to the Bennett in the southwest. I have about eight people that manage the whole system, and if people are working up in Governor's Club and we have a line break in Bennett, it takes them about 45 minutes just to get down there. We have a 3 mgd surface water plant drawing out of Lake Jordan. We share the Cary/Apex intake right now. We've had problems in the past with being able to get as much water out of the Cary/Apex arrangement as we needed to supply our plant. But we have an agreement in place now that allows us to, in the short term, for the next five years, to draw up to our full 3 mgd capacity. And the agreement also spells out that we're to build our own raw water pumping station that will use the Cary/Apex intake lines themselves, and that will give us capacity immediately up to 10 million gallons a day with the option of expanding those facilities even further than that. The Cary/Apex intake is sized pumping wise for 50 million gallons a day, but the intake lines that actually go out into the lake are capable of handling about 88 million gallons a day. So we're going to take advantage of that excess capacity and build our own raw water pump station and line to our plant. Our plant was designed for relatively easy expansion to 6 million gallons a day, and right now our maximum day that we've hit is around 1.4 million gallons a day, so we have a little bit of wiggle room, but we're already doing some pre-planning and have some numbers in our capital improvement budget for expansion, with the first expansion to the plan probably in the next five to seven years. The majority of our customers that we serve are in the north Chatham system served off the water treatment plant, but we also have two other separate systems in the County—one that's based in the Moncure area where we buy bulk water from the City of Sanford. We also have water out in the southwest part of the County where we buy bulk water from Goldston Gulf Sanitary District and also from Siler City. And those of you on top of what's going on in the region realize that Siler City is having their own problems with water supply, so one of our concerns right now is being able to get Jordan water into the other parts of the County. Our top priority project on our capital improvement list is what we call our p-ridge connector line, which would bring Jordan Lake water south through the Moncure community and hook up with that system, and then head west with it and hook up to the southwest system, which would enable us to pump Jordan Lake water throughout our system. It would also take some pressure off of Siler City until, they're under a program now to expand their surface water reservoir, but it hasn't been approved yet, and even when it's approved it's probably three or four years out being constructed. So we're looking at doing something to help out in that regard. Like I said, our standard water rate for residential customers is $4.86 per thousand gallons. That's a pretty significant rate from what I've seen. Pat Davis shared with us some preliminary numbers on a study he's doing. As far as in-town rates go, I think that was the highest rate in the area. When you compare with out of town rates, we're still up there in the top 20%. We also have an availability fee that's based on meter size. Ed's basing theirs on building size, but we base ours on meter size with the assumption that when the meter size goes up, the requirement to supply goes up. For our standard 5/8 % inch connection, that's $1,750. Ed Kerwin: Ours goes up based on meter size too. Our tiered approach is the single-family home type service. Beyond that, it's like you, it's based on the size of the meter what the connection fee is. Question: Ron, is your bulk rate for raw water or finished water? You said you were buying bulk water from two sources. Ron Singleton: Oh, we buy finished water from Sanford, Goldston Gulf, and Siler City. And we buy bulk raw water from Cary/Apex. We pay a small charge to Cary/Apex for using their facility. And we are interconnected with Durham and we have a water contract with them. We also have an interconnection in place with OWASA on 15-501 with meters in place. John, I have the contract for that on my desk. When we get our facilities in place to where we can pump water to other parts of the County, we will in effect be