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

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15 we also know that this issue has not been officially addressed. We hope Alamance County and Orange County will take a lead role to address these issues. Chair Jacobs: Thank you, and we have had a similar conversation with Alamance County Commissioners as we've had with all the other entities here and we hope to be working with them on that issue along with the issue of our disputed boundary with Alamance County in the near future. At this time, I'll ask Don Cox, who introduced himself and his dual roles in Orange County, to give us a presentation on the groundwater perspective, and then we'll take our break. When we come back, Pat Davis from Triangle J will give us a regional overview, and then Dr. Moreau will moderate our discussion. 3. ORANGE COUNTY GROUNDWATER PERSPECTIVE— Don Cox With about 40% of our population depending on groundwater, the County Commissioners recognized that our comprehensive land use plan should address the protection of groundwater. In the fall of 1991, the County Engineer, Paul Thames, called me to ask me to participate and chair a new water resources committee. At the moment I was on the phone with him, I was watching a well-drilling rig renovating an improperly constructed well at my house. So I bought into this groundwater resources program pretty heavily then. We submitted the committee's final report last year. The considerations of the recommendations of our report for inclusion in the County land use plan are just now beginning. This study was a cooperative effort with the U. S. Geological Survey. They cost shared 50% with us and there were three main topics—the threats to groundwater, quantity of groundwater, and the quality of our groundwater resources. To determine the present and future threats to groundwater, the majority of the existing wells in the County were located by GPS systems, and all new wells that are being constructed are being located at that time, and we're updating our database and records whenever that happens. That will let us know where the wells are in the County. And all identified underground storage tanks, landfills, and any other identifiable threat locations are also in that database and will be kept up to date. So if there is a spill of some kind, we'll know which location, we'll know how many wells and what their proximity are to it, and hopefully that database will serve us well in the future. We also emphasize and do continue to emphasize the importance of following the State guidelines and sealing, or filling, abandoned or unused wells to avoid their becoming a conduit for groundwater contamination. This needs to be an ongoing effort and some landowners may need financial assistance to comply. With regard to the quantity of groundwater, a study done by using stream gauge measurements to determine stream base flows of groundwater to surface streams, soils maps, geologic structures, typography, and land use, or estimates of groundwater yields and the recharge area requirements were made for all sub- basins in the County. From this, the average groundwater yields and recharge areas needed can be estimated. The groundwater quality study sampled numerous wells across the County. These wells were located in all major hydro-geologic formations in every river basin. They were sampled for a wide range of naturally occurring minerals, manmade chemicals, petroleum residues, and radon gas. As expected, a lot of the wells showed high iron and manganese and radon in the known granite structures. We found very little fertilizer, pesticides, and petro-chemical residues in the sample. So at this point in time, as of two or three years ago, all of the sampling showed excellent water quality. But folks who have higher iron know they have to deal with that. A question: Why should the public water service suppliers be concerned about groundwater issues? Sustainable groundwater resources maintain the base flows to surface streams, which support reservoir levels and maintain stream water quality and ecology. Perhaps the biggest reason is to avoid the emergency need to extend public water supplies to areas which have become non-sustaining in groundwater availability or quality. What can you do to help Orange County and its groundwater sustainability efforts? Your support for informing the public about the importance of lot sizes and restrictions which preserve the groundwater resource. These may need to include well head protection, impervious surface limits, undisturbed recharge area preservation, well replacement locations, septic system drain fields, and reserve drain field areas. Those are some of the issues. It's not going to be a popular thing to discuss about raising minimum lot sizes in certain sub-basins in the County. But when you consider the cost of a little bit of additional land versus 10 or 15 years down the road of having no water at your house, that's an interesting tradeoff. Chair Jacobs: One of Orange Alamance's practices is to dig large wells. Do we have any understanding of the relationship between a utility digging a large well and the effect on neighboring smaller wells that provide service for individual lots? _