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

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22 be dried up by this transfer. Eight million gallons a day was transferred against a minimum low flow in Fayetteville of 575 million gallons a day. The whole issue on Virginia Beach was a water rights, not only a water rights,but a perception that somebody is going to get something that's mine. There is an environmental argument that the mixing of these waters may have an adverse effect on the ecology. That's a more recent argument, I think that the real prevailing argument is one of, "You're taking something that belongs to me." Dan Okun: We made the law and shackled ourselves. Dr. Moreau: That's true, Dan, but it took a decision of the United States Supreme Court to give New York water out of the Delaware River. Your point is obvious but it still does not get around the fact that these are hard fought battles. The Virginia Beach case went on for 18 years. We have a problem in this state. I don't know exactly what the situation is on Person County, but there are laws on the books in this state that say you can't take water from one county, and I think these are county specific. That you can't take water from this county and build a reservoir in this county to use in some other county. Mr. Speaker: Actually, it doesn't deal with the water so much as it does the condemnation of land. That's the issue. One local government can't condemn land in another jurisdiction without that jurisdiction's approval. Which, in effect, says you can't build a water supply. Don Cox: You have to look at the impact of moving water from one basin to another. Does it make sense when you look at the impact of inter basin transfers? Dr. Moreau: That act was passed in '93. Prior to that, there was nothing. But that took a major effort to get that law changed in '93 to where there is a process for considering it now. Terry Roland: Actually, there was a law prior to '93, and the irony of it is that inter basin transfers were prohibited in North Carolina until the new law was passed, unless the river basins were solely within the State of North Carolina. And the only two that that condition exists on is the Cape Fear and the Neuse. According to Milton Heath, the reason that law was written the way it was written was so that Research Triangle Park could become a reality. It was served by Durham from Neuse Basin water, and it was discharging to the Cape Fear basin. If they hadn't made that change in the law, inter basin transfers would have been prohibited completely in North Carolina. It was prohibited except where the river basins were solely within the State of North Carolina. It wasn't until '93 that we changed it so that inter basin transfers could be done in other places besides between the Cape Fear and the Neuse. Prior to that I think that was the only place you could do it. Dr. Moreau: It had to do with the authority, if you were acting jointly, and that's where OWASA and everybody else, there were multiple jurisdictions involved in it and that's what triggered it. And that's what triggered the Randleman stuff. That law was written to stop the Southern Cities Project, the '57 law. And the power companies are the ones that did that because the only basins on which you can generate power in North Carolina are interstate basins. They wrote the law very cleverly that you can make the inter basin transfer so long as the basins were solely within the State of North Carolina. And the Neuse and the Cape Fear were the two basins, and you could not generate electricity on either one of them. That's the story I got. 7. NEXT STEPS Chair Jacobs: At the break I heard a lot of people saying they thought this was a good discussion and they got valuable information. But to just have a meeting and then walk away, although it's always good to be educated and to get to know people better. Just speaking as an Orange County Commissioner, I would like to see how we can get water with our sewer system. I'd like to make sure that our citizens have adequate water supplies so that when we do our comprehensive land use plan update that we can incorporate the plans of jurisdictions within our jurisdiction and that we can make sure, to the best of our ability that water and sewer provision follows the land use plan. I'll just put that out, I'd like to see how we can work toward those kinds of things. That's our self-interest. And we said at the beginning we wanted people to purpose their self-interest. That is what brings us together even though we're all altruists and care about water and our neighbors. I'm just real interested in how we can keep this conversation going. Margaret Pollard: I'd like to see us address, at some point, how do we prepare citizens for safe water conservation during a crisis? I think that just to have people conserve water without thinking about the public health implications with that might not be meeting our total responsibility. Dan Okun: Orange County has a Commission for the Environment and there is a committee on water resources. If anyone has water related activities or needs, they need to send it to this commission which will look at it. _