Agenda - 04-12-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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z~ .- - ~~ The Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA), a co-petitioner for this amendment, was created in June 1975 by Orange County and the towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill to purchase, operate, and develop the water and sewer system then owned by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The OWASA system draws from two primary impoundments: Uniyersity`Lake, adjacent to Carrboro on the west, constructed in 1932, and Cane Creek Reservoir in Bingham Township completed in 1989. University Lake has a storage capacity of 0.57 billion gallons and Cane Creek impounds three billion gallons. Capacity is augmented by raw water storage in the former American Store Quarry on NC 54 (0.20 billion gallons). This system of reservoirs currently provides a safe yield of 11.2 million gallons per day (mgd). Safe yield means that for one year in twenty there will be some period for which a water source cannot supply a given amount of water. Report A: Water Supply, in the supporting documentation included as a separate enclosure states that the present safe yield can be increased to 15 mgd through improvements to the conveyance system. Because Orange County is at or near the headwaters of major drainage basins, the sub-basins from which county suppliers can draw are small. This results in potential reservoir yields that are, as best, modest. Report B: Supplement to the Environmental Impact Statement, in the supporting documentation analyzes possible alternatives for acquiring additional water supplies. It is clear that Orange County does not have the sites with a potential to supply large amounts of water over long periods of time. This proposal if approved, will provide approximately 3 billion gallons of additional storage capacity and a safe yield of 5.4 mgd. In 1979, the Orange County Board of Commissioners appointed the Water Resources Task Force, investing in it five charges: 1) defusing water quality goals for Orange County; 2) reviewing water resources data and compiling an inventory of existing and potential reservoir sites; 3) developing, reviewing, and ranking watershed protection strategies; 4) preparing the water resources section of the County Land Use Plan; and, 5) recommending a long term water resources management plan for Orange County. The Task Force Report recognized the existing quarry reservoir, but did not speak to the suitability of former quarries for water storage. Also, the report did not address the possibility of expanding the existing quarry operation to eventually connect with the quarry reservoir as is now being proposed.