By Ray Gronberg
gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648
DURHAM -- New water lines that will enable Durham to draw its full, 10 million gallon a day allocation of water from Jordan Lake will be complete in time for the summer of 2010, Water Management Director Don Greeley says.
The key projects -- connections with Cary's water system in the N.C. 54 and N.C. 55 corridors -- are already under construction.
Greeley's report Thursday was good news for a City Council's that's nervously eying reports that the Triangle remains "abnormally dry," despite the storms that punctuated the summer.
"That's important," Mayor Bill Bell said after Greeley told him and other elected officials that the interconnections will be ready soon.
Working through Cary's water system, Durham officials drew on Jordan Lake to help get the city through the worst parts of the 2007 drought. They also are counting on the lake to help meet demand that's likely to grow along with Durham's population.
The city's own reservoirs, Lake Michie and the Little River Reservoir, suffice for its normal needs but are relatively small and vulnerable to an extended drought.
As of Thursday they held about 70.5 percent of their rated storage capacity. Lake Michie was full, while Little River was down a little more 12 feet. Greeley said managers have been drawing on Little River exclusively in recent months because its water has been of better quality.
Using the lake whose water is better holds down treatment costs, he added.
Despite the sometimes-heavy storms this summer, flows in the streams that feed the two lakes for the most part have remained below their seasonal median.
Lake Michie's feeder stream, the Flat River, saw above-median flows for a couple days in late August.
Little River, meanwhile, saw above-median doses of water several times in August but of late has been running lower than normal.
Climatologists at New York's Columbia University warn in a new study that the 2007 drought was mild compared to others nature has thrown this region's way over the past millennium.
They reached their conclusions after examining tree-growth data, and in voicing them echoed warnings local planners like Syd Miller of the Triangle J Council of Governments sounded at the height of the 2007 shortage.
The Columbia study's lead author, Richard Seager, called the most recent drought "pathetically normal and short, far less than what the climate system is capable of generating."
The problem, he said, is that communities in the South have grown faster population-wise than have their water supplies.
Meanwhile, Greeley told the City Council that talks with other water systems in the area about perhaps expanding their ability to draw on Jordan Lake are "going well." Miller's group is doing modeling work for them that could help frame a request to state regulators for bigger allocations of Jordan water.
Despite disagreements with their counterparts in Durham about watershed protection -- most notably on the possibility of a new real-estate development along N.C. 751 next to the lake -- officials in neighboring Chatham County, Jordan Lake's host community, are inclined to let the talks play out.
The chairman of the Chatham County Commissioners, George Lucier, said Friday his board wouldn't use a threat to pull out of the talks as a way to convince Durham officials to clamp down on the proposed development.
Greeley, meanwhile, cautioned City Council members that they'll probably need to OK additional conservation initiatives, including the use of so-called "reclaimed water" for irrigation and other purposes, to help meet Durham's long-term supply needs.
A new alternate-day watering schedule for residential irrigation that went into effect on June 1 helped tamp down summertime peak demands, he said.
