City takes long look at water

When the state finally emerged from its severe drought in 2002, Chapel Hill and Carrboro had learned their lesson: They had to require their residents to use less water.

Raleigh didn't. Instead it formed a task force, which drafted ordinances for the next drought. But little was done to encourage residents to save water all the time.

Now the city is in the last stages of a drought and the idea of year-round mandatory water restrictions, even when there isn't a drought, is on the table.

Making the change means a debate over the costs of water, but officials agree something needs to change.

On the table: revising the water rate structure to encourage conservation, limiting irrigation year round and spending more on efforts to educate the public.

Since November, the city's water customers have been under mandatory restrictions, limiting some water uses and banning others. The rules extend across Wake County. The city sells or provides water to Garner, Wake Forest, Rolesville, Knightdale, Wendell, Zebulon, Fuquay-Varina and Holly Springs.

The City Council has eased the restrictions on some businesses as Falls Lake, once 8 feet below its bank, has risen. It is now a couple of feet below normal.

Still, irrigation is restricted to twice a week. Council members have said they want to make sure Falls Lake is at normal levels by the summer season, when water demands are the highest, before they lift restrictions.

Dale Crisp, the city's public utilities director, said the city didn't move to mandatory restrictions or a more aggressive conservation program after the 2002 drought because there hadn't been such a dry spell for decades. Crisp said he figured there wouldn't be another one for years.

The current drought changed that thinking. "We're going to have to look at this again," Crisp said.

OWASA limits

In 2003, OWASA, which provides water to Chapel Hill and Carrboro, started its three-day-a-week limit on irrigation, a move sparked by the 2002 drought. The system already had revised its water rates, making the resource more expensive in the summer.

"The drought of 2002 was the real kick in the pants that got everyone's attention around here," said Ed Holland, the system's planning director.

Cary switched to alternate-day watering in 2000 as part of an effort to reduce its water use by 20 percent by 2015. The town's water rate structure makes water more expensive for the more water used.

And it has an aggressive conservation program with workshops and a budget of more than $300,000, which includes salaries for four employees. A fifth will be added this year.

Raleigh spends about $50,000 on teaching the public about its utilities, focusing mostly on efforts to keep grease out of the sewer system. Two city employees work on public education and conservation efforts as part of their jobs.

So far, Cary has cut water use by about 10 percent per capita since 1996.

Mike Creech, owner of Cary Garden Center, said his business dipped for a couple of summers after the town limited irrigation. Residents weren't sure whether plants would survive without daily watering. But Creech said business is back up and so is demand for drought-resistant plants and grasses.

"They realized that they could get by, sometimes just once or maybe twice a week," Creech said.

Successful conservation programs means less water used but also less revenue coming into the utility's coffers.

Those revenues are expected to pay for new water-treatment plants, so most area water system-use rate increases help make up the difference.