Businesses find ways to save water

Triangle industries aggressively limit water use. Whether they can stay open may hinge on further cuts in consumption

The typical North Carolina household will survive if the lawn turns brown, if dust coats the car, and if the kids rush through three-minute showers.

But a serious drought could doom businesses that depend on massive quantities of water to make life-saving medicines or operate industrial complexes employing thousands of people.

In recent years, long before Gov. Mike Easley's plea this week for residents to cut water use by 50 percent, institutional water users have adopted aggressive conservation strategies on their own. Some have reduced water use 25 percent or more by recycling waste water, capturing condensation and taking other steps.

As the drought drags on, businesses are taking a harder look at what else it will take to keep operating during a prolonged water shortage.

Some are drawing up emergency plans that include curtailing operations or shifting production elsewhere. Less draconian options include shutting off sinks and drinking fountains, using portable toilets instead of office bathrooms, digging wells and using disposable dishes in cafeterias.

"We're working currently on a scenario where there is no water -- what would we do?" said Robert Sutton, spokesman for the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. "On a contingency plan you have to address the most dire situation."

Not that the state would impose mandatory cutbacks -- a move that would indefinitely suspend thousands of private employees in unproductive limbo. Easley and other public officials, keen on sustaining economic development, are already signaling that businesses will not have to suffer if they move or expand here.

Easley acknowledged this week that the state's water crisis is making it difficult to recruit new businesses. He noted that he and other state officials are assuring concerned executives at biotech and drug companies that the state will be able to provide sufficient amounts of water to meet company operating needs.

The area's drug makers include GSK, employer of 6,000 and maker of treatments for seizures, asthma and HIV; Novo Nordisk, the world's biggest maker of insulin for diabetics; and Biogen Idec, which produces Avonex, the nation's most prescribed multiple sclerosis treatment, at a plant in Research Triangle Park.

GSK's plant at RTP uses a half-million gallons of water a day on average, equivalent to more than 2,000 households. GSK saves a million gallons a year by capturing condensation that drips from its air-conditioning system and recycling the water in the facility's chilling towers.

Despite their prodigious water consumption, businesses, universities and other institutions remain subject to the same simple water rules that limit outdoor use at private homes. UNC-Chapel Hill, for instance, accounts for more than a quarter of the town's water consumption.

Households use most

Because households far outnumber corporate and institutional users, however, households still use most of the state's water, ranging from 55 percent in Raleigh to 85 percent in Johnston County.

The range of water needs among institutional users demonstrates why public officials are reluctant to dictate conservation measures and disrupt the operations of companies that are major providers of tax revenue and jobs.

Novo Nordisk's manufacturing plant in Clayton depends on municipal water to produce insulin for diabetics. The factory employs 400 and consumes 130,000 gallons of water a day. The company has already reduced water usage by 15 percent even as its facility has doubled to 400,000 square feet and increased insulin production. Now workers are reducing wash cycles for some sterilizing equipment.