Army corps hedges on Falls Lake

The lake overseer says weather and procedural issues keep engineers from offering immediate answers about Raleigh's water

RALEIGH -- The Raleigh City Council emerged from a meeting Tuesday with the manager of Falls Lake with a keen sense of military bureaucracy but no firm answers on what the city needs to do to survive the drought.

City officials hoped that a meeting with Terry Brown, the Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversees Falls Lake, would help them come up with a strict water budget that would prevent Raleigh from running dry this summer.

But Brown told the council that, given the unpredictability of the weather over the coming months, such a figure is a moving target.

"Any time you get that information, keep in mind that could change four weeks out," Brown said.

Raleigh has 119 days of water remaining in Falls Lake, assuming no additional rainfall occurs. Last week's two rain events added 17 days to the city's supply.

Much of the meeting Tuesday focused on the amount of water the corps releases from Falls Lake for downstream users and to preserve environmental quality.

Hours before the meeting, the corps announced that it would reduce the amount of water released through the lake's dam into the Neuse River by about 9 percent, or about 3.2 million gallons a day.

That's more than the daily amount the city saved during the first days under its so-called Stage 2 restrictions, which went into effect Friday.

After thanking Brown for the 9 percent reduction, Mayor Charles Meeker said he wants even less water released from Falls Lake in the coming months. The mayor pressed Brown on what the city and the corps need to do to make it happen.

Brown explained that the corps must follow established procedures, which include getting responses from other state agencies and water systems that pull water from the Neuse River Basin.

Several officials worried that such hurdles would result in months passing before the corps made a decision on further reductions from Falls Lake.

"Is there a shortened version of this process?" council member Rodger Koopman asked Brown.

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, who also attended the meeting, said the corps should consider expediting the process, given the current conditions.

"The circumstances of Raleigh are extraordinary," Miller said.

Miller and Meeker promised to press corps and state officials in the coming days to move quickly on Raleigh's request. Officials want to have further reductions in place by April 1, when the corps normally increases downstream releases.

In the meantime, the city is continuing to look for more water savings elsewhere.

City Manager Russell Allen said the town of Holly Springs agreed Tuesday to go off Raleigh's water system for the remainder of the drought. Holly Springs has an agreement with the city for up to 1.2 million gallons of water a day but has been buying an average of 300,000 gallons a day in recent months.

(Staff writer Matthew Eisley contributed to this report.)