More than 200 residents from around the Triangle spent their Saturday morning listening and talking about water -- how it's consumed, managed and paid for.

"We should have had a meeting like this five years ago," North Raleigh resident Dan Bailey, 68, said during a break. "It's time for the citizens to take responsibility for conservation and force city government to give us leadership."

Titled "Will the Water Run Out?," Saturday's community forum at N.C. State University's McKimmon Center was designed to educate residents and spur debate about how Raleigh and other Triangle communities can better manage the region's water resources.

The event's sponsors included WakeUP Wake County, a group that promotes growth management; the city of Raleigh, and the Capital Group Sierra Club.

While none of the forum's six panelists were politicians, the event did draw elected officials, including Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker, state representatives Jennifer Weiss and Marilyn Avila and Wake County Commissioner Joe Bryan.

Panelist Bill Holman, a senior fellow at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, said the potential savings from using water more efficiently could be enormous.

"We're pretty wasteful with water resources in this region," he said.

Tiered rates passed by

Mary Brice, who was co-leader of the now-defunct Raleigh Water Conservation Task Force, said the City Council adopted some, but not all, of her group's recommendations. One that languished was a move to tiered water rates, designed to promote conservation by charging residents higher rates as they use more water. Brice said the council was considering a number of tax increases at the time.

"I think it was considered piling on at that point," she said.

The current City Council has expressed support for adopting tiered rates once Raleigh's billing system has been upgraded, which isn't expected to be completed for another 12 months.

Too little, too late

Many who attended the forum agreed that Wake County's political and administrative leadership was too slow to react to the current drought. The Raleigh City Council waited until the week before Halloween to ban lawn sprinklers, when the water level in Falls Lake was already nearly 9 feet below normal.

"I think we were late on marshalling our resources to plan for this," said Raleigh resident Kathy Lewis, 66.

Lewis said events such as Saturday's forum should help put more pressure on officials to act, though she worries it remains a small but vocal group that is pushing for change.

"Are we getting new people at forums like this or are we seeing the same people already on board?" Lewis asked.

Dale Reynolds, president of the N.C. Professional Car Wash Association, was one of the few industry representatives who spoke Saturday. Reynolds said his group supports a certification program that rewards water-efficient car washes.

He also supports Raleigh and Durham adopting tiered pricing, saying the current flat rates give car washes little incentive to conserve.

"If you charged us more, it would make more economic sense, to be honest" Reynolds said.

Gerald W. Holleman, a former mayor of Holly Springs, was the most pointed in his criticism.

"Where's the planning for the last ten years?" Holleman asked.

With no elected officials on the panel, it was left to Tommy Esqueada, director of Wake County Environmental Services, to try to answer Holleman's question.

Esqueada had earlier given a presentation showing Wake County's current water situation, and how various utilities expect to augment their supply in coming years. He said most officials thought the long-term planning was in place -- until this latest drought came along.