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I'm writing to ask and recommend that you significantly reduce your water use so that we as a community can get through the ongoing severe drought. The time has come to conserve at a much greater level than we have so far this summer. As of Aug. 29, our reservoirs had an estimated 108 days of water supply left based on average water use in the last 30 days. However, water use started rising in early August and has approached the very high demand levels that occurred in June. If water use continues to rise, our current water supply will obviously not last 108 days. While the drought has been well-publicized this summer, it actually began to affect our reservoirs more than a year ago. This past January, when our reservoirs would normally be full, the Cane Creek reservoir was down 10 feet. Although later rains brought the lake back to 6 feet below normal, we never had a full reservoir this year. Climatologists are predicting the drought will continue for several months - and September through December are normally the driest months of the year even in non-drought years. Therefore, it is possible that we could start 2003 with a greater water deficit than we had in January of 2002. In recent months, there has been minimal to no stream flow in the creeks that feed the University Lake and Cane Creek reservoirs, except briefly after rains. So it will take a lot of rain to get our reservoirs back to a good level, and there is no guarantee that will happen this winter. What can we do? While everyone may be praying in his or her own way for rain, all of us need to be part of a community-wide conservation drive to reduce both outdoor and indoor water use. Although the Stage II restrictions now in place allow one day of irrigation per week and watering with a hand-held hose any day of the week, we recommend that you stop all outdoor use of OWASA drinking water. You can still continue some outdoor watering, for example, by retrieving cold shower water in a container while you wait for warm water. If necessary, the Stage 2 restrictions could be replaced by a complete ban on outdoor water use in the near future. A comparison of winter and summer water consumption shows that we as a community have been using several million gallons of drinking water outdoors on some days. Cutting back on outdoor watering is therefore the most important conservation need in the summer. However, we also need now to conserve indoors as well, because domestic water use will represent the majority of water use after the summer season. We can take short showers, flush less often, put containers of water in old toilet tanks, make sure we don't run the faucet while brushing teeth and use disposable dishes and cups. If you have not recently checked your toilet for leaks and looked over your plumbing system and fixtures, now is a very good time. If each of the 70,000 people in our community reduces their water use 30 gallons per day, we could reduce daily water use by more than 2 million gallons per day and we would gain about a month of water supply. As a community, we are now faced with a choice between some inconveniences now, or much greater difficulties in the next several months or even next year. Let's pull together and get through this drought! Bernadette Pelissier is the chairwoman of Orange Water and Sewer Authority. OWASA's Website is www.owasa.org. Author: Bernadette Pelissier Guest columnist Copyright, 2002, The Durham Herald Company |
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