LEGAL 



TIDES 



"Lack of water is a resource issue — 

 we are overpumping these aquifers," says 

 Don Rayno, DWR community planner. 

 "The policy issue is how to wisely use the 

 available water without depleting the 

 resource while other water sources are 

 developed. We can't wait until the well is 

 dry to make those decisions." 



Monitoring supplies of ground and 

 surface water supplies is critical as 

 demands increase with growth and 

 development, Rayno says. Planning is 

 essential for communities to map out 

 alternative sources of supply. 



NOT UNPRECEDENTED 



Water resource planning is not a new 

 concept in North Carolina. A prolonged 

 drought in the 1950s led to the creation in 

 1955 of the State Board of Water Com- 

 missioners to study water policy. By 1960, 

 several agencies were consolidated to form 

 the Department of Water Resources. The 

 Federal Resources Planning Act of 1965 

 provided grant money to encourage states 

 to plan water and land resource use. 



In the 1970s, the North Carolina 

 Water Resources Framework Study 

 inventoried water resources to facilitate 

 community planning and use of water and 

 land to meet statewide needs for the 

 remainder of the century. 



But it was the passage of the Water 

 Use Act of 1967 that enabled the Environ- 

 mental Management Commission to 

 declare the first Capacity Use Area (CUA) 

 and impose state control on water 

 withdrawals. Its action stemmed from 

 fears that groundwater use by a proposed 

 phosphate mine (now PCS) in Beautfort 

 County would deplete area wells. 



The CUA designation, which remains 

 in effect today, included Beaufort, 

 Carteret, Craven, Pamlico and Washington 

 counties. The proposed Capacity Use Area 

 expands the boundaries to encompass 

 Edgecombe, Duplin, Greene, Jones, 

 Lenoir, Martin, Onslow, Pitt, Wayne and 

 Wilson counties. 



CREATIVE SOLUTIONS 



Rayno says that an ongoing assessment 

 and planning process is giving rise to 

 creative solutions to water supply problems 

 — and increased collaboration of local 

 municipalities, state agencies, private 

 engineering firms and university researchers. 



Take for example the proposal by the 

 Greenville Utilities Commission (GUC) to 

 meet water supply needs by storing unused, 

 treated drinking water drawn from the Tar 

 River in a natural aquifer system to meet 

 peak demands. GUC is allowed to draw two 

 million gallons a day from groundwater 

 (aquifers) and an additional 22.5 million 

 from the Tar River, its surface water source. 



The GUC consumption is about 1 8 

 million gallons on most days, says Richard 

 Spruill, associate professor of geology at 

 East Carolina University, who has been 

 working on regional water supply issues for 

 more than a decade. 



"Our goal is to store hundreds of 

 millions of gallons of the unused treated 

 water in the Cretaceous aquifer during 

 periods of low demand," Spruill says. 

 Aquifer storage and recovery is like money 

 in the bank — it will be there for withdraw- 

 als with interest on hot summer days in the 

 year 2010. 



Spruill says suitable recharge sites have 

 been identified. Stored in the right material, 

 the water won't need additional treatment 

 when it is tapped to meet future needs. 



The timeline is ticking, and Spruill is 

 hopeful that required state permits to 

 recharge the aquifer will be issued by 

 August or September 2001. Meanwhile, 

 GUC is expanding its water treatment plant 

 to treat 22.5 gallons per day by 2001 . 



MAKING OTHER PLANS 



Other towns in the central coastal plain 

 also are making plans to meet future 

 demands. Kinston, in CUA-affected Lenoir 

 County, is looking at using surface water 

 from the Neuse River. Onslow County has 

 moved part of its water system to the Castle 

 Hayne Aquifer. 



Saltwater intrusion of water supply 

 aquifers in several coastal communities may 

 require moving wells further inland. 

 Currituck County officials are considering 

 using reverse osmosis methods to treat 

 brackish water intrusion of its water supply 

 source. A pulp and paper operation in 

 Virginia draws water from the same aquifer 

 for its thirsty operation. 



One proposal has an ironic twist: A 

 Raleigh-based engineering firm is developing 

 plans to tap millions of gallons of water 

 discharged daily into the Pamlico River as a 

 byproduct of PCS mining operations in Beaufort 

 County. PCS pumps about 35 million gallons a 

 day into the river, and has a state permit for 

 78 million gallons. PCS — once seen as a 

 threat to water supplies — will make the 

 water available for distribution to communi- 

 ties as far away as Goldsboro and Kinston. 



SUSTAINABLE GOALS 



Rayno says the long-term benefit of the 

 statewide planning process is to identify 

 regional water demands and develop 

 sustainable supplies that make environmental 

 and economic sense. 



In addition to recommending Capacity 

 Use Areas to address serious water issues for 

 a region, DWR provides assistance to 

 improve water use efficiency. The technical 

 support is especially important for regions 

 whose projected water use demand in 2000 

 exceeds 80 percent of supply. The division 

 also encourages all water systems to develop 

 a water shortage response plan and to engage 

 in regional planning and management of 

 water supplies. 



"We need to understand that water is a 

 limited resource — one with more demands 

 than drinking supplies in coastal North 

 Carolina," he says. □ 



All local government water systems are 

 required to update their water supply plans 

 eveiy five years. 



The State Water Supply Plan is avail- 

 able online at the N.C. Division of Water 

 Resources Website: www.ncwater.org. 



22 HOLIDAY 2000 



