A 50-year plan to safeguard access to clean and abundant water for Wake County residents is nearing completion after three years in development.
The Wake County One Water Plan is designed “to protect the water supply, reduce nutrient pollution, mitigate flooding, and promote equal access to these benefits,” according to the draft dated to September 10. It is a collaboration between Wake County’s 12 municipalities to ensure there will be enough clean water as the county grows.
The county anticipates its population will grow by 250,000 people in the next decade and is preparing to add more than 2 million residents by 2070. The county also projects water demand will more than double within its municipal water supply systems by 2070, based on 2021 levels.
Leaders anticipate taking the One Water Plan to the Wake County Board of Commissioners next month.
Nancy Daly, the water resources program manager for Wake County, said the plan is designed to proactively meet predicted needs for residents, as well as businesses, agriculture, natural resources, and recreation.
“[The plan] recognizes that it’s all connected, right? Surface water is connected to groundwater and wastewater, and it doesn’t care about jurisdictional boundaries,” Daly said. “So when we think about water, we really need to think in collaboration and partnership at a regional level, because we live upstream and downstream from our neighbors.”
The draft plan outlines water supply, wastewater treatment, stormwater and flood management, and groundwater protection as its areas of focus. Daly said every water utility in the county will have to expand to meet future needs incurred by growth and development, as well as predicted higher temperatures, more droughts, and worse flooding.
The draft also calls for reorganizing and aligning the county water guidance group, Wake County Water Partnership; increasing education and outreach; developing the workforce; and updating policies, ordinances, and regulations. The plan identifies areas like creating a flood gauge database, creating a countywide stormwater reuse master plan, and expanding the existing monitoring well network as items that could receive funding.
The plan also addresses data centers. A data storage facility is proposed for a parcel of land near Apex, which the town’s Environmental Advisory Board approved conditions for in October.
Data centers require large amounts of energy and sometimes water to run and cool their systems. Although it is possible the eventual user for Apex’s proposed data center will operate with air or fluid cooling systems, it could also use between 0.5 million and 1.5 million gallons per day of nonpotable treated wastewater from a nearby wastewater treatment facility.
“We want to just make sure that we are well informed and prepared should that demand come in,” Daly said.
Public comment on the plan concluded October 10, after a little more than three years of conversations with public officials and local residents. The Wake County One Water Team, which includes county staff, engineering consultant Tetra Tech, water quality and supply consultant Hazen and Sawyer, and RTI International, drafted the plan.
One Wake County town, Fuquay-Varina, has already taken steps to address an anticipated water shortage. The town is seeking state approval of a plan that would allow it to pull water from the Cape Fear River Basin in Lee County and discharge the treated wastewater into the Neuse River Basin in Wake County. The plan, which has faced opposition from stakeholders in Eastern North Carolina, attempts to address an anticipated shortfall in water supplies by 2030 because of rapid population growth and increased development.
Daly said Fuquay-Varina is an “active member” of the Triangle Water Supply Partnership, which has been part of One Water’s plan development.
“I would say that is a perfect example of how we need to be thinking regionally and how we use our water,” Daly said. “While we’re going to need to continue to have expanded water resources to meet these needs, we do have a limited amount, and so we’ve got to think about upstream, downstream users with any decisions that we make.”
A spokesperson for the town of Fuquay-Varina did not respond to the INDY’s request for an interview before our deadline.
In Wake County, 85% of the population depends on water from surface reservoirs like Falls or Jordan lakes. The other 15% depends on groundwater from private or community wells, Daly said. With Durham and Orange counties also drawing from these sources, Daly said a 50-year plan is needed to address the anticipated growth of these counties.
“We need the community. We need the public. We need everybody to be all hands on deck and have a place at the table, thinking about water conservation, about best practices we can do in our yards to help conserve water and plant native species,” Daly said. “There’s so many different strategies and roles that we can all play that it’s going to take all of us working together to really make sure that we can achieve our goals.”
Editor’s note: Following publication, this story was amended to clarify that the One Water plan does not allocate any money but does identify areas—creating a flood gauge database, creating a countywide stormwater reuse master plan, and expanding the existing monitoring well network—that could receive future funding.
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