For over a year, the City of Durham has suffered from ongoing drought conditions. City officials estimate that Durham has roughly 80 days of easily accessible water remaining in its two reservoirs, Lake Michie and Little River, which sit at a combined 33% capacity.
Upcoming weather forecasts are also not instilling confidence in staving off worsening water shortage conditions in the short-term, which could push Durham into Stage 3 water shortage restrictions, but city officials say they are pulling all possible levers to continue providing clean water to residents.
“We don’t really know where we are in terms of whether we’re going to go to stage three or not,” said James Lim, Water Efficiency Manager at the City of Durham. “It’s certainly a possibility. We have not hit that trigger yet.”
In June, Durham jumped from no restrictions to Stage 2 water shortage protocol where it continues to operate. Durham hasn’t experienced this level of drought conditions since 2007. Under Stage 2, city officials have prohibited a list of activities including washing personal vehicles at home and residential landscaping. Exemptions are allowed for a variety of heavy water users like recreational fields and botanical gardens, but they’re required to limit consumption and submit water conservation plans to the Department of Water Management.
In an effort to mitigate drought conditions, Durham is working with Orange and Wake Counties to access water from nearby reservoirs; nine million gallons from Jordan Lake through the town of Cary and two million from Orange County per day. Water management infrastructure in the Triangle is an interconnected network of pipes and treatment facilities. In normal conditions, the taps between counties are closed, but on special occasions where a treatment plant goes down, or a large water main breaks, neighboring municipalities are able to easily share water. In this season of increasing drought, the floodgates have been opened to allow the city of Durham to purchase water to deliver to residents.
The city has also tapped its emergency reserves at Teer Quarry, which holds about one billion gallons of water. Overall, Durham has about 147 days of water including less accessible sources and the Teer Quarry, which the city says has about 17 days of supply.
“We have a much smaller watershed, and we have smaller reservoirs,” Lim said. “The drought has also been worse in the northern part of the state, which is where our watersheds are. So, for instance, the rain that just fell last Friday, very little of it fell in our watershed. The southern portion of the county and the city saw a lot more rain than our watersheds did, which can be very confusing for our customers. They see it raining and they don’t understand why our reservoirs aren’t refilling.”
In this year’s budget, the city invested $158.8 million into the capital improvement plan (CIP) for the Jordan Lake Water Treatment Plant, a much-needed facility to manage Durham’s rising water needs. Jordan Lake Watershed is about six times larger than Lake Michie and Little River combined, and accessing Jordan Lake, which spans a large area to the west of the county that covers parts of southern Durham, would diversify where in the region Durham has access to water.
Durham is not the only municipality looking to the future for how to keep up with growing water needs. Wake County officials anticipate growing by 250,000 residents in the next decade, so the 12 municipalities created the Wake County One Water Plan to “protect the water supply, reduce nutrient pollution, mitigate flooding, and promote equal access to these benefits.”
After Durham last faced similar drought conditions in 2007, city officials encouraged residents to upgrade household utilities like showerheads, toilets and dishwashers which have made water use more efficient for the average household.
The city has released recommendations for ways that residents can continue to help preserve water, whether you’re cooking dinner, cleaning, or trying to keep that house plant alive. Because of all the technological advancements that residents have adopted in the last two decades, water management staff now have fewer recommendations to offer.
“People in Durham in general are being very efficient with water, so when we ask them to cut back, it’s harder for them to find a place to do that, but I also think that’s a feather in [Lim’s] cap and all the work he and his team have been doing to make people aware,” said Joe Lunne, senior public information and communications analyst for the Department of Water Management.
No matter what restrictions the City of Durham enacts, significant rainfall is the only real solution to alleviate drought. The short-term forecast may not supply the necessary downpour required, and the city may have to consider moving up to Stage 3, putting additional restrictions on water use for residents and businesses.
“I used to be an optimist about the rain, and I’m not anymore,” Lunne said. “I don’t want to be too pessimistic about it, but this is unusual. The Triangle is at about a 20-inch rain deficit, so it’s going to take a lot of water to get out in the right spot. If it’s just a weekly storm, we’re going to be in this for a long time.”
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for optimism. Experts anticipate a significant weather event known as El Niño to drop substantial rainfall on the North Carolina piedmont later this year and into next year.
“Hope is not necessarily a plan, but we do hope that that proves to be true, and so that’s kind of where we are now,” Lim said.
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