Friday, March 24, 2006

OWASA Board approves contract with the University for reuse of
highly treated wastewater for non-drinking purposes

On Thursday night, the OWASA Board of Directors unanimously approved a contract with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the financing, construction, operation and maintenance of a water reuse system.

“Reuse” refers to the use of highly treated wastewater for non-drinking purposes such as operation of cooling towers, irrigation and toilet flushing.

The OWASA Board’s action Thursday followed technical studies, discussions in Board meetings beginning in 2003, approval of a Letter of Understanding with the University in February 2004, and public notices inviting citizens and customers to comment to the OWASA Board Thursday night on the water reuse plans.

Mac Clarke, Chair of the OWASA Board of Directors, said “This is a great project for all of the community. Reuse will not only meet a water resource need of the University, but it will bring supply and financial advantages to the overall community for the long term.”

Carolyn Elfland, the University’s Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus Services, said “We look forward to continuing our work with OWASA to make the reuse system a reality. This is a very significant step forward for Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the University.”

Like other forms of drinking water conservation, water reuse will:

ü      reduce the demand for drinking water;

ü      reduce the community’s risk during severe droughts and other water supply emergencies;

ü      extend the sufficiency of OWASA’s high quality, locally protected drinking water supply sources (the Cane Creek Reservoir and University Lake);

ü      help defer or eliminate the need to develop or expand costly drinking water supply and treatment facilities, thereby providing long-term savings for the community.

The University plans to initially use reclaimed water instead of OWASA drinking water in cooling towers at its chiller plants by 2008.  The initial water savings from reuse will be about 530,000 gallons per day or 6% of the community’s total drinking water demand. The long-term reduction in drinking water demand from reuse on the main campus is estimated at 13%.

Key elements of the water reuse contract

OWASA will own the reuse system and will have the sole authority to set the rates and fees for water reuse service. The rates and fees will reflect the actual cost to operate, maintain and manage the water reuse system. (The rates for water reuse will be set at a later time following a rate study by OWASA.)

The estimated cost for design and construction of the first phase of the reuse system from the Mason Farm Wastewater Treatment Plant to the southern part of the University campus is about $11 million. The University will finance all of these costs, except for $2.5 million to be covered with approved State and Federal grants. Future phases could extend the system to the northern part of the campus at an estimated additional cost of about $3 to $4 million. (The University would also pay for future phases on campus.)

The University will pay for the costs to operate, maintain, extend, enlarge and manage the reuse system that will serve the University. The reuse system can be extended in the future to serve additional customers, who would pay for all costs of reuse service to them.

The contract commits the University to using reclaimed water instead of drinking water in certain cooling tower operations. 

A summary of the proposed contract is available in the water reuse section of the OWASA Website, www.owasa.org. Copies of the draft contract, which is 28 pages long, are available on request and in OWASA’s offices in Carrboro.

Additional background information about water reuse

ü      The reuse system will initially carry highly treated water from OWASA’s Mason Farm Wastewater Treatment Plant in the southeast part of Chapel Hill to the southern campus area near Manning Drive and Skipper Bowles Drive.

ü      The University has been installing reclaimed water pipeline on its property along with its other utility infrastructure projects in anticipation of the approval of this contract, and a reclaimed water storage tank was included in the concept plan the University submitted to the Town of Chapel Hill earlier this month.  This submission was part of the University’s proposed modification to its development plan with the Town. 

ü      The overall amount of water use by OWASA customers will drop when the reuse system comes on line. That will affect OWASA’s drinking water revenues and rates somewhat, but the long-term effect will be savings to customers through reduced or deferred needs for water system capacity expansions.

ü      The technology of reuse has been used and proven to be safe in many areas of the U.S. including communities in the Triangle such as the Towns of Cary and Zebulon and Johnston County.

ü      OWASA and UNC did a special study in 2004 to confirm that the quality and disinfection of treated wastewater will meet State standards for allowable reuse purposes and will provide a high level of protection of public health. This microbiological analysis was done by a member of the University’s environmental sciences and engineering faculty who is a nationally recognized expert. The microbiological study concluded that with the planned treatment system,

“…pathogens will be reduced to negligible levels in OWASA reclaimed water and there will be no realistic opportunity for human exposure to pathogens from the beneficial uses of the reclaimed wastewater.”

Wastewater is disinfected with ultraviolet light as part of our treatment process, and chlorine will also be added to reuse water before it goes into the reuse system to maintain disinfection during use.

For more information:

For OWASA:

Mac Clarke, Chair of the Board of Directors, telephone: 918-3651; e-mail: patandmac@earthlink.com

Ed Kerwin, Executive Director, telephone: 537-4211; e-mail: ekerwin@owasa.org

Patrick Davis, Sustainability Administrator, telephone: 537-4210; e-mail: pdavis@owasa.org

For the University:

Carolyn W. Elfland, Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus Services, telephone: 962-7244; fax: 962-0647; e-mail: carolyn_elfland@unc.edu

Raymond E. DuBose, Director of Energy Services, telephone: 966-4100; e-mail: Ray.DuBose@energy.unc.edu

OWASA is the public, non-profit water and sewer agency

serving the Carrboro-Chapel Hill community.

400 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro, NC 27510

phone: (919) 968-4421; fax: (919) 968-4464

e-mail: webmaster@owasa.org; web site: www.owasa.org