21 Jul OWASA Board Approves Long-Range Water Supply Plan Through 2070
The OWASA Board of Directors voted at the July 14, 2022, meeting to approve a new Long-Range Water Supply Plan. This plan is a critical factor in OWASA’s mission to continue providing customers with high-quality drinking water through 2070.
The vote to approve the new plan was the culmination of work beginning when the previous Long-Range Water Supply Plan was updated in 2013. Discussions on a new Long-Range Water Supply Plan appeared on 29 OWASA Board meeting agendas since the last update and included multiple rounds of community engagement efforts at milestones along the way.
OWASA worked with local planners and stakeholders updating the water demands projected for our community over the next 50 years as well as OWASA’s projected water supply with current resources in a changing climate. These results showed that OWASA has enough water under most circumstances in the coming decades. However, the projections showed that there may be times approaching 2070 where OWASA would not be able to meet our community’s water demand.
Projections of OWASA’s water supply versus demand through 2070
OWASA evaluated a variety of options to meet future water needs for our customers. These included demand-management strategies – where changes could be made to lower the amount of water needed in our community on a daily basis – and strategies to augment the source water that we use today. OWASA and our community value our natural resources and have made great strides in reducing demand in recent years, but that meant that the demand-management strategies on their own would not meet future demand needs. The OWASA Board ultimately voted to move forward with plans to access OWASA’s allocation of source water from Jordan Lake to augment our current primary sources: Cane Creek Reservoir and University Lake. OWASA will also begin using the Quarry Reservoir in the 2030s to increase our source water options.
OWASA has held an allocation of source water from Jordan Lake since the late 1980s but has not previously had direct access to that allocation. Working with regional partners – the City of Durham, the Town of Pittsboro, and Chatham County – making up the Western Intake Partnership (WIP), OWASA will be part of the group investing in operations to access this water from Jordan Lake. That partnership is in the early stages, and OWASA will continue providing updates to the community as it progresses.
OWASA and the partners in the WIP were each recently awarded funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to go toward planning studies associated with accessing source water in Jordan Lake.
We are grateful to the Carrboro-Chapel Hill-Orange County community and partners for your feedback throughout the development of this Long-Range Water Supply Plan. OWASA remains committed to providing high-quality drinking water for customers, and this plan will help ensure that we meet that need through 2070.
More information on the steps taken to develop the new Long-Range Water Supply Plan is available here.