City Council - workshop

All right. Welcome, everybody, to the work session on water supply. Councilor Jonathan Lambert Melton is absent and excused, and we will call up Whit Wheeler to kick us off.

Actually, Ed's going to take the first part of this presentation, and then he'll pass it to me.

Okay.

Thank you for having us today. Again, my name is Ed Buchan, I'm with Raleigh Water. And I'm gonna start off with a quick update about where we are from a drought perspective. As you can see from this map, most of North Carolina remains in some level of drought designation. However, this is a dramatic improvement from what we saw back in June. where many areas of North Carolina, especially the Falls Lake Basin, were in the D5 exceptional drought designation. That's the most intense level of drought. So we received a tremendous amount of rainfall on July 23rd. Places in Falls Lake Basin received between four and five inches. I wish I had direct ability to control that, but we were thankful to get that rainfall because it really changed our outlook in a matter of days, quite frankly. So really the lake came up in about two feet in a couple days. So a tremendous amount of rainfall, very restorative rainfall during that time. So we haven't seen as much rain in August. It's been a little drier, as you know. We did get a little bit of rain this past Saturday, about an inch in the basin, which was sort of stabilized at the water supply pool right now. which is a good thing. It's not that unusual for it to be at this level this time of year. Falls tend to be very dry here if you don't get tropical events, which we don't have, quite frankly, any on the outlook right now. Of course, that can change very quickly. So again, we're at 79% water supply pool right now. We were down around 60% back in June, so in a lot better position. And our drought trigger to go back into stage one would be 45%. So we're really a long ways from that. Our pumpage is pretty much stabilized around 66 million gallons a day. So overall, we're in a good position. And one of the reasons why we feel confident about that is because of this graphic here that I'm showing you. What you're looking at is a statistical output of a model called OASIS that looks at over 90 years of hydrologic data for the Falls Lake Basin. And we can run different scenarios with this model. And so what you're seeing there is the red is your basically 10% or less chance of this becoming a reality. So there's a very slim chance that we would even get close to 50% over the next few months, and a very, very good chance that we would recover this winter based on all the historical data that we have. And I'll touch on this a little bit later, but we're also seeing that very strong La Nina signal that we saw earlier in the year, and I guess latter part of 2025 finally fade, and we're switching back to kind of a moderate El Nino. So the next three to four months, the latest weather forecast means above average rainfall. So we'll certainly take that, and that's usually our refill cycle in November, December, and January. So I also want to provide a quick recap on how we manage through the drought. As I mentioned several months ago, this drought was really unique and unusual because of when it started, which was it got very intense in the winter and spring months. Have not seen that before. And then it kind of kept going through most of the summer. So we were one of the first systems, if not the first large system in North Carolina to go into drought restrictions on April 20th. Because the Falls Lake had never been full in April and until this past April. So this was a really unusual event for us. So we took that step pretty early. And then in April and much of May, we saw what we would consider very good compliance. By looking at our pumpage reports, we can see that the irrigation was limited to Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So we would expect those days to be higher, and they were, largely for that first part of after we adopted the plan. And so the demand increase from irrigation would be 7 to 16 million gallons. That's roughly anywhere 25, 28% increase. on those Tuesdays and Wednesdays from your normal pumpage, which is around 60 million gallons a day. However, as it got drier in the latter part of May and into June, we started to see non-irrigation days basically the same as irrigation days in terms of pumpage and demand. So we received 73 million gallons on a Tuesday, 72 on a Wednesday, then 71 on a Thursday when you're not supposed to be irrigating. So we took the step of looking at all of our irrigation accounts. We have about 11,000 of those separate meters. So these are meters designated only for irrigation use. We looked at them, and we looked at them on three days that irrigation was not permitted. And if we saw usage over one CCF, that's one cubic foot, 748 gallons, we flagged that for a citation. That means that they were being used. So we were able to actually incentivize a lot of folks, I'll say, to remain in compliance. And so we saw a great response in July where that pumpage was still very hot, but that pumpage went back down to 60 million gallons a day. So that's all pretty good news. And then, of course, the best news was July 23rd when we got a lot of rain and we were able to exit on August 3rd. So as a lot of you know, we are gonna take another look at our water shortage response plan. There's always opportunity to improve things and change some things. After you implement it, we don't implement this thing very often, thankfully. So we are gonna be looking at what sort of discretionary water uses are regulated. Does that need to change? For instance, athletic fields were not regulated under stage one. So we're gonna evaluate that. We're also working with NC State Extension Service to look at drip irrigation, how we've been regulating that. Are there new regulations and rules for that that we need to think about? And also the triggers themselves. As you recall, we had the ability to go into stage two even though we weren't gonna hit the trigger. So that suggests our triggers might not have been as conservative as we wanted. So we're gonna look at that, and in addition to that, we're gonna also take into consideration this current drought, but also the conditions which set it up, which is a strong La Nina signal. We had not seen one like that previously, so we're gonna look at that. And as I'm sure everybody here knows, the more weather data you have, the better your model can be. So we're going to take all that into consideration. And then we also had stated some reduction goals. These weren't hard goals in the water shortage response plan, but they were by month and they had percentage reductions targets. And so we want to look at those to see if those are realistic based on what we what we saw in the last few months while we had stage one in place. So and last, And perhaps most importantly, one of the things that we noticed when we have back-to-back permitted irrigation days, that's a lot of demand, usually in a very acute period of the day. So in the morning, everybody gets up, they're showering, flushing toilets, washing clothes, washing dishes, and irrigating on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So there is a tremendous amount of demand for water during that time. So that really put our system in a stressful position. We're able to meet that demand, but we're now considering spacing that out a day at least. So maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays or something of that nature. So we give that system, make sure that we can keep all those water tanks at the proper levels. So I've talked a lot about the drought, but I also wanna talk about who uses our water. So start at the bottom box. As you might think, we are largely a residential system. So that's about 61% of our demand is our residential account. So that includes single family homes, but also it's apartment buildings, condominiums, townhouse communities, anywhere where people, are residing and living, that is a residential account. So that's the majority of our demand in a given day. The next largest category is commercial. So that's your average, your North Hills, your movie theaters, grocery stores, any type of business that's included in their office buildings. But with commercial and the next box institutional, I do also wanna mention that they're capturing a lot of demand during the day for people who don't live in our service area. So as you likely know, a lot of people live outside of our service area and come into Raleigh to work. So they are in Franklin County, Johnson County, so they drive in. So they're not counted in our service area population, but they come in and they're gonna use water during the day or they come in at night. to go to a restaurant or a show. So they're captured in those boxes. But institutional is one of the larger ones because it also encompasses some of our major employers. So that is all the hospitals, the big healthcare industry here, as you know, that's Rex, Duke, Wake Med, in addition to that, you're gonna have, Raleigh is the seat of state government. So there's a lot of government offices here in Raleigh. So that's a lot of that demand too. But it's also universities, NC State, Shaw, Peace, Meredith, all of those are included there. and Wake County Public Schools. So those are all housed under institutional wholesale customers. Those are the smaller systems that we are currently and temporarily selling water to. So that's Franklin County, Johnson County, and Fuqua-Everina. We're doing that over the next anywhere between four to 10 years to help them manage to develop their own new water resources. They're also seeing a lot of growth. So they're working to find new resources themselves. And as you know, this is gonna take them a little bit of time. So we're helping them out in a temporary fashion. Then last is industrial, we don't have a lot of that. But that is we have several large pharmaceutical facilities here. Large scale dry cleaners, that sort of thing, those are all housed under industrial. So this is a busy slide, so I apologize for that. But what you're looking at is the vertical blue columns are the gallons per capita a day. So it's a very kind of crude metric about how much water the average person uses in a given day. the way they calculated is You take your average demand divided by your service area population as I mentioned just the last slide Our service area population grows during a weekday because people come in to work. So it's a little bit of a kind of a crude metric again, but overall the trend as you can see over the last 25 years or so has been in a steady decline. So that's a good thing. There's a lot of reasons for that. We believe tiered rates have helped. Quite frankly, the little joke that I always say, when I grew up, the appliances, the olive green harvest gold ones, the washing machines, they used a lot of water. The new ones do not. And the new ones don't last very long. So the next model you always get four years later uses even less water. So there's been this steady decline in water demand over the last 25 years. So the red kind of crooked line there at the top, that's your average pumpage. So of note in 2007, that was our last truly severe drought. Our average pumpage was 52 million gallons a day. We didn't actually exceed that until relatively recently in 2021. And now we're roughly at 60 and then if you take away the wholesale customers are roughly around 57. So that's four or five million gallons difference over the past almost 20 years. so we've been growing everybody here knows that but we've been able to keep those demands very low and when i started as it as luck would have in 2007 we were planning on doing a new reservoir like very soon it would be now we would already be built because we were seeing as you can see that the We look at the left side of the graph, we were growing at about two to 3% in terms of demand every year, pretty steady. And so we were thinking this is gonna happen soon. And then all of a sudden, we have a lot more time to think about water supply and that's helped us develop new ideas. one of which was the reallocation of Falls Lake. So that happened, I know it sounds like a broken record, but it's an important issue. In 2019, we were able to reallocate some water in Falls Lake, so that's 5.6 billion gallons from the water quality pool to the water supply pool, so we didn't have to build anything. Basically, we had to get some help from our congressional representatives, but that was able to happen. So we really extended our water supply portfolio dramatically with that. So put us in a very good position moving forward. And I'm gonna hand it off to my director.

Good morning, Mayor, City Council. As we move into talking about future water supply, I wanna take a minute. to explain to you what we've been doing with the Triangle Water Supply Partnership. And so the Triangle Water Supply Partnership was founded as the Jordan Lake Partnership back in 2009 to facilitate allocation of the water supply pool from Jordan Lake among interested parties. After the last round of allocations were completed by the state, we revisited the partnership, Jordan Lake Partnership, and decided that it would be beneficial to expand that to all the other utilities in the Triangle area. And so we have been successful in doing that, and so now we have, you can see the membership here, We have seven counties represented in the Triangle area in this partnership that we are coordinating our activities. And so that includes Tri-River Water. I won't explain that. That is Lee County and Chatham County. That's a recent merger. Of course, we have Fuquay, Verena, Clayton, Orange County, as well as Orange Water and Sewer Authority, City of Durham, Town of Hillsboro, Apex, Morrisville, Holly Springs, Kerry, Johnston County, and Harnett Regional Water. And so... This is a very collaborative group. Other than water supply issues, we also coordinate on regional issues that we're experiencing, federal legislation, so forth, and how that impacts us. One of the projects that we completed a few years ago was an interconnection model. And that's a very busy graph, but what that represents is all the interconnecting water lines between municipalities. And so with that model, we were able to predict how we could move water around the Triangle area during an emergency. The most recent example of where that paid off was last summer during Tropical Storm Chantal. Hillsboro actually had to take the water plant offline due to flooding. But because of this work, Durham was able to supply the town of Hillsboro and keep them afloat until they could make repairs at the water plant. So it's been a very beneficial process. But more recently, we've been working on a regional water supply plan that projects out to the year 2070. CD Raleigh's been heavily involved in that. Ed Buchan serves on our technical review committee. I've served as chair for over three years. But we will be presenting our final plan to Division of Water Resources at our upcoming meeting in October. And at that point, someone else is going to be chair. So this is the regional forecast. Again, this represents the seven county area in the triangle. And what you can see is around 2022, we were around 170 million gallons per day per demand. You can see that grow through the years out to 2070 to just over 400 million gallons a day. The solid line that you see represents existing water supplies and near term supplies. And so the near term pieces, what that means is there are projects that are already underway in design that we think will happen in the near term. The dash line represents water supply alternatives that have been produced through our planning process for future use that we expect to see implemented years from now. So just to give you a feel for how the region looks there, again, this is the existing water supply, where that comes from. You see Harnett Regional Water in the bottom. They have an average day capacity of 53 million gallons per day. If you look up at Wake County, there's really two major players there. Raleigh Water, which has Falls Lake, Lake Benson, Lake Wheeler, and then the Cary Apex Water Plant, which is pulling out of... And I won't read all these to you, but this just gives you a visual of how the partnership looks and where we stand today. And then through our new water supply alternatives there, we've identified six new projects, potentially in the Cape Fear Basin, four in the Neuse River Basin. And of course, we're looking at other conservation measures or how to more effectively use reclaimed water and so forth to keep, like Ed was mentioning, to keep that per capita demand down. All right, so now we'll move into specific Raleigh water items. So the demand projections that we have produced are represented in this graph. That horizontal dark line represents our current 50-year safe yield water supply, which is based on a 50-year drought for Falls Lake, Lake Wheeler, and Lake Benson. 99.4 MGD or right around 100. It's not an exact number. The lower line there, it says low growth, but actually what it should mean is that's our baseline, okay? So what that represents is if you look at how we have grown over the last five or six years, that rate would project on that line. The red line in the middle, the TAS 2055, that represents the population projections that are produced by CAMPO for the growth in our area, and we've looked at that Population grows and then, like Ed mentioned, looked at per capita demands and so forth. And that's what builds that red line. And that red line will actually be the baseline in the Triangle Water Supply Partnership Plan. That's it. And of course, we've got the high growth line, which looks at statistical probability of extremely rapid growth, large industrial users, all those sort of things that are difficult to plan for. and tries to put that into a probabilistic forecast that we can look at. So you can see there that way out in 2070, which is a long time from now, we're looking at a range of possibilities of needing 107 up to 147 million gallons per day. All right. Okay, so talking about some near-term water supply alternatives for Raleigh, we are currently in the process of designing upgrades to the Lake Benson Dam and Lake Wheeler Dams to bring them up to the most current dam safety standards. In that process, we are gonna install crest gates That will give us the ability to very carefully manage the water in those lakes and releases. And we believe that that alone will give us another 2.5 million gallons per day in yield on those lakes. That was a very small add to the project. It's a $37 million project. The Crest Gates added about $3.5 million. So that's pretty effective for the water that we get from that. especially when you know that our single median single-family home uses about a hundred gallons per day. So that goes a long way. The other thing that we are looking at, we very recently kicked off a study that would look at using reclaimed water to augment raw water supply at the Benton plant. So there currently is a provision in the law that allows for a very, very specific use of that under certain circumstances. And it really fits within what we could do at the Benton plant. And so we're pushing that forward to see how that might work out. We think that that could be another three and a half million gallons per day. You might ask, how would we get reclaimed water to the Benton plant down in Garner? Well, Lake Benson, Lake Wheeler were built in the 50s, and they used to pump raw water up to the E.B. Bain plant on Wilmington Street here downtown. Those lines are still in the ground. We think that one of them is in pretty good shape and it could probably be rehabbed. to push water down there. And our reclaimed water line now actually goes by the Bain property. So it crosses. So we think it might be viable. And again, that's something we're going to look at and we would bring back to you in the future as we have more data. Okay, moving on. So in our alternatives analysis that we work with, with Division Water Resources, they wanted us to look at a car lake option. And so we did our due diligence there. That could potentially produce between 38 and 45 million gallons per day. Although because of inter-basin transfer issues, it could likely require us to return that water to that basin. And so that represents a higher operational cost to move water that far and then move it back. Also, energy, carbon footprint. Taking water from Carr Lake would require a coordination with the state of Virginia. as well as neighboring counties that we're in. So to say the least, it would be a complicated project. All right, you've all heard about Little River Reservoir. So depending on the specific design of the dam and certain negotiated mitigation factors, we could provide between 12 and 18 million gallons per day with this project. You may already know that there are some threatened and endangered species in that river basin, in particular the dwarf wedge mussel, the tar spiny mussel, the Neuse River water dog, if you've heard of that one. So those are some of the species that would have to be, we would have consultation with Fish and Wildlife Services to understand how we would mitigate how this project might affect it. And so we do expect to have very high mitigation cost with this project. But it would likely include a water treatment plant located close to the lake and it would serve Eastern Wake County. And then the last one I want to talk with you about is a Neuse River intake. Recent modeling indicates that could produce between 15 and 45 million gallons per day. It would likely be constructed in phases, likely have a new water plant located at the site. And we are looking at the same site as the Neuse River wastewater plant. So that's a very large piece of property. What makes this alternative attractive is that if we were to remove water from the river on the same property, we return about 90% of that water through the wastewater system on the same property. The hydraulic impacts to the river really, really go down because we're basically putting it back almost as much as we're taking out. So that secures a lot of issues that we would otherwise see downstream. One of the things that we are investigating now is if development of this alternative could create a Class 4 watershed that we would have to manage back up the river. We are talking with the state about the possibility of a Class 5 watershed, which does not have specific state requirements for development, but would allow us to do what requirements we needed under our UDF. And that's what Richland Creek, I don't know if you're familiar with Richland Creek Watershed, that's a WS5. Okay, so just looking at the cost alternatives here. So you can quickly see that the Carr Lake water supply, we looked at 30 million gallons per day, 45 million gallons per day. We're looking at a capital project of about a little over $1.8 billion for the 30, $2.4 billion for the 45. um if we did not have to return the wastewater to that basin that would reduce the cost to about 1.3 million for the 31.7 for the 45 and a good way to break this down is to look at the cost per gallon so we're looking at 65 or 57 dollars per gallon of supply without the effluent return it would be 47 to 41. Okay, moving on to the Neuse River intake. So three different stages there, 15 million gallons per day, 30 million gallons per day, 45 million gallons per day. But you can see that the capital costs there are significantly different from a car lake alternative, $540 million for the 15, 730 for the 30, 890 million for the 45. And then if you look at the cost per gallon, you see that it's dramatically different than what we see at Car Lake. And then finally, if we compare that to the Little River Reservoir option, Again, I mentioned that there would likely be high mitigation costs associated with that. There's over 500 acres of wetlands that would be inundated with the impoundment and so forth and the other species. So we do expect those costs would be significantly more, a little over a billion dollars for a 12 million gallon per day project and about roughly the same cost, 1.1 billion gallons for a 17.6 million gallon per day project. That's yield. It would be about 20 otherwise. So if you look at those costs per gallon, you see that $88 per gallon for the 12 MGD or 62 for the for the 17 million gallons per day. So those are the alternatives that we have looked at. Because of this outcome, we are doing a lot more investigation study on the Neuse River intake option. We are currently in the middle of doing water quality modeling. We've already done hydraulic modeling that shows that There's not a depletion downstream. We've made sure that there's not a possibility of effluent working its way back upstream to an intake where we would be. But we're currently evaluating a model that looks at the effluent from the wastewater plant and how the environmental factors would be downstream. So that's ongoing. We're collecting some samples now. to true up that model and we'll likely be doing that through next summer as well to prove that out. So that is where we are with the future water supply plan and at this point, Ed Buck and myself are happy to take questions.

Okay, we got a question down here. I'm sure.

Councilor Ford. You had a slide up about the increased flow to the Benton water treatment. Yeah. And on our consent agenda, there's an item to make some repairs to the gas activated carbon filter media. Are those two things correlated?

They would be, yes. So the granular activated carbon replacement is basically because the plant's been in service since 2010 and that media breaks down and it needs to be replaced. But there's also a project that you approved for filter expansion, new filters to be designed. And so with And it gives us more operational control. But with bringing that online, it made sense to start moving forward with looking at this augmentation with the potable reuse. Because that could take greater benefit of the work that we're currently planning. So yes.

OK. And you anticipated one of my other questions. I was going to ask how long the treatment facility had been online. You said 2010. Are you anticipating that there are going to be additional expenditures with this increased flow that we

Yes, so we would need to rehab the old raw water line that goes from E.B. Bain down to Lake Benson. I'm sure that there's gonna be some repairs to make that reliable. We would also need to build a terminal reservoir on the property. If you go out to E.M. Johnson, you see the two terminal reservoirs because the law requires that the reclaimed water would be blended with raw water at a 20% ratio. So we would need a large impoundment there to do that.

Okay, Mayor Pro Tem Harrison, sure.

Yeah, hey, wait, how are you? Thank you both for this presentation. I don't love drought, but I do think it focuses our attention in a helpful way on our long-term water supply. One question and then a few comments. So I think you noted that our water supply pool looks good, like 79%. But then when I look at the Army Corps' data on our water quality pool, which I believe provides water releases more further downstream, that's only at 40%. So can you talk about that? And my understanding is that's not Raleigh's water, but we're all part of a system.

It is. And so that is clearly used to maintain flow at a gauging station in Clayton. That's where the project always looks at when they release water. And so the Corps has been trying to minimize those releases without impacting Johnson County's water plant. And so I think recently they have seen a few issues with water quality. meaning it's taking more chemicals to treat the water. And so I think the Corps actually started releasing more water to see if that would have an impact. But it's management of what's in that water quality pool. And so that is necessary for the downstream users and the environmental reasons. I will say that if the water quality pool were to be depleted, the Corps would likely tap the sediment pool, which is in Falls Lake. When the lake was built, it had a large volume that assumed a large rate of sedimentation that would fill up the lake. Thankfully, that erosion has not been close to what it was planned for, so there is still some water available there that they could tap into. I'm not saying it would actually happen, but that's what was talked about.

Thank you, yeah, I think I just wanna note that this supply, there's a lot of different users. And so the more that we can be a leader in conservation and how we're using the water, hopefully that can have some impacts downstream as well, cuz we're all playing in the same pools. And so I'm just thinking about, are there opportunities for water conservation ongoing that we could be putting into place now so that we get more time with the Falls Lake water supply. I don't know what that can do for us. Are there opportunities there? Because when I'm looking at your data, it looks like by 2060, we are gonna need a new system definitely online for this regional growing demand. And when does that investment have to start? How is that going to affect the rate payer? It has some huge costs. And I think, as you noted with the Little River, there's also, if we had to go that direction, I mean, the wetlands that would have to be purchased in other places and conserved. This is also people's land that they are going to lose. There's a lot of constraints there. Are there conservation opportunities or ways that we can assess that? We've had restrictions this year. Do we need other things like that so we can at least keep our current supply a little bit longer?

Yeah, that's a great question. Ed, I see you standing by. Did you want to? Yeah, I'll speak. Okay. All right, hanging over your shoulder.

So that's a great question, and that's part of our re-evaluation of the water shortage response plan. Some other systems in this area have year-round water use restrictions. Cary, for instance, there's alternate day water, even when they have plenty of water. And the benefit of that is that it does keep conservation at the front of your mind all year long. And as an irrigation, really, because you mentioned the water quality pool, a lot of that demand downstream is also dependent on our wastewater flow. So whenever we have a lot of irrigation demand, that does not go to the Neuse River. that is largely evaporated or absorbed to the ground. So trying to reduce our demand from irrigation would help a lot. And I would say that overall our conservation ethic in our system is very good. Our gallons per capita day for the residential sector is probably around 50. So it's very good on a national level, but there's always room for improvement. And one of the things that we're thinking about as well is starting a kind of a communication campaign before irrigation season starts. So that we can get people thinking about other ways they can reduce their irrigation demand. The assumption is a lot of people are probably irrigating more than they need to. And so how do we make sure that they're educated and understand that we use our own parks department as a good guide on how much water fields need, grass needs, and it's not very much. So we're going to try to carry that message forward in 2027.

Yeah, and I think overall we are a water-rich state for the country, but this summer's been a little different. And so if we can think about those conservation measures, policy tools, and I don't know if that comes back to us in a manager's report or a future meeting here, of what are those policy options? Because, again, if we can save our residents money by putting off some of these other sources, I'd love to do that.

Yeah, I think we could follow up with a later report Okay, we'll move to councillor branch Yeah, the Neuse River intake part grabs my attention because it really impacts my district as far as any construction So my question would be where would the water treatment plant if one is built? Where would it be built and it mentions in phases? But can you just talk to that more about this new river Neuse River intake idea?

Right, so you're probably familiar with the shooting range. So there is, close to that, there is a large field on High Bluff near the river that we've identified would be a good spot to build a water plant and an intake. We call it Poplar Creek because it's close to where Poplar Creek comes into the river. But that is the spot that has been identified that would be the best use or best place to do that on our property. And then we would have to build a transmission main from a plant back into probably right close to where Jones Sausage Road area is. We have a project on the books to do a new transmission main that pushes water out toward Pool Road. And so... that transmission main would be designed of sufficient capacity to take advantage of a future plant.

And what would be the timeframe of this if we were to move forward?

So what we've currently put in the Triangle Water Supply Regional Plan is that that would need to be online by 2040. Okay. That could change, but clearly we want to move as diligently as we can to do something.

Okay.

Thank you very much for this. In terms of the Little River Reservoir, was there a study done in the past to show its viability? And that's how we figured out that there's endangered species. Is that how we figured that out?

That is true. So there was a... significantly developed environmental impact statement several years ago. One of the alternatives to that project was the reallocation of Falls Lake Conservation Pool. And so out of that process, the Corps supported us in the reallocation because of those environmental impacts. I mean, the Corps was going to have to do all the wetland permitting and so forth. And so they believed that was viable. So that's one of the reasons.

It is one of the reasons. Is that a report public? Is there any way for us to see that report? Yeah, yeah, I think we could find it. Great. And then in terms of what we went through over the summer with May and June consumption rates, you guys did a wonderful job explaining that and showing us what had happened. How does the department decide or study whether that's strictly noncompliance or how much of it is it attributed to increased growth? And how do you guys weigh that looking forward in the charts that you're showing us what growth is going to be? How does that all happen?

Yeah, so when we talked about non-compliance, we have smart meters, okay? So the smart meters can tell us how much water is used every 15 minutes. I mean, we can pull in that kind of data. And so we were really just looking at irrigation accounts when we were issuing those warnings. And like Ed mentioned, we were only flagging ones that were using over 748 gallons in that three-day period. So that was of concern, clearly. We felt a lot of pressure to make an impact there and so it worked and so we're thankful for that. So does that sort of answer your question about

I understand that part but as we look forward and I guess my question more centered around the growth and how in the future we're going to measure when we know okay this is a growth increase as opposed to this is a noncompliance increase.

Yeah, so it's easier to see the growth increase by looking at seasonal patterns, okay? So when you look at our water usage, let's say in February or March, there's usually not a lot of irrigation going on or outside water use in those months. So that gives us a good baseline of what we're seeing from just typical household use. And we do have a lot of data on residential customers that don't have irrigation systems or so forth. And so we're looking at that as well. And honestly, that's one of the ways we use to create that tiered billing approach. Tier one actually provides an incentive to stay at that level. So that's how we honed in on that value.

Okay, great, and then lastly, specifically about the triggers for going into stage one. Over the summer, I guess those are, I think we were at what, 55 or 65% was the trigger, but for September it's at 45. Can you help me find the words to explain why those are different to the public?

Yeah, so as Ed was mentioning, looking at the probabilistic forecast, the lake has traditionally refilled over the winter months. And with the shift in the weather patterns, we are expecting, like I had mentioned, an El Niño winter, which would be wetter. And so that makes us feel much better about where that trigger is. Now, what we experienced last year was a La Niña weather pattern, which was a winter drought. And so one of the things that we want to go back and do for water shortage response plan is to develop triggers for a La Nina pattern. So once we know we're in this type of pattern, we need to be looking at a different set of triggers than we would otherwise.

Right. That's when Ed said that this is the first time you've seen this. This is why, okay, we've got to read while you're looking at everything. How long until the next resource plan or the water shortage plan comes out?

So Ed is working on that with our consultant.

Do you have a date, Ed?

Our goals have been done by this year.

Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Before I pass it down, I'll just comment. I just am very impressed that we have such long-term plans, that we're looking at so much optionality, every lever we can pull. And obviously, there is a lot of resource here. So just kudos to you and the team for all of this information that you're presenting. And I have just maybe a little more of a sidebar question for you, which is I've been reading a lot about the private sector, like private equity funds, hedge funds, buying up water resources. This is more probably in the West. And I mean, obviously very concerning that you would have private sector entities trying to manipulate water supply. But are you seeing any of that in North Carolina?

No, I'm not aware of private equity, you know, purchasing strategic properties to control the water. But I know what you're talking about out west because I know actually it's the municipality where Tansy Hayward went. They purchased a lot of land to the north that had water rights so that they could use those water rights for water supply in Thornton. But yeah.

Okay, so thankfully that doesn't seem to be a risk for us. Okay, thank you.

Counselor Pat, yeah? Awesome, hi. So I'll take my questions in two sections, right? The water shortage plan. Couple thoughts I had. so i and it sounds like we're going to bring us back we'll see before us whatever changes you're going to make you're just letting us know that you are making changes so um i guess i'll just throw this out as feedback and probably is already on your list for consideration i think um this like current water shortage plan doesn't address the utility met or it'll if you if You can use as much water as you want if you're on a drip system. I think that's probably a policy failure. Absolutely. So we should close that up because if you're using as much as a sprinkler system, that is too much water to be using on your lawn, no matter how it's getting in there. So it sounds like that's already on your list. I also do think that evaluating the economic impact structures that would dissuade people from using water like just crank up you know the tier one is like the amount you'd regularly use to wash dishes clothes and shower and then like the jump to watering your lawn should be like it should pinch a little bit during a drought so I really think that it's worth evaluating like a and sort of an economic disincentive to the rate payer to quell their water use. And then one thing I had heard from preferred some feedback on is it's the way we communicate how much water people are allowed to use is not very familiar to a regular resident. Like how do they know if they're watering half an inch or how many gallons a day? I even kind of did a little bit of digging on my own water bill and I was like, it would be kind of hard for me to know. And I think there might be like apps or technology that could help residents know.

Yeah, I think so. So I mentioned that we mostly have smart meters. We have a few of the older ones left. We're replacing those. But there is the potential for AMI systems, like you were talking about, automated meter reading, where there's a database to look at those sort of options. So Zebulon is currently on an AMI read. We do not have a public-facing platform for customers to get there. It's a pilot project at the moment, so we're currently reading that. But, yes, I think there is possibility for that kind of communication in the near future.

Cool. That'd be awesome. I think that'd be helpful for residents who are wanting to be good stewards or do their part, but are like, I don't know how much half an inch of water is. So it sounds like you're already looking at that, which is great. And then I think our current one gives you like three warnings before you get a citation or something. It's like educational letter, then another warning, another warning. I think we might be being too... too generous on that so we might need to be a little more assertive there um okay so that's like my section on water shortage plans sounds like we'll get that back by the end of the year and then shifting into long-term water supply I am also curious about next steps you mentioned in October you're presenting this to division water resources so and these are the available options at what point will it be settled like what which option we're picking and we're moving forward on that

Right, so it would be in the alternatives analysis for submitting an application. So for instance, if we do some more homework, we collectively decide we wanna do Little River, I mean not Little River, but a Neuse River intake. Then we would file applications for water withdrawal, the ultimate, That once division of water resources is on board with that then we would start the process of doing the environmental permitting So that's sort of the way that works and and the regional water supply plan that up that I've mentioned that we're going to roll out at the first October to division water resources, you know, the individual utilities are managing, you know, their their future water supply alternatives and like I said some of them are well underway and Johnson County currently has a, they have a letter from Division Water Resources said, yes, you can pull water out of the Neuse River at a spot almost at the Wayne County line. So they're starting the preliminary design of that process. And so that's where we need to get. We've just got some more, these environmental studies that we're doing now are going to be key. We're It's actually a good time because it's been so hot and the flow has been low, so it's an opportune time to get water quality data for that model. So we're working on that.

Okay. So in October, when you present this, that's the regional approach, and then we will still govern our long-term approach for our water supply. That's correct. when will we know which of the options got selected?

That's a great question. I think it will be probably sometime next summer before we have enough data out of the river to vet that water quality model. Next summer. I think once we have that, we would feel much better about moving forward. Got it. So we will see you back here next summer. It's looking good. I'll just say it's looking good.

I'm sure and I'm confident. I just want to be able to report to the public what the next steps are. So we'll see you back next summer on that topic. And then I just wanted to echo Council Member Harrison that I do think, I mean, the drought also revealed to us or put a really fine point on the fact that these non-functional lawns are a big draw on the water supply. And so... the more we can reduce non-functional lawns, the better it is for all of us in the long term. So I would really challenge us to think creatively, cross-functionally, water, stormwater, sustainability department however we can to reduce how you know how much is turf grass lawn is in our city and I think you know rainwater rewards is a is a good model people like it and it's serves for water quality purposes but if we can think even broader you know maybe we can INCENTIVIZE PEOPLE PUTTING VEGETABLE GARDENS IN THERE TO INCENTIVIZE PEOPLE PUTTING VEGETABLE GARDENS IN THERE TO REDUCE THEIR LAWNS OR DROUGHT REDUCE THEIR LAWNS OR DROUGHT RESISTANT PLANTINGS. RESISTANT PLANTINGS. ALL SORTS OF THINGS AND ALL SORTS OF THINGS AND DIFFERENT FUNDING SOURCES. DIFFERENT FUNDING SOURCES. THE MORE LAWNS WE COULD REDUCE THE MORE LAWNS WE COULD REDUCE IT SERVES ON MANY GOALS OF THE IT SERVES ON MANY GOALS OF THE CITY AND ALSO HAS A BENEFIT OF CITY AND ALSO HAS A BENEFIT OF STRETCHING OUR AVAILABLE WATER STRETCHING OUR AVAILABLE WATER If we could just put our thinking caps on, put our brainstorming caps on.

I agree. We're going to be evaluating what other utilities have done effectively to see if we're not above taking a good idea from other government agencies.

Just one final, just because you had such high institutional use in this market, do you feel like our institutional partners out there have efficiency in their water? Or is that, I mean, I was at Governor Moorhead and they've got a 1936 boiler. So you're guessing that maybe this isn't the most efficient system.

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't have enough information to fully answer that, but you're right. I think when we see new facilities come on, they'll perform better, like the new education building that's going up now. I would expect that to be much better than the old building, but you're right. Generally, though, we have good partnerships. I know NC State's a great partner with us. We work closely with them. Go ahead.

I'll add that in the Triangle Water Supply Partnership, there's a member from the, help me here, it's the Business Sustainability Association, I think, something like that, BSA. And so she started showing up to our meetings and she's representing a lot of the large businesses in the Triangle area. So that includes a lot of our institutional customers, and they're looking for ways to be good stewards of water, partly because they want to make sure they have water long term. So one of the things that I turned around to is the state of North Carolina, NCDEQ, has a group of retired industrial engineers that I think, basically for free, you can have them come out to usually a large industrial site, and they'll evaluate it for water efficiency gains. So she liked that idea, something to bring back to her group that could help them out.

Okay, great. Okay, any other questions? All right, if not, I think that concludes, right, our work session, and we will reconvene at one.

Yeah, there's no plan right now. I said, can you push?

And she said, he's going to... C. I'm trying to get C. Oh, you get C. Yes.