• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Drought Could Be Cash Cow for City

Posted on: Monday, 3 October 2005, 21:00 CDT

By James Moffat, Times-News, Burlington, N.C.

Oct. 1--Burlington could begin cashing in on its water supply thanks to the recent drought conditions facing Greensboro.

Allan Williams, water resources director for the city of Greensboro, said that city will soon begin buying as much water from Burlington as its agreement allows.

Since the beginning of this year, when the pipeline between the two water systems was completed, Greensboro has been buying about two million gallons a day.

But Williams said that with the continued drought conditions and high usage, the city will begin purchasing five million gallons a day by the end of next week.

That is the maximum amount the Guilford County city can purchase based on the agreement signed by the two cities in 2002.

Williams said that Greensboro has been doing maintenance on its water system in recent weeks, which is the only reason the city hasn't bought more water from Burlington to date.

Depending on how long the drought continues, Burlington could stand to make a huge profit. Burlington officials have estimated that the city makes about $4,000 a day in gross revenue selling water to Greensboro.

Burlington officials have said the city would make more than $2.7 million in profit annually if Greensboro were to purchase the maximum of five million gallons of water each day.

The city now makes about $1.1 million annually by selling two million gallons a day to Greensboro.

Continuing drought conditions throughout the Piedmont Triad are causing the area's largest city to ask citizens to begin conserving water.

Greensboro's two main water sources -- Lake Townsend and Lake Brandt -- are each more than two feet below normal.

The unusually low rainfall has been coupled with increasingly high water usage. Greensboro residents are using about 38 million gallons of water a day, which is six million gallons more than they used this time last year.

"The drought is pretty bad around the whole Piedmont," Williams said. "A lot of municipalities are calling for restrictions."

According to the North Carolina Division of Water Resources, the central part of the state is experiencing a D-1, or moderate, drought. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors drought conditions throughout the nation, expects the entire East Coast, especially the Carolinas, to experience drought conditions through the end of the year.

Williams said the calling for mandatory restrictions is a "judgment call" on the city's part, but wouldn't say when or if such measures would be taken.

"Predicting what's going to happen more than a week or so out is a crapshoot," Williams said. "You don't like to call for restrictions." The drought, though, isn't putting a strain on Burlington's water supply. Eric Davis with the city's utilities department said that while water levels in Lake Mackintosh and Lake Cammack are "down a little bit," the city has plenty of water to go around.

Burlington's water demand is, at most, 13.5 million gallons a day, with two million gallons going to Greensboro.

Even if Greensboro begins buying the maximum amount allowed by the agreement, it will not have a major impact on the water supply for Burlington residents.

"We're in real good shape," Davis said. "If we doubled our use, then we'd have a water supply issue."

-----

To see more of the Times-News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.thetimesnews.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Times-News, Burlington, N.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: Times-News

More News in this Category