From: Hartwell Carson
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 4:44
PM
To: Hartwell Carson
Subject: Solutions for the Drought-
French Broad Water Conservation Plan
French Broad Water Conservation Plan:
All or part of every county in the French Broad Watershed in North Carolina is listed in the exceptional drought status, the most severe standard of drought. The French Broad River recently sunk to it lowest levels since the first records were kept in 1895. Many municipalities are on mandatory water restrictions, with a looming danger of running out of water or paying to truck in water from other areas.
There are some very important short term drought solutions, but now is the time to look at real long term solutions. It is very clear that the French Broad Watershed cannot continue to grow without the consideration of our water quantity. Now is the time to implement a drought strategy that allows for sustainable growth that protects our water resources.
A water conservation plan would guide the French Broad Watershed to take steps to ensure long range planning before, during, and after droughts. This plan will move the region towards long term sustainability of the French Broad water supply.
These 10 steps will ensure a more sustainable way to manage future and current drought:
1. Convert Water Rate Structure to encourage conservation- Examine and change many of the municipalities’ water rate structure to encourage water conservation while ensuring long term revenue to run water systems.
Generally, inverted (inclined) block rate structures are the most widely accepted water conservation rate structure. Inverted (inclined) block rates increase as consumption increases. This pricing structure is a great tool to encourage conservation while still ensuring adequate revenues.
2. Rainwater Harvesting and water reuse- Every day in the French Broad Watershed 26,947,980 gallons of clean treated drinking water are used to flush toilets and water lawns. All of that water could be captured and used by each individual home and business. Features such as rain barrels and cisterns are common practices to catch and reuse rain water. Municipalities expend a tremendous amount of resources to store and treat a quarter of a billion gallons of water, that could be captured from rain water.
Stormwater pollution is one of the leading water quality impairments in the country, and by capturing water on site, the amount of polluted stormwater could be drastically reduced. This would improve water quantity and quality, as well as reduce flooding.
Developments over a certain size should have many of these water conservation measures mandated. Smaller developments, along with retrofitting current developments, should be greatly incentivized to encourage rain water harvesting.
The reuse of Grey water, or water from dishwashing, bathing, and laundry, should be strongly encouraged by municipalities. Between 50-80% of residential waste water is from grey water. By capturing, filtering, and reusing this water for irrigation or flushing toilets, a tremendous strain our on water consumption could be reduced, as well as take a strain of many over capacity waste water treatment plants. These systems are fairly cheap and easy to install, while greatly reducing the users water consumption.
3. Low Impact Development (LID) should be a requirement for any new development where it is feasible, and all existing developments should have incentives to retrofit their development with low impact development techniques.
Low Impact Development is an innovative stormwater management approach with a basic principle that is modeled after nature: manage rainfall and stormwater at the source using best management practices (BMPs), such as rain gardens, bio swales, and any device that allows water to infiltrate on site. These BMPs allow rain water to soak into the ground to recharge ground water. This is different from the standard method of sending the water off site to the nearest stream, as fast as possible. This cleans the water and helps recharge wells, aquifers, and ensures adequate flow in rivers during drought.
Case
studies and pilot programs show at least a 25 to 30%
reduction in costs associated with site development, stormwater fees,
and maintenance for residential developments that use LID techniques. This
savings is achieved by reductions in clearing, grading, pipes, ponds, inlets,
curbs and paving. Far outweighing any of the cost increases due to the use of
LID, these infrastructure reduction savings enable builders to add
value-enhancing features to the property, to be more flexible and competitive
in pricing their products, or even to recover more developable space since
there is no need to waste land for a stormwater pond.
4. Require stream buffers that are an effective enough width to provide water quality improvements, but also allow for water infiltration. A great deal of science points to need to have buffers of at least 50ft. This is consistently shown to be the minimum width that buffers can fully perform to improve water quality, provide for additional ground water recharge, enhance habitat, and reduce flooding.
It is critical to understand who is withdrawing water, and at what amount,
to be able to ensure water for downstream users and enough water to sustain the
river’s aquatic life.
6. Participate and fund ground water assessment with USGS- understanding our
groundwater system is critical to planning growth. Planners must understand
what strain additional development may or may not have on ground water
resources and adjacent property owners.
7. Implement an educational campaign, including offering water
conservation kits – An education
campaign would include speakers, school education programs, media campaign, and
online and printed resources for the public. These programs should focus on
short and long term solutions. Also municipalities should offer water
efficiency and water saving kits that include low flow faucet aerators and
showerheads, toilet bladders, lawn care instructions with rain gauges, and leak
detection tablets.
8. Offer water audits to customers - Offer water audits of homes or institutions that include
assessment of water use practices, water fixture retrofitting opportunities,
and an internal water system leak detection and repair program. See fact
sheets Performing a Domestic Water Use and Conservation Audit
and Performing a Business or Industry Water Use and
Conservation Audit, for directions on performing water
audits.
9. Require
all new well users to register their well and abide by any mandatory water
restrictions- Ground water is critical in a drought for well users and
minimum stream flows. Allowing well users to take an unlimited amount of water
from the ground water, while placing mandatory restrictions on other users,
unfairly places the burden on municipal water customers. It is all the same
water and therefore the same restrictions should apply.
10. Interbasin
transfers should not be a tool for water conservation- transfers
that send water out of its watershed should never be a tool to distribute
water. Downstream users can become dramatically affected by transferring water
that will never return. This promotes unsustainable growth and a critical loss
of a precious resource.
Hartwell
Carson
French
Broad RIVERKEEPER®
RiverLink
PO Box
15488
Asheville,
NC 28813-0488
828-252-8474
Fax:
828-253-6846
WATERKEEPER®
ALLIANCE member