Water Forum LIVE

I'm here at the McKimmon Center with about 300 people attending the WakeUp Wake County Water Forum. Among the attendees are numerous concerned citizens, experts, elected officials, hopeful candidates and a lot of media. We're on a break between sessions. Lots of questions from the audience. The forum runs until 12pm so come on over if you're close by.

Early session:

Who provides water in Wake County, where does it come from?
Tommy Esqueada, Director, Wake County Environmental Services
Climate change and water availability.
Rob Jackson, Director, Duke University Center on Global Change
Environmental considerations of water use:
Chris Goudreau, Special Projects Coordinator, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission

Update:

We're back in session, Dr David Moreau, Director, UNC Water Resources Research Institute and Chairman N.C.Environmental Management Commission, is speaking, taking a historical view of water use and planning in Wake County and "safe yield" in particular.

Up next Bill Holman, Senior Fellow, Duke University and former Secretary of NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources on paying for water resources. Bill ended with the observation that electricity generation is also heavily dependent on water resources, primarily for cooling and that limitations on the intake and discharge of water can place limitations on generation of electricity from nuclear and fuel fired power plants.
Points from the earlier session on private water supply: Community well systems run by private companies are regulated by the Utilities Commission and conservation measures can not be mandated by the County without going through the Utilities Commission. Another factor with community well systems is the large drawdown of water causing neighboring single family wells to run dry. DENR regulations require minimum flow rates for wells but there are no maximum limits. May be addressed as a public health issue if individual homes on private wells have no water but will ahve to be addressed through the General Assembly to give counties some measure of control over community water systems.

Last speaker:
Water Conservation: What other communities are doing and recommendations of the Raleigh Water Conservation Task Force
Mary Brice, Co-Chair, Raleigh Water Conservation Task Force

We're in the short rows and the rows lining up at the microphones for questions are getting long. Raleigh City planning director Mitch Silver asks whether a city has ever run out of water? David Moreau answers that New Orleans after Katrina and Eastern NC towns after Floyd lost public water supply. Most municipalities take measure before water actually runs out.