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 Our Water Crisis
by Tom Campbell
February 12, 2009
The Emerging Issues Forum sounded the right notes for North Carolinians to consider at the correct moment. The topic was infrastructure and came as the American Society of Civil Engineers gave North Carolina an overall grade of “D” in 15 categories of public infrastructure. There were excellent keynote addresses from Senator Chris Dodd, NY Times columnist David Brooks and, as always, exhortations and cheerleading from North Carolina’s senior statesman, Jim Hunt.
One area often neglected in infrastructure debates is water. During the drought of 2007 we were concerned about our next bath, but when rains came and water supplies were restored, the issue disappeared off the front pages and out of our minds. Informed estimates place the present day cost to repair and expand water systems to be 17 billion dollars.
North Carolina has no strategic plan in place for water. Almost 70 percent of our municipalities or counties operate their own water system, much as was the case early in the last century with electric generation systems. Progressive leaders determined then, as they should today, that it just didn’t make sense for every small town to have their own generation system. We have the highest number of small water systems of any state in the nation. 138 out of 214 water systems in communities of fewer than 2,500 are losing money and unable to properly maintain their systems. Many systems have lost major textile or furniture manufacturers and do not function properly because water isn’t being turned over in the large tanks frequently enough.
The issue of affordability is often ignored. We are accustomed to paying little for clean water; in many cases customers are barely paying to sustain old and out-of-date systems that were put in place 40 years ago. The cost of water is virtually guaranteed to increase. Public officials fear the wrath of voters and often defer maintenance and replacements that will increase water bills. When they turn to state and federal agencies for funding they find help inadequate to non-existent.
We are a state of many smaller, rural communities. But we also have larger urban growth areas in need of water. Our larger communities like Raleigh and Charlotte face the real possibility of having to restrict growth unless they can expand existing water supplies. Our smaller communities face the crisis of being unable to afford to continue to operate old, leaky, unprofitable systems. In many instances our water resources are not located where we have the greatest needs.
With present water policies not working well, the problem only compounds when 21 people move into our state every hour. If you factor in the possibility of another drought you can easily envision a “perfect storm.” Solutions are not easy.
North Carolina must adopt a statewide strategic plan; including guidelines and perhaps mandates for inter basin water transfers, potential regional water generation systems, and ultimately a statewide water grid transfer system that can move water from where it is most available to where it is most needed. And this debate must also include sewer treatment systems.
Former Governor Hunt suggested we needed guts to tackle our infrastructure needs. He was never more right. There is much to be debated and decided but the time to begin is now. The task isn’t getting easier. |
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