THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS ®
OF WAKE COUNTY

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Raleigh water customers want drought preparedness

 

by Jeri Gray, Co-chair, Environment Committee, League of Women Voters of Wake County

 

It seems obvious that Raleigh Public Utilities Director Dale Crisp and critics of the city’s water supply planning are not speaking the same language. Over the last several weeks, Crisp has responded to critics by sending them copies of the city’s local water supply plan. The plan shows projected water demand through 2050 and the supplies Raleigh intends to develop to meet demand.

 

The plan would seem to answer allegations of lack of planning, and Crisp is probably perplexed that it has not silenced the critics.  The problem is that Crisp’s definition of “long-term planning” does not include what his customers think it should: preparing for drought.

 

Most of North Carolina is stuck in the water management paradigm called “drought response.” This reactive, crisis management paradigm corresponds to the “hydro-illogical cycle http://www.drought.unl.edu/plan/cycle.htm,” which goes like this: We have rain, we are complacent. We find ourselves in drought, we become aware, we become concerned, we panic! We have rain, we become complacent, and ‘round and ‘round. 

 

Recognition is spreading throughout the world that the reactive approach to drought management is ineffective and dangerous. Drought risk is increasing, and no location is immune, regardless of how plentiful we have thought our water to be.

 

Increased drought risk arises from increased likelihood of drought plus increased vulnerability to drought.

 

The likelihood of drought has increased with climate change and is evident in recent persistent or recurring severe droughts.

 

Increased drought vulnerability is due to a number of factors:

 

Recognizing that we face increased drought risk is the first step toward a better water management paradigm called “drought preparedness.”

 

In this management approach, we reduce vulnerability to drought through—at the least– cultural changes that value water at its full worth and everyday, year-round conservation.

 

We take advantage of improved knowledge of atmospheric teleconnection patterns and other climate data to monitor for early signs of drought.

 

We take advantage of sophisticated computer models to generate drought scenarios and their likelihood and to incorporate climate forecasts into risk-based reservoir management to evaluate different resource allocation and risk mitigation measures.

 

We also prepare for drought by putting into place policies and system capability to mitigate the impacts of severe drought by dramatically reducing water demand when necessary. This includes making—in advance-- decisions about allocating water among various users and determinations of essential uses.

 

By almost every measure of drought preparedness, Raleigh comes up short.

 

If we were prepared we would have responded more effectively to the continuing drought advisories that have been issued for central North Carolina since 2005. 

 

We would have put into place a rate structure and a serious, effective conservation program to change the water culture of our extended community.

 

We would have aggressively pursued a better understanding of the capacity of Falls Lake and developed sophisticated models to help determine drought risk and mitigation measures.

 

We would have anticipated the effect on Falls Lake—in the event of a drought– of adding to the Raleigh water system the growing populations of Garner, Rolesville, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Wendell and Zebulon on top of Raleigh’s growth without bringing additional supplies on line.

 

We would have developed mitigation plans and educated the community about them so that when it became necessary to reduce water use, businesses, institutions, industry and citizens would know what to expect and how to accomplish what was asked of them.

 

Drought preparedness requires planning, commitment and resources, but it is not rocket science, and customers of the Raleigh system seem to intuitively know what we should have done. Because we did not prepare, we have faced—and may still face– a water crisis, and people are angry.

 

More normal rainfall will return. When it does, let us not fall back into the “hydro-illogical” cycle and become complacent. Now that we have articulated what should be done, let us remember and insist that our leaders make formal, explicit preparations for the next drought.


Questions? Email LWVWake@bellsouth.net or call (919) 783-5995.
This site was last revised 3/19/2008.