
{"id":712,"date":"2007-08-09T06:52:33","date_gmt":"2007-08-09T14:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/08\/09\/owasa-says-conservation-efforts-paying-off\/"},"modified":"2007-08-09T06:52:33","modified_gmt":"2007-08-09T14:52:33","slug":"owasa-says-conservation-efforts-paying-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/08\/09\/owasa-says-conservation-efforts-paying-off\/","title":{"rendered":"OWASA says conservation efforts paying off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Kirk Ross<br \/>\n<\/strong>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The steady pleas for water conservation seem to be having an effect, according to officials with the Orange Water and Sewer Authority. So much so that the areas served by the utility may not see the same kind of mandatory conservation requirements as other locales.<\/p>\n<p>As of Wednesday, OWASA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daily account of how full its lakes are showed that University Lake is 53 inches below full and Cane Creek Reservoir 45.5 inches below full \u00e2\u20ac\u201d about 76.7 percent of their capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Ed Holland, planning director for OWASA, says that should be enough to get through the rest of the peak-demand season.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The lakes are going down as you would expect them to do, but we should have plenty to get through this season,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Holland said. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s next year, though, that has Holland and others keeping a nervous eye on the gauges and the weather.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have a lot of storage capacity so it takes our lakes a long time to drain. But it also takes them a long time to fill.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The lakes will typically refill in the winter, but a dry winter could make next summer difficult.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We want to encourage people to continue to conserve,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Holland said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whatever we save now is water we may need next summer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Holland says rain early this summer helped start the traditional period of high water use with a good amount of capacity.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to favorable weather, OWASA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts to encourage voluntary conservation appear to be paying off, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our peak use has decreased over the last few years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. OWASA usually sees a spike in demand as summer wears on and lawns and gardens dry out. Holland said that encouraging customers to water in the mornings or evenings and water every other day rather than daily has likely helped flatten the demand curve a bit. And, he says, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a lot of complaining about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re hearing from people that their lawns haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t suffered,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>For information about OWASA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s year-round conservation standards, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/owasa.org\/pages\/yearroundconserv03.asp\">owasa.org\/pages\/yearroundconserv03.asp<\/a><br \/>\nLake levels, capacity estimates and daily usage are available at <a href=\"http:\/\/owasa.org\/pages\/yearroundconserv03.asp\">owasa.org\/pages\/waterwatch.asp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kirk Ross Staff Writer The steady pleas for water conservation seem to be having an effect, according to officials with the Orange Water and Sewer Authority. So much so that the areas served by the utility may not see the same kind of mandatory conservation requirements as other locales. As of Wednesday, OWASA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daily&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-land-and-table","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}