Orange County recently recovered from its “Exceptional Drought,” the highest drought classification that put OWASA’s reclaimed water system to work for much of the summer. Built 17 years ago to improve the community’s drinking water resilience, it has saved the county billions of gallons of drinking water.
Although one of eight North Carolina counties to have the D4 drought classification in July, Orange County did not undergo any water restrictions during that period. However, the community is still experiencing a moderate drought and seeing the importance of conserving water.
OWASA’s director of wastewater management Will Lawson told 97.9 The Hill how the last time the area saw a major drought was 2007 — the event that sparked initial conversations between OWASA and UNC about how to better meet the community’s water needs.
“During that time frame, we decided with Cane Creek and University Lake being our only reservoirs, we needed to do something that could stretch that system out,” Lawson said.
Those two watersheds are smaller and slower to refill compared to its neighbors, so the director said it had been a “no brainer” idea to implement a water reclamation system that would serve Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The recycled wastewater allows treatment plants to treat less water for drinking, conserving potable water for when the community needs it most.
97.9 The Hill’s Andrew Stuckey (left), speaking with Will Lawson (middle) and Melanie Elliott (right) on August 17.
As its largest user, UNC paid nearly the entire cost to build the $14 million system, which became operational in 2009. A $1.6 million grant from the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund paid for the engineering design and permitting costs, and a $625,500 grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency helped pay for its construction.
“If you calculate how much reclaimed water we’ve sent back to UNC to date, it’s roughly four billion gallons,” Lawson said. “Which is enough to fill up Cane Creek, University Lake, and the Quarry Reservoir for OWASA.”
The reclaimed water typically provides more than a third of the university’s daily water demand of 1.5 million gallons. Sustainable Carolina analyst Melanie Elliott said the treated water can only be used for specific purposes unrelated to human consumption, like irrigation and toilet flushing. She said a lot of the recycled water is used for athletic and recreational fields, campus labs, and dorms.
“But one of our biggest water demands is actually for chilled water,” Elliott said. “We cool our buildings on campus with chilled water, and that water runs through a loop — but, because of evaporation, we still have to replace a lot of the water to keep the system running properly. So with that in mind, we decided to replace that evaporated water with the reclaimed water.”
UNC’s water cycle, its sources being largely potable water, reclaimed water, and stormwater. (Image via Sustainable Carolina.)
The method is both less costly and energy intensive to treat than potable water, but Elliott said the reliability of the water supply is even more valuable for the university. During the pandemic, she said UNC saw just how costly it can be to disrupt campus operations by sending students home. The school considered doing that in the early 2000s due to water shortages, so the reclaimed water system provides a comfort that it could keep students at Carolina in the case of a severe drought.
Since 2007, the university’s potable water consumption has decreased by more than 30%. Reclaimed water is also an integral facet of UNC’s 2022 water plan, which outlines strategies for reducing its total water footprint.
“Sustainability is a pillar of Carolina,” Elliott said. “We’re always looking for ways to conserve resources like energy and water. I think that’s really evident when you see that we’re using less water overall today than we did in decades past, even though our campus is growing.
“But we also want to be a good community partner,” she continued. “We can use this reclaimed water to conserve additional potable water and make sure that we’re operating seamlessly and that our neighbors can continue to live like there is no drought.”
Featured image via OWASA
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