Southern Kind of Life » Drought

Water Restrictions Relaxed

Tanner Lovelace — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:16:13 +0000

So, now that our reservoirs are full, Durham has moved from Stage IV water restrictions to Stage III. (ref) Stage III restrictions state that no person shall “[i]ntroduce water into any decorative fountain, pool or pond except where the water is recycled.” I wonder if the little fountain we have in our front flower garden, that has been sitting idle for months would qualify as one “where the water is recycled”. You put water in it and then the water goes up and then it comes down. Of course, it does then evaporate fairly quickly so it’s probably not a good idea to run it. Also, the ordinance adds that no person shall “[u]se water for any unnecessary purpose” and a fountain in the front yard, while nice, really isn’t necessary. So, we’ll probably leave it as is, but I did wonder.

Happy New Year!

Tanner Lovelace — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:29:27 +0000

Happy New Year to everyone out there! Of course, considering I just started this blog yesterday, there’s probably nobody reading (except maybe Mike who I showed the link to at the New Year’s party tonight). Anyway, here’s hoping that this year will be better than the last, that our drought will end, and that progress on the ATT bridge over I-40 will actually happen.

Water Shortage

Tanner Lovelace — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:47:21 +0000

For Christmas this year, my six year old son got a Scientific Explorer’s My First Weather Science and Learning Kit. On Saturday I helped him put it up in our back yard. We had good timing because Sunday we had the most rain we’ve had in a while. At our house in my son’s weather station, we recorded one and 7/16 inches of rain. Compare that to the entire month of November when my wife and I recorded only 2 rainfails of 0.1 and 0.2 inches each! I had been wondering if this had affected the water supply in Durham and after looking at the city web page about water supply I see that indeed it has. According to the city this is what our water supply look like:

Current days of supply

Using the weekly average demand for Dec. 24 – Dec. 30, 2007 of 17.37 MGD:

Lake Michie and Little River combined, 60 days of supply of easily accessible, premium water

Teer Quarry, 30 days of supply (anticipated online late December).

Lake Michie & Little River combined, 59 days of less accessible water below the intake structures

Total days of supply = 149

This is a far cry better than the around 36 or so days we previously had in the Lake Michie and Little River reservoirs. And, even though it messes up my ability to go mountain biking, here’s hoping it rains again and soon!