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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCFE minutes 091117Orange County Commission for the Environment Meeting Summary September 11, 2017 Solid Waste Management Administration Building, Eubanks Road, Chapel Hill Present: Lynne Gronback (Chair), Bill Kaiser (Vice Chair), May Becker, Jeremy Marzuola, Matt Crook Absent: Peter Cada, Bill Newby, Jeanette O'Connor, Alan Parry, Sheila Thomas-Ambat, Marshall Gray Staff: Tom Davis, Brennan Bouma, Kim Livingston I. Call to Order Chair Gronback called the meeting to order at 7:34. II. Additions or Changes to Agenda None III. Approval of Draft Minutes from April 10, 2017. Bill Kaiser motioned to approve the minutes as written. Marshall Gray seconded. Minutes were approved unanimously. IV. Guest Presentations – OWASA Water Emergency - Ed Kerwin Key Lessons: Ed Kerwin presented on the key lessons OWASA learned in reviewing what happened during the water emergency. Among these lessons were: Be prepared locally and regionally for the “what-ifs”, Interconnection of drinking water systems is essential for resiliency, the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and your local and regional partners are essential, Communications should be open, honest and transparent. This is essential for maintaining/restoring trust and confidence. Beyond OWASA’s communications to their 21,000 customers, OC Alerts was a key resource for communications. So was the local news media. Water sources and redundancy: OWASA has several redundant sources of water including reclaimed water, but only one drinking water treatment plant. Jordan Lake and other interconnections are there for long droughts and other emergencies. For the rock quarry reservoir, mining will stop in 2030 and then the quarry will be available as well as a small backup source. It can take 2-3 days to bring in water from Hillsborough since the 8 miles of pipe is rarely used and they need to test for chlorine residuals and bacteria before it can be used. OWASA can almost bring in the whole daily winter demand from Durham/Jordan Lake if needed. Water efficiency and conservation techniques have also been an important factor to consider in long-term water supply planning. OWASA is selling roughly the same amount of water now than they did 20 years ago even though their customer base has doubled. Overview of what happened: The source of the fluoride was a malfunction of equipment not responding to the plant’s controls even though it said that it had. There was someone who could have caught the issue 1.5 hours earlier than they did, but it would probably not have changed the result of the decision to stop the plant. The Partnership for Safe Water is a voluntary EPA program to go above and beyond and OWASA was the first in the state to achieve the highest level and 9th in the nation. So this preparation, their interconnections, and their commitment to excellence encouraged them to take plant offline. No water with elevated fluoride left the treatment plant. 1.5 million gallons of over-fluoridated water needed to be diluted and pumped in a controlled manner from the water treatment plant into the wastewater system. The fluoride system has been off since February and is expected to be turned back on this month (Sept 2017). The water connection from Durham would have kept the plant operating at a moderate level, but then there was a water main break in the Foxcroft drive area of Chapel Hill. Only 2-3 breaks of this magnitude in the past 40 years, and they’d never had a fluoride overfeed. The source of the water main break was an incorrectly–installed water main pipe that was installed 42 years ago before OWASA was created. Over ½ of all OWASA’s pipes are less than 20 years old. With the water supply having dropped so low, OWASA requested Orange County activate the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to help manage the response. The EOC could focus on meeting all resident needs so that OWASA could focus on getting the plant back online. OWASA had recently undergone a water emergency simulation to practice this very type of scenario, and they were able to put that training into practice. Drinking water is used for firefighting and sanitation as well as for drinking water, so it is often unsafe to turn off water supply. Instead, OWASA customers were asked not to use the water. The OC Health Director also issued a “Do Not Use, Do Not Drink” to help with water conservation and out of an abundance of caution to help maintain pressure so that there would not be inflow of contaminated groundwater. 20psi is the state minimum. Water tests revealed that there was not contamination just under 24 hours later and the “Do Not Use, Do Not Drink” order was lifted. Post-Emergency Actions: OWASA hired two independent consultants to figure out why the fluoride was overfed and why the break happened. They were posted on their website before OWASA could read them in an effort to reinforce their objectivity and transparency. They have also instituted internal After-Action Reviews (AARs) to look into what happened in this emergency and also elsewhere. OWASA is currently doing a detailed risk assessment in both plants based on ISO 31000 standards. The results should be in next June. Results of the after action review for this event show that OWASA customers saved 37% of their normal usage while the “Do Not Use, Do Not Drink” order was in place. This was not all the essential use from hospitals. While this is a significant portion of the total demand, there is still a long way to go to ensure that non-essential water usage is curtailed when necessary. A parallel project to move to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) will help to pinpoint who is using water during those emergencies. A Note on Climate Change: Based on the available data, OWASA is expecting that future rainfall should be around the same, but climate change will make it more likely to happen in bigger bursts. This is much harder to manage productively. Lands Legacy Program – Kim Livingston This 17 year old program was borne out of a County Commissioners initiative 1998 (along with the CFE) to protect important lands: parkland, nature preserves, historic/cultural lands, etc. This program leverages a strong portion of its funding from federal, state, and other partners. Their 2014 to 2017 action plan is about to expire. It identifies priority lands to acquire/protect. Some projects will carry over into the next action plan. Agricultural easements are one tool used to protect land, but the terms of the agreements are flexible. Crook asked if a utility scale solar farm was ever put on a piece of land with a conservation easement. Staff said that this was unlikely, although there is an active project to explore getting an easement on a current solar farm. Nature preserves are another focus of the program. Conservation easements are sought for historical properties and for sensitive environmental areas. There may be connections to flood mitigation as well. Several County advisory boards are invited to provide comments and priorities for the next 3-year action plan. The CFE is invited to provide input into the priorities this meeting and next with the aim of finalizing the input for BOCC review in November. Currently, much of the priority is based on protecting headwaters of streams, but wildlife corridors and other connections may be a good way to expand. Marzoula will draft a paragraph for the whole Commission’s review and discussion. This will be a discussion item on the October 9th agenda. VII. CFE Committee Break-out Sessions Committees did not meet due to a lack of member attendance. VIII. Updates and Information Items IX. Adjournment Kaiser motioned to adjourn, Crook seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:20 pm. Summary by B. Bouma, AMS Staff Next Meeting: October 9, Whitted Building, 300 West Tryon St in Hillsborough PLEASE NOTE: The November 13 CFE meeting will be held at the Animal Services Building, 1601 Eubanks Road, Chapel Hill.