Water usage

data flows online
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Water-usage records are now available at the touch of a few keys, as municipal reports have been placed online as part of the state’s focus on drought monitoring.

The North Carolina Division of Water Resources has posted water usage for all public water systems in the state, with data updated daily and compiled weekly. The Web site is part of the division’s efforts to publicize the drought and encourage water conservation, as well as allow policy makers to track which conservation efforts make a difference in water usage.

The site allows people to follow the weekly usage of Appalachian State University and the towns of Beech Mountain, Blowing Rock and Boone, as well as the Mill Ridge Property Owners Association, which has 250 users on its water system.

Over the last five weeks of monitoring, ASU’s weekly water usage has fluctuated from 811,000 to 358,000 gallons per day. Beech Mountain’s has fluctuated from 275,000 to 325,000 gallons per week.

Boone’s has ranged from 1.4 million to 1.6 million gallons per day over the last five weeks, while Blowing Rock’s has ranged from 280,000 to 637,000 gallons per day.

The link can be found at www.ncwater.org/Drought_Monitoring/reduction/weeklyreport.php and allows for searching by county, river basin or date beginning with October or by public water system identification number.

The data is provided by the water system operators.

In response to the drought, Blowing Rock and Beech Mountain have imposed some water-use restrictions while Boone is encouraging voluntary water conservation.

Gov. Mike Easley ordered municipalities operating public water systems to begin reporting water use daily so the communities and water users could see if there were any effects from water conservation measures. Easley had asked people to cut their water usage and has been considering more statewide measures to conserve water.

All of North Carolina’s counties are suffering some level of drought, according to the state’s Drought Advisory Management Committee.

Watauga County is one of 71 counties rated as facing “Exceptional Drought,” the most severe category.