Status unchanged on proposed

water intake facility for Watauga
By Ron Fitzwater

Coming armed more with statements and manifestoes than questions, residents of Ashe and Watauga counties gathered with the Ashe County Board of Commissioners and the Boone Town Council for a town hall meeting on the proposed water intake facility in Watauga County.

While not filled to capacity, the auditorium of Westwood Elementary School held more than 120 residents from Ashe and Watauga counties with the majority coming from the community of Todd.

Judy Porter-Poe, chairwoman of the Ashe County Board of Commissioners, welcomed those in attendance to the meeting, stating that she hoped the evening would “bring answers to the people who needed them.”

Poe then turned the meeting over to Boone Mayor Loretta Clawson for a PowerPoint presentation on the proposed facility.

Reading from her prepared notes, Clawson began by saying, “As a municipality, the town of Boone has a responsibility to provide clean water to its citizens.”

Clawson spoke on the current and projected needs of Boone and why the new facility would be needed.

Clawson told the group that at current rates of growth and usage, the town was quickly reaching its capacity to provide water to its residents in spite of the success of active campaigns to promote water conservation since 2005.

Clawson spoke about the withdrawal and treatment processes and explained that, in the big picture, minimal amounts of water would be removed and that almost all the water, “99 percent,” would be put back, via, an advanced waste water treatment facility, and that “the water contains fewer impurities than when it was taken out.”

Clawson concluded by inviting residents of Ashe County to come and see the other water intake facilities the town operates to observe, in her opinion, what a good job the town does.

Following Clawson’s presentation, Dean Chris Robinson of Wilkes Community College-Ashe Campus, assumed duties as facilitator and opened the floor up for questions.

Both the board and council brought their respective staffs with them, with Boone also providing representatives from W. K. Dickson, the Charlotte-based engineering firm that conducted the survey of the proposed facility site.

Rules set at the beginning of the meeting that three-minute questions with a one-minute follow-ups would be the process quickly went out the window, and Robinson spent the bulk of the evening trying to keep the pace rolling.

No new information was brought to light that had not been presented in previous public meetings held on the subject and far more time was spent by speakers making statements rather than asking questions.

For their part, the elected officials and industry experts were cordial and attentive to the comments and questions posed by the speakers and attempted to answer questions posed to them. But more times than not, they were unable to provide specific statistical data due to the fact that the final engineering report was not yet completed and the information was not available. This news didn’t please the crowd, and the sounds of groans were repeatedly heard each time the unpublished report was referenced.

The questions did fall along specific lines: did Boone look at other options? Does Boone care about the impact on the river? Have the Ashe County commissioners taken all steps, both legal and political, to try and stop the project? These questions were asked repeatedly, in various ways.

Speaking more than other members of the Boone Town Council, mayor pro tem Lynne Mason told the crowd that the town had looked into other options, but quite simply that this facility worked best economically and to provide for the needs of the town. Her comments were echoed by council member Janet Pepin, who defended the measures taken by Boone to conserve water and to be looking out for future needs.

Impact on the river, as spelled out by Clawson in her opening presentation, will be low. The officials did admit that pharmaceuticals would be a problem, but that currently there was no filtration system designed that could remove them, so literally, it was a moot point.

Ashe County commissioners simply listened unless directly spoke to, and the discomfort the board felt was evident. When repeatedly asked if they had done everything possible to interfere or stop the project from moving forward, some board members became defensive.

“I just don’t understand what you think we can do,” Poe said. “This is a Watauga County project on Watauga County land: we have no right to tell them to do anything.”

Poe explained that the board, through its attorney, John Kilby, had spoken with the UNC Law College and had been told they had no more or less rights than a regular citizen in this matter. When pressed as to whether they would be willing to put political pressure on Watauga County and Boone, Poe asked, “What political pressure do you think we could bring?”

Clearly frustrated with the expectations of action the citizens had for the board’s involvement, board member Gerald Price addressed the crowd saying, “You say you are concerned about the river. Well, there is an intake from the river in West Jefferson. How come you’re not complaining about that?”

His question went unanswered.

Board member Gary Barber also began to show sign of impatience with the repetitive line of questions and echoed comments of his fellow board members that, from all aspects of the situation, they were completely powerless. “We have spoken to our state representative [Cullie Tarleton] and senator [Steve Goss], and we have looked into the matter back when it first came up, and there is nothing we can do except try to work with the town of Boone on your behalf,” he said.

The meeting that was scheduled to end at 9 p.m. was extended to 10 p.m. to allow citizens additional opportunities to speak, but nothing new came from the last hour.

Robinson called the meeting over and turned things over to Poe to close, much to the displeasure of some in the audience.

Following the meeting, Clawson was asked, barring any result from the unreleased study that showed an environmental or public safety danger, could anything stop the project from moving forward? She simply replied, “No.”

For more information on the New River water intake project, click to www.townofboone.net/index.php