Raleigh's Biggest Water Customers Cutting Back

Raleigh, N.C. — The Raleigh City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to move to Stage 2 water restrictions on Feb. 15. The decision came as council members heard more about the conservation efforts of major water users.

North Carolina State University; city, county and state government offices and several businesses have eliminated outdoor irrigation, stopped washing vehicles, cut back hours of operation, plugged leaks and adjusted processes to save millions of gallons of water each week, officials said.

"It seems like everything that we do requires some sort of water,” WakeMed spokeswoman Debra Laughery said.

Starting with the toilets, WakeMed has cut back on water use.

"We've installed over 400 new low-flush handles where you go up if it's clear and down if it's not," Laughery said.

The hospital has also stopped watering its landscape and installed low-flow shower heads.

Less water is also flowing out of the showers at North Carolina State University. NCSU spokesman Keith Nichols said all residence halls were recently outfitted with low-flow shower heads.

"Since July 2007, we've saved about 57 million gallons of water," Nichols said.

NCSU is home to more than 30,000 students, staff and faculty. With Raleigh's main water supply, Falls Lake, dwindling, the school has also launched a "water-saving challenge" with students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"We all need to do something to make sure we can, pardon the expression – weather the drought," Nichols said.

Some major users also expressed interest in tapping into a proposed city system to recycle treated wastewater for irrigation, air conditioning and other outdoor uses.

The city has refused to release just how much water commercial and industrial customers use, citing privacy. Collectively though, industrial customers, like Pepsi Bottling Ventures, use an average of 243 times what the average house uses per day.

Other companies that made Raleigh's major water-users list are: Ajinomoto, Alsco, Cargill, Covidien, Glaxo Smith Kline, City of Raleigh, State of North Carolina, Suntronics and Wake County.

The Stage 2 restrictions would have automatically come into effect if Raleigh's water supply dipped to 90 days, but with the supply in Falls Lake predicted to last until mid-May, Mayor Charles Meeker said he decided to push for tighter restrictions sooner. For more on Stage 2 restrictions, click here.

35 Comments

WRAL.com welcomes your comments on this story. All comments are moderated prior to publication based on our posting guidelines. Please review them prior to posting and if your message is not approved.

VIEW ALL 35 COMMENTS

This story is closed for comments. Comments on WRAL.com news stories are accepted and moderated between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Latest Comments

Maybe we ALL need to NOT buy any Pepsi products, I know I won't.

quebholder
February 15, 2008 8:48 a.m.

What about Pepsi/AQUAFINA, Raleigh's largest municipal customer?! Is bottled water more important than water for our citizens? Money talks! Get some common sense Mr. Meeker! "Raleigh leaders have opted to further punish homeowners and the green industry (nurseries, landscapers) businesses by outlawing hand watering. I keep waiting for these same leaders to require all restaurants to close or only use paper plates and cups. How about that long-awaited ban of drinking Aquifina water, which is pumped from Falls Lake? Yes, if the spigot to the Pepsi-Cola plant (Raleigh’s largest municipal customer) was shut off, the water savings would be tremendous. Instead, city leaders have chosen the easy path of punishing only the green industry...and now the power washing industry. All other industries are only asked to follow best management practices."

HangOn
February 11, 2008 8:58 a.m.

SaveEnergyMan "I can see Raleigh getting a permit to build a plant (or help Cary expand) and piping water to Raleigh. That would still be years down the road though and couldn't help anytime soon." The state would have to approve the inter-basin transfer. Not likely for anything over 2 MGD

getrealpeople
February 6, 2008 6:51 p.m.

"Who's going to pay to have your landscape done again and with mature trees, grass, etc."

Unless you were extremely foolish in your choice of trees, the trees won't be terribly affected. Grass, of course, is now toast. I put in some new trees and about 20 bushes in the spring. After about a month of water, I haven't added much and they are doing just fine. Mature shrubs and trees are doing OK so far. Some of my perennials died and others lived. I've split the live ones and eventually my entire garden will be drought tolerant.

My veggies have suffered, but I have plans to use excess water and runoff next summer.

Through a glass darkly
February 6, 2008 4:28 p.m.

bendal, you're right. Jordan Lake was built as a water source for Cary/Apex, Durham, and Chapel Hill. I believe Cary is currently the only municipality with an intake. Cary can sell water to Durham or Raleigh, but they don't have the capacity to do anything but make a dent in the demand for those two cities. Chapel Hill maintains a right to draw water from Jordan, but doesn't as it has three water sources it uses and there's enough for the foreseeable future. Chapel Hill is also connected to the Durham and Hillsborough systems and they sell/buy water from each as needed.

Jordan has a watershed area three times that of Falls and a much lower demand for the water. That's why Falls is so low and Jordan is nearly full. I can see Raleigh getting a permit to build a plant (or help Cary expand) and piping water to Raleigh. That would still be years down the road though and couldn't help anytime soon.

SaveEnergyMan
February 6, 2008 3:09 p.m.