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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNews Article - Dam and Drought - The Fayetteville Observer North Carolina's Oldest Newspaper The Fayetteville Observer ESTABLISHED 1816 RICHARD M. LILLY --- President and Publisher, 1949-1971 RAMON L. YARBOROUGH President and Publisher ASHTON W. LILLY Chairman of the Board JOEL S. JENKINS General Manager CHARLES A. CLAY Editor ROBERT S. WILSON Managing Editor JOHN L MERRITT News Editor THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1977 Editorials Chapel Hill, the Sahara of Orange County, is in what can be called an extremely awkward position as it threshes about trying to keep from going bone-dry. At the moment, the town's own water supply is critically low and emergency relief is being piped in from Durham as Durham's situation permits. Negotiations are continu- ing for a pipeline to Hillsborough where water is plentiful, although the pipeline couldn't be completed in time to relieve this summer's water shortage. In about two weeks some 20,000 students will return to the university at Chapel Hill. The university is digging wells as Iast as it can and the town is studying plain, for rationing water. Chapel Hill's mayor, in a display of leadership that will not be understandable to everybody, has had a well dug in the yard at his home. And then there is Cane Creek, a small stream in western Orange flowing through some of the finest dairy land in the state. Chapel Hill's extremely awkward posit- ion lies in its efforts to hold off creation of the 14,300-acre Jordan Lake, through still anoth- er court appeal, at the same time trying to dam up Cane Creek and ,turn that lush, rolling dairy land into a reservoir, and all the while dripping down toward its last drop. One of the many peculiar things about the situation is that Chapel Hill's mayor, James Wallace, a member of the State Envionmen- tal Management Commission, was a party to the original suit which halted work on the Jordan reservoir in Chatham County, only a few miles from Chapel Hill. Wallace is a strong advocate of pursuing the court fight, against creation of the Jordan Lake. He is also a strong advocate of thrusting the Cane Creek reservoir upon those dairy farmers and others in western Orange adamantly opposed to it. The difference in the two reservoirs, as Mayor Wallace sees it, is basically one of water quality. Chapel Hill, among others, dumps sewage into a stream feeding into the Jordan reservoir, so the lake could be expected to be as polluted as most other lakes in the state. Chapel Hill doesn't want to improve its sewage treatment, a costly process, although Mayor Wallace says this is not a consideration in his position. In Cane Creek, on the other hand, the water is as pure as the pastures are green, and urban sprawl, such as that surrounding Chapel Hill's own water supply, has not yet come to the Cane Creek community, so land grabs would be comparatively cheap. That doesn't mean that land acquisition would be easy; the Cane Creek dairy farmers have been running surveyors' off their land regularly at gunpoint. Chapel Hill, while maybe not totally self-serving in its positions on the Jordan Lake and Cane Creek, is obviously callous to many of the factors involved. One of the initial and still foremost reasons for construc- tion of the Jordan dam is flood control, water quality, of course, has no bearing on flood control. Just because Chapel Hill is not bothered by floods is hardly reason to write off the $60 million project and have those downstream from the darn continue to suffer as they have through the years. Those dairy farmers in the Cane Creek community, many of whose !and has been in the same family for generations, should not have to suffer simply for Chapel Hill's ease and convenience. Growth, which Chapel Hill has more of than it can handle, always exacts a price, but there is rio reason why innocent dairy farmers 10 or 12 miles away should have to pay it. The town has workable alternatives: the. Jordan Lake, for one, whose water would be fit for municipal consumption if only Chapel Hill and others would stop polluting it; and, for another, enlargement of the town's present water supply, if only the university, by far the biggest water custom- er, woult permit it. This is mainly a local controversy, but in many ways it is also a classic confrontation and there are lessons in it for anyone willing to learn. One lesson, to be ignored only at grave risk, is that regional planning and regional development, particularly of water resources, is absolutely essential to meet today's needs. As incredible as it might seem, Chapel Hill is now in its ninth year of drought, more or less running, and still has rio clear idea of what to do about it. Seven of those years, of course, have been spent fighting the Jordan reservoir. Another lesson, one that Cane Creek is trying to teach Chapel Hill, is that property rights, even though they often collide with what appears to be the common good, are fundamental to our heritage and ought to be respected. Otherwise, good luck, Chapel Hill.