Water Water Everywhere

Tonight the Chapel Hill Town Council will hold a public hearing on the proposal to create a public stormwater management utility.

I have to admit, it took me a while to "get" stormwater issues. (And I majored in environmental science so it shouldn't be so hard.) The really important point is that water doesn't recognize property lines so if it falls on my land but it doesn't get absorbed, it just flows right on to the next lot. And so on and so on until you have a flood at Eastgate and Camelot apartments. Or something like that. So we all need to take more responsibility for the water coming from our own property.

This new utility seems like it could be a good solution. But I was dismayed to learn recently that Carrboro and UNC would not be participating. That certainly seems to handicap the whole thing.

Here's the Chapel Hill Herald's preview of tonight's hearing. Interesting that the Council is also looking at OWASA's expansion plans tonight. Due to the nature of how it works, the wastewater treatment plant has to be in a very low lying area. As a result, the Council is being asked to suspend some of it's own stormwater regulations to allow OWASA to expand the facility. Oh, the irony!