November 2005

Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday November 19, 2005

Last summer, as the threat loomed of a Wal-Mart just south of the Chatham County line, there was much talk of how to stop the retail giant from moving in and sucking the life-blood out of local business. Less attention was paid to strengthening our home grown retail sector to create an economic base that might withstand such an onslaught.

As the Wal-Mart style big box has spread, the business districts of small town America have been hard hit, losing their historic retail anchors and leaving residents to drive out to a freeway interchange for the nearest strip mall.

In 2001, Powell, Wyoming was in trouble when the Stage store, the latest owner of the downtown department store that had operated for generations, decided to pull out.

Citizens of Powell formed a corporation and began selling stock to open their own store. Some 800 investors bought shares, and in the summer of 2002 the Mercantile opened in a 7,500-square-foot space downtown that once housed a portion of the Stage store.

So I've been wondering why our neighbors to the east and south have been generally freaking out over water, while Orange County has none of our familiar mandatory conservation rules in place. (I got so used to it in 2002 that I started to enjoy showering with a bucket that I then used to water my garden.)

I feel like I should know this, but is our lack of drought due solely to OWASA's now-permanent conservation measures or are there other factors keeping our western end of the Triangle moister this year?

Either way, kudos to OWASA for continuing Orange County's position of environmental superiority in the Triangle.

Roses to Orange Water and Sewer Authority, for the long-range planning and year-round conservation measures that have kept our taps flowing while Raleigh and many other nearby areas face a water-supply crisis.