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Some of y'all really need to learn about a well and septic system before you post some of this nonsense I've read. 85% of the water used by a household that has it's own well and septic system is returned to the static water supply the well receives it's water from. The Earth has a natural filtering and cleansing system so the water received is clean even though some of it did come from the septic system. There is not one large lake under the surface that everyone's well gets it's water from. If that was the case then every well would have the same depth and flow rate. My well is 105 ft. deep and supplies 15gpm while my neighbor's well is 330ft. deep and only supplies 2.5gpm. If a well dries up it was in trouble before the drought. No, I'm not saying it's impossible for a well to dry up but the chances are slim if it's a good well to begin with. My water usage from my private well has absolutely no effect on the level of Falls lake since the lake receives all of it's water from areas listed in the watershed zone.
By the way, I talked with the owner of a well drilling company a few weeks ago and asked him how business was. He said he's 4 months behind on drilling new wells. He said he hasn't had to drill any new wells to replace ones that had dried up but was actually drilling wells inside the city limits so people could use them just for irrigation.
I want to write a check ...... but I don't know how much money I have in the bank! What do I do?
Well owners do typically do a great job of conserving water. But this isn’t about regulating how much they use. Not at all. The state wants to know how much water well owners are using so they can include the data in a massive water resource model they working to develop. You can’t develop an accurate water resource model unless you know two things:
1) Total Amount of available water
2) Total Demand for water
From the article: “their water use is an unknown variable for state officials trying to develop accurate models to manage water resources during the ongoing drought”
We have a pretty good idea of how much water we have in Falls Lake and Jordan Lake, and the United States Geological Survey is conducting research to better determine the groundwater capacity this area has. So the first part of the equation is being answered. Now it is time to figure out the second part (Demand for water).
It is kind of hard to determine the demand for water when you don’t know how much of it 40% of the population is using.
From the article: “lawmakers are considering fining well owners if they don't report their water usage”
They are only considering fining well users if they don’t report. I doubt they ever would. This is most likely only being considered because they know it will be difficult to get people to participate in providing their water usage numbers unless they make it mandatory. We all know how well the “voluntary” water conservation measures were followed by the general public a few months ago. It was abysmal.
Don’t forget, this isn’t only about individual residents on private wells. This is also about knowing how much water is being used by huge planned communities that are served by community wells. There are also some large businesses that pull massive amounts of water from wells too. Knowing how much water everybody is using is the only way to develop a good water resources model and ultimately develop a water budget that the region needs to stay under.
I wonder what the definition of 'Private" is than? Here is one right off an on line dictionary.
"Belonging to a particular person or persons, as opposed to the public or the government"
If that is the true definition than the person or persons that own the well can use it as they wish. They paid for it, they maintain it, and they use it. Its as simple as that.
If they want to conserve like everyone else that is fine. If they want to wash their cars 15 or 20 times a day that is fine. If they want to fill their 10,000 gallon swimming pool every other day that is fine too. If they want to water their 3.2 acre lawn every morning and evening that is fine too! It is their to do as they wish.
I believe you will find a majority of well owners that are conserving like the rest of us using the Greater City of Raleigh water system.
There are certain basic liberty's our constitution provides us and one of them is personal property ownership. Please don't let our government take that away too!
May our thirst for freedom and liberty never go away or in this case dry!
I'm with NRG here. If you read the article you'll see that it isn't really about regulating how much water well users are using. The article is only about lawmakers wanting to find out how much they use. I didn't see anything actually mentioning regulating usage, just trying to calculate it. It doesn't say one thing about well owners conserving/not conserving or decimating the water supply, etc. That is not under debate in this particular article.
The questions I would be asking is, what's next? Ok, once the state has this information, what sorts of water management models are they going to develop? Will these models impact well owners, and if so, how? These are questions that definitely need to be answered before the state can start fining anyone for not participating in something that is essentially a survey.
I really find the quality of WRAL's online articles to be rather poor in many cases, from grammar to actual information. This article doesn't really tell us much of anything.
I wonder what the definition of 'Private" is than? Here is one right off an on line dictionary.
"Belonging to a particular person or persons, as opposed to the public or the government"
If that is the true definition than the person or persons that own the well can use it as they wish. They paid for it, they maintain it, and they use it. Its as simple as that.
If they want to conserve like everyone else that is fine. If they want to wash their cars 15 or 20 times a day that is fine. If they want to fill their 10,000 gallon swimming pool every other day that is fine too. If they want to water their 3.2 acre lawn every morning and evening that is fine too! It is their to do as they wish.
I believe you will find a majority of well owners that are conserving like the rest of us using the Greater City of Raleigh water system.
There are certain basic liberty's our constitution provides us and one of them is personal property ownership. Please don't let our government take that away too!
May our thirst for freedom and liberty never go away or in this case dry!
Attitudes like yours makes me hope that well users do become regulated. If all the idiots with their highly manicured lawns who waste city water switch to wells to keep their lawns pretty, it will undoubtedly cause the same stress on aquifers that we've seen on surface water.
Attitudes like yours makes me hope that well users do become regulated. If all the idiots with their highly manicured lawns who waste city water switch to wells to keep their lawns pretty, it will undoubtedly cause the same stress on aquifers that we've seen on surface water.
I am with you 100% that people with city water should not be able to have their own wells too! But that is not the issue here, it is about people with 'just' well water and what they chose to do with it. It is theirs my friend whether will like it to be or not.
I'm already making my signs that say, 'Down with Manicured lawns and up with Falls Lake levels'.
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I want to write a check ...... but I don't know how much money I have in the bank! What do I do?
