Complete

The town has budgeted $20K per year for the next few years to have outside vendors perform leak detection. The town spent $40K in its last fiscal year to assess its entire system. Town crews addressed every leak noted. Town crews also have leak detection equipment for spot checking suspected leaks. Water system rates naturally lend itself to conservation strategies. As such, it is not something the town is focused upon advocating.

Commercial connections include all irrigation accounts. Residential non-metered connections includes 1 for estimated service and main line leaks. Metered connections include compound meter registers which are measured and summarized from both the high and low registers. Institutional includes fire department water use for training and firefighting counted as one unmetered connection in addition to water main breaks. Also, in 2024 some tanks were cleaned and refilled. System process includes hydrant and interconnection flushing, backwashing filters, basin cleaning, sewer jetting, and hydrant flow testing.

In 2024, several fiber companies were working around the water system and there were more than normal strikes to water services and mains, plus the tank cleaning, which is why our unaccounted-for water is higher than normal.

Per voluntary capacity management agreement 3 cfs is required to be measured at the Hillsborough USGS Eno River gauge. While West Fork of Eno River is listed, it is our run of river supply reservoir and not an intake location. As such, the withdraw is reported as zero. DEQ DWR staff have indicated preference for this to remain as a surface source. Note our intake location at Lake Ben Johnson encompasses West Fork of the Eno River, Lake Orange (owned by Orange County), and Seven Mile Creek plus the Eno River itself.

No purchases were made between entities for this year.

The town is completing a wastewater treatment master plan as it is currently nutrient discharge limited due to Falls Lake Rules. The town is an active participant in the Upper Neuse River Basin Association and is vying for a rules revision as to upgrade our treatment plant for more nutrient removal with little beneficial improvement to Falls Lake is an extreme monetary investment our customers and our financial benchmark obligations cannot support.

The town has a finite water and sewer system boundary established by intergovernmental agreement with surrounding jurisdictions. The wastewater plant is limited in nutrient discharge. The roads through town are limited by lack of space to widen and NCDOT's schedule. Only so much capacity can be accommodated in all infrastructure. Thus it is anticipated that the town will reach its desired capacity by 2060, if not before.

The focus is now on upgrading linear assets. Increasing plant capacity to accommodate growth is not foreseen in the next 15-20 years unless the town board determines it is desired. Based on an analysis of new customer addresses and consumption, consumption is negative than five years earlier likely due to conservation because of high rates. The average residential growth over the last five years was almost 2% per year, however residential service consumption has gone down by a little over 1% per year since 2019.1% growth is assumed for residential.

The non-residential portion reflects even worse on consumption, ranging from being between 10% - 35% less consumption than in 2019 for commercial, institutional and manufacturing accounts. As such, future projections are minimized. An industrial park will be constructed by 2030 that is allocated 108,000 gpd. This has been accounted for by 2030 but no further new industrial activity is anticipated. There may be mixed use developments coming to town so commercial growth consumption, being mostly office and retail, is projected at 0.5% per year as is institutional.

System process water is projected to increase by 0.1% each year although we anticipate a slight decrease next year after the fiber companies are completing boring work around our service area and main and service strikes requiring flushing after repairs are reduced.