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Last year’s drought is still with us,
even though we had a very rainy Sunday
and we may see scattered rain later this
week.
Wake County, like most of
North Carolina, is listed as
experiencing moderate drought by the
state Department of Environment and
Natural Resources and by the North
Carolina Drought Management Advisory
Council.
As of Tuesday, the area had
a 6-inch rainfall deficit since May of
2005.
Terry M. Brown, water
control manager for the Wilmington
District of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, was much more cautious than
optimistic in his weekly update to
stakeholders. “Even with the recent
rains, inflows to Corps of Engineer
reservoirs (Falls, Kerr, Jordan,
Philpott and Scott) continue to lag much
below normal.
Falls Lake, the water source
for 350,000 people in Wake County, is at
normal pool level, but the Flat, Eno and
Little rivers that feed it continue to
have low flows. The flows increased
slightly Monday after Sunday’s rains but
fell off by Tuesday.
The Corps continues to
operate Falls Dam with limited releases,
now about 130 cubic feet per second, to
maintain the normal pool level of 251.5
feet above mean sea level.
The City of Raleigh has
eased water restrictions and returned to
voluntary water conservation while
urging its residents and people in other
towns who use its water – Wake Forest,
Rolesville, Wendell, Garner, Zebulon and
Knightdale – to use it wisely. |
