ashe

Siler City, for example, is dependent on the Town of Liberty's sewage for water in drought conditions. As a young pup I can remember a request that Liberty put out more discharge, even poorly treated, just to get it down to Siler City. There are more examples of this in NC. Lot's of places drink their WWTP discharge as it is always cleaner than the river. Not always cleaner than some rare wells, but cleaner than the rivers.

Dog, depends on you define filthy.

The South Fork is nasty until about 4-5 miles south of 221/421 via the run of the river and I would drink directly from the WWTP test effluent site than the river, however below that point, depending on the season and flow, the river cleans itself using a combination of sunlight and oxygen. However it never gets clean enough to risk drinking because of the livestock, and the septic tanks on the banks of the river.

Depending on the level of filtration used by Boone, they will actually should take metals out of the river at treatment time and discharge time.

http://ofmpub.epa.gov/tmdl_...ed.control

This above site shows results in segments of the river. The S. Fork of the New is "impaired" through the Town of Boone meaning the little bugs in the water samples are dead or very unhealthy. This is all upstream of Boones WWTP. The State claims in the report that they don't know why the little bugs are dead - duh, urban street runoff into the stream combined with pesticides, nitrogen, etc., etc.

The big irony to me is that the New River is a sewer for SW Virginia. Lead mines galore, large chemical plants, and the military weapons plant near Radford, etc.

The North Fork of the New is a very clean river, but not pristine in any way. The South Fork "looks" clean but the truth is that it's recreational quality water, not pristine headwaters of any kind.

My point then since all of it seems to be hidden and there may be a reason until boone gets it water intake. The river is like you say, filthy.

Dog,

So far this is the best I can find:

http://www.water.ncsu.edu/new.html

This above report is from NC State that notes the New is fairly clean but has problems with Tree Farming runoff, Ammonia, Point Source, Metals from old mines, etc., etc. The heart of the report has a broken link. Indeed finding an actual report on the quality of the New is much tougher than these things used to be - I wonder of the new group at DEHNR have something to do with that.

Point is though that by the time you get to the discharge point of Boone' WWTP the South Fork of the New River is a defacto urban stream - an open toilet for malfunctioning septic tanks, a received of all sorts of metals and volatile organics from street and highway run-off. Ammonia loads from animal and livestock, etc. Anything that gets into Kraut Creek, goes in the S. F. of the New.

Boone discharge limits on the WWTP produce a more consistent and cleaner water than what you will find in the S Fork of the New from the area of the Golf Course to the discharge point below US 421/US221 Bridge. Consistent is a key word because the Town is testing its effluent every day, the River is not tested every day.

Claiming that the South Fork of the New River is somehow a pristine water source is a tactical mistake and I see the mistake made over and over again. The issue is who controls the final product, and whose watershed gets new development controls.

The real issue is who controls the final product and where the product will be allowed to go. As it is planned now, Ashe gets watershed restrictions and not one sip from the cup despite the intake being in Brownwood.

Do you have any further to add to the conversation, Earl?

I think this is the craziest thing ever We should stand up and fight this for all we are worth Boone is just looking to control the entire region! If you have a lock on the water you have control of everything in the area! It has been shown time and time over Boone has enough water for many years to come they are using funny math to justify the need for this new water intake!

Ocm do you have any figures on the quality of water put in the river and the river water itself or is this just your opinion?

I believe that is the case. But I'm not sure how long that law has been in place. So some old systems might be grandfathered

If I am not mistaken there is a state law that says any water taken from a water shed must be return that water shed only. This is the reason that Boone doesn't have an intake on the Watauga river

Boone has 3 intakes at the moment one on Winkler's creek just below the water treatment plant on Deck hill and one that is feed from a reservoir that is on up Winkler's creek Rd and a second on the new river over behind the National guard armory.

They are also interconnect with Blowing rock who get their water from a lake built on park service land. I believe they are also interconnected with ASU who has a water intake on Howards creek which is pump to their treatment plant on Rainbow trail and then on to the college.

Joe is right. There is no intake or watershed restrictions on the Watauga. Beech mountain recently tried to get an intake, but it was shot down. They wanted to take more water in instead of fixing their wore out leaky water system they have.

I sincerely hope no one is preparing for another set of stupid theories regarding pharmaceuticals or the lowering of the free board in the river a tenth of an inch.

That crap is just laughed at by folks in Raleigh and by the Feds.

Todd had a chance to be a player in this, but they were too lazy or too unwilling to tax themselves 5 cents to re-incorporate. They were told that if they re-incorporated they could block the Town of Boone from that site with their own zoning controls, but they chose do nothing other than chase unicorns and fairies.

Moreover there is already an inter-basin transfer from the Watagua into the New via the Boone WWTP, I don't know the numbers off hand, but Boone puts more water into the New than would be in the New without the WWTP.

What's going to happen if Boone can free itself from the Watagua intake is that Boone and Watauga County will be free of watershed restrictions along the Watauga that will then go into the affect along the New from the point of the intake out to 10 miles as the water drainage runs.

The reason to fight is to get a share of the allocation, and to prevent the Town of Boone from preventing good economic development in Ashe County along US 221.

Secret - you are already drinking Boone's effluent. The effluent is cleaner than the river water itself.

I hope the person making the presentation is not going to come with some lame conservation argument that fails from a scientific standpoint. There is not a good conservation argument against the intake and any so-called conservationist needs to ready to remove horses, cattle, and tires out of the New River watershed.

The only LEGITMATE arguments are economic, based on turning over the water to the capricious fools on the Boone Town Council.

They are a group of narrow, closed minded individuals who try to pass themselves off as Republicans. Truth is the Republicans want nothing to do with them. But, everyone, in this instance should be very wary of this plan to take water from the South Fork, run it through the citizens of Boone, and then put it back into the river before it gets to us. Drinking cheap whiskey I bad enough. Drinking other people's after they have enjoyed it I worse.