By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
For now, Salisbury city officials say they must stick with the current water supply contract they negotiated with China Grove some six years ago.
“This is driven by the water quality,” City Manager David Treme told Salisbury City Council Tuesday.
The current water flow going to China Grove is necessary to maintain the proper chlorine residual in the system and keep the water fresh and up to drinking water standards, according to utility personnel.
China Grove had asked that the contract be amended to reduce the amount of water the town is obligated to purchase from Salisbury daily.
Under the contract, China Grove receives 300,000 gallons a day, but town officials have said that’s more than they need. The average daily usage in China Grove is roughly 250,000 gallons a day, and town wells could supply virtually all of that total.
In recent weeks, Salisbury-Rowan Utilities investigated whether the amount of water going to China Grove could be reduced without affecting water quality.
Salisbury also has contracts to supply Kannapolis with 300,000 gallons of water a day and Landis with 75,000 gallons a day off the same supply line.
The line has a capacity to supply the southern Rowan County area (and beyond) with up to 1.1 million gallons a day.
Jeff Jones, planning and research manager with Salisbury-Rowan Utilities, said he graphed the chlorine residual in the line from July 2007 to April of this year, and the utility needs to be running at least 675,000 gallons of water a day through the line to maintain a high water quality.
More usage translates to a better chlorine residual.
If usage is reduced, the utility would have to flush the lines even more than it does now to maintain the proper chlorine. “We end up wasting water down there, (to maintain the water quality),” Treme said.
Salisbury could possibly look at reducing the amount of water it sends to China Grove, Treme said again Tuesday, if Kannapolis and Concord would need more water from Salisbury in the future.
Since Salisbury’s line connects to Kannapolis, it also could send water to Concord through Kannapolis’ connection.
The 2002 contract with China Grove was signed during one of the worst droughts in history. Projections then put the town’s water usage at 550,000 gallons a day. Town officials thought they could purchase the 300,000 gallons a day from Salisbury and supply the rest with their wells.
But some industrial operations shut down or took major steps to conserve water. Overall, customers also cut their water usage because of continuing drought conditions.