By Jesse Wood
July 25, 2014. The Boone Town Council voted to keep serving the 398 water users that are in the extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) and to suspend any new water connections into the ETJ until “hardships” are defined.
These were recommendations by the Water Use Committee, which includes members of the Boone Town Council, made at a committee meeting on Tuesday. The town’s water ordinance will have to be amended.
“We had a real thorough discussion at the Water Use Committee meeting,” Council Member Rennie Brantz said. “I think we should support them.”
That meeting was scheduled in light of N.C. General Assembly’s decision to pass legislation that abolishes the town’s ETJ come Jan. 1, 2015. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Dan Soucek and passed the legislature in June.
The Boone Town Council also directed staff and town attorney to draft a set of parameters for the definition of hardship albeit financial or site-specific, so members of the public would know or not if they would be eligible to appear before Boone Town Council and plead their case in the future.
For more detail about this issue, read a prior story about the Water Use Committee meeting, which includes links to prior stories about this water and ETJ issue that has become linked at the hip.