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Water Use Committee Meets Sept. 25, Continues Talks Regarding Old WHS Reserve, Legislative Updates

By Jesse Wood

Sept. 19, 2013. The Boone Town Council and Water Use Committee meets on Wednesday, Sept. 25, at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers on Blowing Rock Road. 

The Water Use Committee will continue discussions regarding legislative updates and potential impacts to the proposed water intake project. The board will also discuss and possibly take action regarding the expiration of Ordinance 11-01, which delineates that the old Watauga High School water reserve will expire at the end of the year. This isn’t the first time that the item is up for discussions at the Water Use Committee meetings. 

Watauga County owns the old WHS property that resides within the Town of Boone and has been trying to sell the property for years. Developers and officials with the county maintain that a bigger water reserve is needed to make the property more marketable. 

This is from a HCPress.com article published less than two weeks ago that includes two letters from Watauga 

Earlier this summer, Young drafted a letter dated June 17 on behalf of the Boone Town Council to see if the Town of Blowing Rock and Watauga County would interested in participating in a “cost-share” to help provide additional water to areas outside of Boone “in order to gauge the County’s support of expanding water service in Boone and the surrounding areas,” the letter read.

Two days later, County Manager Deron Geouque responded on behalf of the Watauga County Board of Commissioners that more information was needed – as the letter provided little details as to what a “cost-share” would entail and requested that the Town of Boone provide dates for a possible meeting between the two entities.

While thanking the Town of Boone in considering the county “as a potential partner in providing water resources to the community,” Geouque noted in the letter that the 150,000-gallon water allocation for the old Watauga High School property, which Rick Miller, the Town of Boone’s Public Utilities Director, said is set to expire at the end of the year, is a crucial component to the successful marketing and sell of the property. In that letter, Geouque inquired about the status of that allocation and the possibility of increasing the allocation.

On Monday, Rick Miller said the Water Use Committee will address the old WHS water allocation at its next meeting in September. Miller also added that other than that, he hasn’t “heard of any meetings” pertaining to water resources regarding the town and county.

Watauga County Board of Commissioner Chair Nathan Miller said the he hasn’t heard of any other progressions regarding water issues between the county and town since those two letters either. Chair Miller has said previously that he doesn’t “have a problem” with the intake.

Read about what happened at the previous Water Use Committee meeting in July and the back-and-forth letters between the county and town regarding water. here.

Water Use meeting