THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 27, 1994 TAG: 9407270397
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 32 lines
``Water is a finite resource,'' Nat Wilson, an N.C. Division of Water Resources engineer, told the Albemarle Water Resources Task Force on Tuesday. ``There can be no population growth beyond the available water supply.''
Wilson said water now being pumped by Texasgulf at Aurora, N.C., comes from the Castle-Hayne aquifer that originates upstate in the Raleigh and Wake County areas.
``The Castle-Hayne aquifer supplies water to coastal plain communities as far east as Wilmington,'' said Wilson. The Roanoke River that supplies Lake Gaston has its sources in other aquifers up in the Virginia mountains, he said.
``It's unlikely that the Castle-Hayne aquifer has much to do with the Roanoke River,'' Wilson added. For more than a decade, Virginia Beach has been trying to overcome North Carolina and U.S. opposition to a plan to pump Lake Gaston water to the Virginia coast.
As populations increase in the next millennium, Wilson and other experts expect legal battles over ownership of aquifer waters.
Can Raleigh eventually charge Texasgulf, and possible northeastern purchasers, for point-of-origin water pumped out of the Castle-Hayne aquifer? ``I don't even want to think about that,'' said a member of the task force. by CNB