Triangle's Water Supply Cannot Keep Up With Residents' Demand

It has been a lesson in economics at the dawn of the new millennium. For Cary resident Annette King, rising water prices mean droopy plants.

"Thirty years ago, the plants wouldn't be wilted. I'd water them whenever I wanted to," King says. "Now I have to stop and say, whatday of the weekis it?"

On the other side of the Triangle, the town of Hillsborough was settled by colonists for its abundant water supply. Now, it has current residents like Tom Gray harking back to the American Revolution.

"It's taxation without representation," he says. "We're not residents of the town of Hillsborough"

Gray lives outside the town limits of Hillsborough. His bill is double what people pay one block away.

"If the rates go up another 30 percent for us or higher, you know you can see people in this, what I refer to as a working class neighborhood, paying $120, $150 a month, for just their water bill," he says.

Following the Eno downstream to the Neuse River, Wake Forest is waging a war over water with Raleigh. A flood of development is draining the Triangle's water supply.

In Cary, King worries that the future is not rosy.

"Unless they've got some plan that I don't know anything about, I don't know how they'll deal with it. I really don't," she says.

There are other Triangle communities with their share of water woes. Western Wake County towns of Apex and Holly Springs, as well as Durham, are asking the state for permission to take water out of Jordan Lake.