[Durham INC] May minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

Please let me know about any additions or corrections.  Thanks, pat

May Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham
NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt
May 23, 2017

Attending the meeting were:
Neighborhoods
Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen
Golden Belt – DeDreana Freeman
Lochaven Hills – Keith LePage
Long Meadow – Michael Throop
Orange Factory Road – Patrick and Marie Mahoney
Old North Durham –Peter Katz, John Martin
Trinity Park – Philip Azar
Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell
Watts-Hillandale – Tom Miller
Woodcroft – Scott Carter


Visitors
Will Wilson – DOST
Lynwood D. Best – City of Durham, NIS
Kirk Butts – COD Water Management
Bryant Green– COD Water Management
Annette Smith – Parks and Recreation

President DeDreana Freeman opened the meeting, and members introduced themselves.

Bryant Green of the Department of Water Management talked about the Central Park Water Line Replacement project, as well as other present and future work.  On May 25th at the Armory, there will be a public meeting on the Central Park project, which is expected to take from July 2017 to December 2018 to accomplish.  The project is replacing about 17,000 feet of water mains and valves and 3000 feet of sanitary sewer; these facilities were put in in the 1930’s so are at the end of even a generous expected life and don’t support new growth.  They will put in new pipes next to old ones, then cut over service one customer at a time, so service disruption should be pretty short (an hour in most cases, but longer for more complicated cases); in addition, there will be noise, road and lane closures and loss of on-street parking.  Similar work in American Tobacco will go out to bid next year.  Smaller projects replacing lines in very poor shape include Club Boulevard, North Elizabeth, West Main, and Sprunt Avenue. Other projects are dealing with streams getting too close to the lines (it isn’t possible to make soil over a sewer line as compact as nature does, so streams tend to sneak over), using stream restoration (makes streams “less sneaky”) and line relocation; projects include Aiken Avenue, Forest Hills, and Homeland Avenue. Finally there are lift station consolidations, upgrades, and rearrangements, such as Mud Creek and Fayetteville Road (with our rolling Piedmont terrain, it’s hard to do a lay-out that just uses gravity and doesn’t need some lifting).  You can always look at current projects at http://durhamnc.gov/971/Current-Projects or www.DurhamWaterProjects.org<http://www.DurhamWaterProjects.org>. The department has extensive GIS maps showing details such as quality and age of their facilities.  If you have brown water, call Durham One Call.  Fire code sets the minimum pressure that has to be available at any place.  In term of future demand, the strategy is (1) interconnections to other systems, (2) allocation from Jordan Lake (the Cape Fear basin seems to be less drought-sensitive than the Neuse), and (3) more efficient fixtures to that growth in demand is a lot less than growth in population.  There are discussions of a regional water treatment plant on Jordan Lake to Durham, OWASA and west Chatham.

The treasurer’s report was a reminder to pay dues.

The Committee for Neighborhood Heroes 2018 is looking at ways to consolidate and preserve records of past awards.

John Martin reported that a steering committee is meeting as a result of the grant to plan the Durham Belt Line, a potential rail-trail going north from downtown.  It is a 100-foot-wide strip, so could be a lot more than just a trail.  They are looking for a better name.

Neighborhood announcements

  *   The kick-off celebration of the West Ellerbee Creek Phase II Trail will be June 1 at 12 noon, at Westover Park on Maryland Avenue.
  *   Check out Rock the Park events at https://durhamnc.gov/1014/Rock-the-Park-Concert-Movie-Series
  *   Tuscaloosa-Lakewood has a study group participating in Spirit House's Durham Reads program, focusing on racism.

Note: Over e-mail after the meeting, it was decided that the candidate forums would be Thursday October 12th (mayoral candidates) and Thursday September 14th (council candidates).




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