For most of us, access to water is as simple as turning on the tap. We’ve even joked about people “spending money like water.” But water itself is fast becoming the rare commodity as we have taken our supplies for granted over the years.

Sid Garrett, manager of Cherokee County Water Authority, gave an update on local water supplies during a recent meeting of the Centre Lions Club. Garrett was also elected this past August as one of Centre’s newest city council members.

“As you well know, last year we had the worst drought in my life time and in a very long time,” said Garrett. It has affected our water and it is going to continue to affect the way we live and the way we approach water we do have for drinking water or for recreation.”

Cherokee County, Garrett said, gets its water from two springs, including Samford Springs in Spring Garden and Bristol Springs in Leesburg. Samford Springs was developed in 1997 and at one time produced about six million gallons of water per day. However, that figure changed dramatically with the recent drought.

“We do we monitor the spring and test it continuously,” said Garrett. “We have an operator on site at all times. But we started paying a little closer attention to the levels. We used to do it once a week. And now we have started monitoring the height, water, and velocity on a daily basis.

Cherokee County Water Authority, Garrett said, works with the Centre Waterworks and Sewer Board and also Northeast and can buy or sell water to these entities.

“We are all inner-connected,” said Garrett. “But, but guess what? When our water was low, their water was low. And we all know what happened to the lake last year. Levels got so low last year that it really got scary and they got very, very close to their intake.”

The springs continued their rapid decline, Garrett said.

“We got down to the worst-case scenario that we were only producing somewhere between 2 and 2.5 million gallons a day,” said Garrett. “That spring had been there forever and as far as we knew, it had always produced 6 million gallons. Every time we tested we were in that six million range. Where was it going to stop? We had no idea. We were very nervous so we started trying to get as many plans in place to look for more water. We have agreements with other water authorities to buy and sell and started looking for additional springs. And through this, we got together with water authorities of Cherokee County and said, ‘look, this is a problem that I have and if I have a problem, you have a problem. So let’s make this a joint effort.’ So we formed a water coalition. We got the three water managers together, we got their engineers together and we put together a proposal and carried it to Washington to see if we could help get this funded.”

Since the three entities were searching for similar solutions, including more storage, more water plants, it made perfect since for them to come together in developing a plan for the next 20, 30 or possibly 40 years down the road, Garrett said.

And while the rain has picked up in recent months, we are not out of the woods yet. Rainfall levels were down in September, Garrett said, so they have stepped up their monitoring once again.

Local consumers can have full confidence in the safety of their local water supply, Garrett said, as he discussed the purification process.

“When water comes through our plant, it is filtered and chlorinated,” said Garrett. “Our filters will backwash approximately every 12 to 14 hours. When they go through a backwash, it just reverses the process, cleaning the filters and most of the time, there will be sludge, plants and waste. But I tell everybody the impurities that are in our water before we get it, could fit into the palm of your hand. That’s after we’ve run a half million gallons of water. There’s not a lot to filter. That makes me feel good to know that that is the kind of water we are sending out.”

Garrett urged members to continue to practice water conservation tips.

“It is may job to sell water,” said Garrett. “But everybody needs to be conscious that water is not just an endless supply. When I was younger, I took water for granted. I think most people have. We were raised that way, but that resource is a very limited resource and it is only going to become more prevalent in the future that we are going to have these situations, if not drought, with the water wars. We will consciously be fighting this battle from now on because water is a precious commodity.”