Tick Tack Doe FHA Community Program 7:00 PM on September 05, 2017

LIVING WITH DEER (AND OTHER MAMMALS) AND THE TICKS THEY HARBOR

FHA Open Meeting Tuesday, September 5, 7:00 PM.  Presented by: Maggie Tunstall, M.Ed in Science and former Director of Classroom Programs, National Wildlife Federation and Dr. AnneMarie Riether, Adjunct Professor, UNC School of Medicine.

The presentation will be followed by a Village Hall discussion.

National Weather Service 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Prediction Outlook

Climate Prediction Center - Atlantic Hurricane Outlook

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season outlook is an official product of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC). The outlook is produced in collaboration with hurricane experts from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the Hurricane Research Division (HRD).

Research Shows Drones Delivering AEDs (Defibrillators) May Save Many Lives

Defibrillator-carrying drones could save lives, research suggests

Drones are already employed for anything from military to recreational use, from oil exploration to filmmaking, but they could also help save the lives of people who have suffered a cardiac arrest, research suggests. A simulated study found that drones carrying a defibrillator, which could be used by a member of the public, arrived 16 minutes quicker than the emergency services on average, saving precious time.

2017 Hurricane season June 1–Nov. 30

Above-normal Atlantic hurricane season is most likely this year

For the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30, forecasters predict a 45 percent chance of an above-normal season, a 35 percent chance of a near-normal season, and only a 20 percent chance of a below-normal season.

If your power goes out, visit Duke Energy's outage page (using a cell phone if you have no Internet home Internet access) to report an outage, and also learn more about what to do during outages. You can also use this link to sign up for proactive outage notifications.

With Spring & Summer Upon Us, A New Tick-Related Heath Warning from NPR

Beyond Lyme: New Tick-Borne Diseases On The Rise In U.S.

Duke Energy Warns of Phone Scam

Friday, November 18, 2016:  A Duke Energy representative has reported that someone is calling customers and falsely identifying themselves from Duke Energy. They are asking people to make a payment over the phone or they will cut off their power. 

Detective Mike Copeland from the Sheriff's Office urges people never to pay any bills over the phone. 

The calls come through with "DUKE ENERGY" displaying as the caller ID. May be best to just let it go to voicemail. If anyone leaves a message and are asking for some form of payment, it's a scam. Duke Energy (and most other reputable companies) would contact customers by mail for payment. 

A Sample Speed Report for Weathersfield Covering 17 Days (October 30 - November 16, 2016)

Click on the table to see a larger image.

This is a basic speed table showing just the volume of vehicles passing the radar monitor measuring only the inbound traffic flow on Weathersfield (just past Caswell) for the period between the mid-afternoon of October 30, 2016 through November 16, 2016 (at approximately 2:25pm).

During that period of two-weeks and 3 days, 6.694 vehicles passed the monitor and were categorized in the following speed ranges:  1-5 mph, 6-10mph, 11-15mph, 16-20mph, 21-25mph, 26-30mph, 31-35mph, 36-40mph, 41-45mph, 46-50mph, 51-55mph.

As  you may be able to see:

• 63% (4,233) of the vehicles were traveling between 1-30mph
• 36% (2,377)were traveling between 31-40mph (the so-called "low-risk" speeders), and
• only 0.01% (84) were traveling 41 mph or higher (the so-called "high-risk outliers")

Given the nature of pedestrian, bicycling, and vehicular blends on our village roads, the speed categories that concern us the most are those between 36mph (528) and over 41mph (84), which represents 612 vehicles on this chart (approximately 9% of the traffic measure in this cycle).

The monitor plays an important role in reminding drivers of their traveling speed, and it does cause approximately 80% of drivers to slow down to a  slightly lower speed that that which is being displayed.

If you now realize that a small percentage (but a significant number) of drivers go right on by without slowing their speed, you may be able to see why we refer to that category as being the "outliers."  We have spent time identifying the parameters of this high-risk category over a considerable span of time (i.e., days of the week, times of the day, frequency of occurrence, and locations on six of the most heavily travelled roads in the village, our "arterials"), and have produced some enforcement tables to share with the Sheriff's Department. 

FHA Health, Safety, & Security (HSS) 2016 Annual Report

Our 2016 Annual Report is now ready, and is available here on this site via this direct hot-link.

This report will also be included in your information packet, which will be available at the FHA Annual Meeting, scheduled for November 14th at the Galloway Ridge Auditorium. (Note that the meeting will not in the Barn this year.)

Clubs and Organizations will be on hand at display tables between 4:00pm and 5:00pm, when refreshments will also be available. The business meeting will begin at 5:00pm. This is an important annual community event. Please make every effort to attend.

Chatham County's New SAFE (Strategic Action For Emergencies) Program

SAFE is a new special resident signup for those with special needs, such as mobility problems, vision and hearing impairment, lack of transportation, critical health issues and other needs that can be impacted when emergencies or disasters affect Chatham County.

SAFE was jointly created by the Chatham County Council on Aging, Chatham County Emergency Operations, and Chatham County Department of Social Services to provide these residents with special needs a better sense of security. It also gives emergency responders more knowledge to locate and assist residents in need.

To learn more about this new program (which we had reported earlier this year was being developed), visit this site for more details and for a hot-link you can use to sign up.

Fearrington-Galloway Ridge Drinking Water Quality

This guest article has been prepared and submitted by Don Francisco. We want to express our appreciation to Don for this very nice community contribution. Residents can find his contact information listed in the 2016 Fearrington Village Directory and Handbook. 

I am a retired clinical professor of environmental biology from the UNC Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. My specialty was limnology (study of freshwater systems), wastewater treatment microbiology, and drinking water treatment. I was the first to study Jordan Lake beginning just after the dam was closed in 1982. I began my career researching taste and odor problems in drinking water reservoirs. We lived in Chapel Hill for 48 years, and we are now residents of Galloway Ridge.

Some residents have told me that they are very concerned about the quality of our drinking water.  Some are even regularly boiling their drinking water. I think this concern is overblown.

Our raw (untreated) water comes from Jordan Lake just to the north of US 64 on the east side of the highway bridge. It is transported from there to the treatment plant on the south side of US64. The Town of Cary also takes its raw water from this same intake.

The North Chatham Water Treatment Plant is a standard design treatment facility that provides suspended solids (turbidity) removal, pH control, and chlorination for disinfection.  Occasionally, they use powdered activated carbon to control tastes and odors. I have visited the plant and talked with the operators. While the plant is small, it seems to be quite competently operated. They also have a close relationship with the personnel at the much larger Cary plant that treats the same raw water. I’m confident that they do a good job treating our drinking water.

There is no reason to be concerned about the quality of our water. It is basically the same as all other drinking water produced from reservoirs in North Carolina. The greatest hazard is that runoff containing nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) will promote excessive growth of algae in the Lake.  Many of these produce compounds which cause objectionable tastes and odors. This is an aesthetic problem not a human health problem.

The most accepted means for limiting the growth of algae is to limit the amount of nutrients entering the Lake. The greatest current source of these is in runoff from agricultural and urban land uses. This is what the recently canceled “Jordan Lake Rules” were intended to accomplish. The best way to show concern for the quality of our drinking water is to advocate rational means for limiting the input of nutrients into the Lake.

Of course, treated wastewater is introduced upstream from the Lake. Most of the reservoirs in the US have treated wastewater discharged upstream. In our case, the wastewater treatment plants are some of the most advanced in the world. They remove contaminants to very low concentrations. When discharges enter the reservoir, they are diluted by a huge volume of water. This further decreases the concentration of the contaminants.

All of this being said, many water quality experts use point-of-use filters (at or under individual faucets) to remove potentially present and probably unmeasurable compounds and protozoan cysts. I use these because they make my drinking water aesthetically more uniform, and they very likely remove many of the compounds that we cannot measure. These filters are essentially insurance against exposure to unknown contaminants.