The summit, held on the campus of Sandhills Community College and attended by 140 people, was sponsored by The Pilot and Moore County Partners in Progress, the county economic development group. It brought together representatives of 10 of Moore’s 11 municipalities, county government, state and federal agencies, and the county’s major water customers. The summit marked the first time all of those players had ever been in the same room.
The summit sets the stage for deliberations by a committee of the the county’s 11 mayors, who will attempt to hammer out a tentative regional agreement. Six other committees will focus on water sources, distribution, conservation, development and crisis management. The work of the committees will be followed by a second Water Summit in late January or early February.
Reaching a countywide consensus on these issues won’t be easy. It will require the laying aside of provincial differences and a willingness to give up some political turf. But the fact that the summit was held at all and that so many people and agencies with a stake in these issues participated in it offers hope that a regional approach is a realistic possibility.
Cosponsorship of the summit was a crucial breakthrough for the newly formed Partners in Progress. Moore County will continue to grow, but quality growth and true economic development is dependent in large part on wise stewardship of water resources. The summit sends a strong signal that Partners in Progress is committed to that goal. If county government is similarly committed, it should prove it by continuing to fund Partners in Progress, and doing so at a significantly higher level.
The Water Summit might never have happened — and it certainly wouldn’t have happened this soon — had Moore County not been so severely stricken by the summer’s drought. It’s been suggested that if the drought provided us with a wake-up call, the recent rains might put us back to sleep. We can’t let that happen. We’re all in the same boat regarding the need to do a better job of collecting, managing and distributing the water available to us.
Everyone seems to have remained on board that boat to the point of agreeing that we have to think regionally on the subject of water. The recommendations of the committees, the deliberations at the January Water Summit and the government and private-sector response to that work will determine whether we remain on the same boat for the whole voyage or run aground in our attempt to preserve and protect our most precious natural resource.
