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Nearly all of Asheville’s non-potable water back, but reservoir remains ‘very, very murky,’ complicating full-service restoration

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avlwatchdog.org – JOHN BOYLE – 2024-10-21 15:34:00

The City of Asheville has restored non-potable, heavily chlorinated water to about 95 percent of users, but its main source of water, North Fork Reservoir, remains stubbornly murky 26 days after Tropical Storm Helene.

At the Buncombe County daily storm briefing Monday, Asheville Water Resources Department spokesperson Clay Chandler shared a photo of a still very brown-looking North Fork Reservoir. The city treated the reservoir Wednesday and Thursday with minerals that were supposed to cause clay particles to sink, clearing the water near the surface.

That did not happen.

“And as you can see, the surface water has not cleared up very much at all, if any,” Chandler said. “What has happened — and which is almost completely opposite of what we expected to happen — is water at the deeper portions — 40 to 50 feet — have shown fairly significant improvement as far as clearing turbidity.”

Chandler said windy conditions on the two days of treatment last week roiled the surface waters, stirring up sediment. But water officials are not entirely sure why the lake remains so stubbornly brown, as it’s normally a “pristine” water source, and its feeder streams have cleared back up.

“There have been a lot of things that have happened in the last three and a half weeks that have defied logic,” Chandler said. “This is just the latest one. And again, we think that the windy conditions Wednesday and Thursday of last week, when that treatment was done, stirred up that surface water to the point that it was not going to clear up, treatment or not.”

Turbidity is measured in Nephelometric Turbidity Units, or NTUs, and the EPA requires filter water to be less than .30 NTU for consumption. At North Fork, normal filtered water is between .03 and .05 NTU, meaning it’s “typically exponentially cleaner than required,” Chandler said previously.

The raw water typically entering the lake has an NTU of 1 or less, but Monday turbidity readings at North Fork were hovering between 25 and 27, Chandler said. On Oct. 11, the water registered 30 NTU.

The city water system still has a system-wide boil water notice in place. The water is safe for showers, laundry and flushing commodes, but it is not safe to consume unless boiled, and even then, the city still recommends using bottled water for consumption.

Chandler said Monday that he still had no timeline on full restoration of water, “or at least an accurate one that we can provide as far as when that lake will clear up and we can treat the water and push it through our filters and all of that.”

Over the weekend, the city reached 95 percent of system restoration with non-potable water. People in the Eastmoor and Bee Tree areas in east Asheville got water back, but some areas, including including Town Mountain and Webb Cove, remain without it. / Credit: City of Asheville

“But we are certainly hopeful that the second round of treatment will sort of push the ball down the court as far as that reservoir clearing up,” Chandler said.

The city treated the water with a mix of aluminum sulfate and caustic soda. Workers have used a boat to dump tote bags full of chemicals into the reservoir in an effort to purify the water.

Aluminum sulfate is a “salt-ish” mineral the department uses to regularly treat the reservoir, as it makes clay particles coagulate and sink, leading to clearer water for filtering and treatment. Caustic soda helps with optimum pH levels for the coagulation to work best.

The city is awaiting arrival Thursday or Friday of a “curtain” system that can be installed at the reservoir to help with turbidity. The city will have to install and anchor the curtains in place.

Once in, they’ll create a 500-foot circle around the intake.

“And we are pretty confident that by a week from today, we will be doing a second round of that in-lake treatment process,” Chandler said. 

The reservoir has intakes for water treatment at 21, 50 and 80 feet. North Fork serves 80 percent of Asheville’s 63,000 water customers.

Asked if the city has considered bringing in or installing heavier-duty filtration equipment designed for turbid water, Chandler said the technology does exist, but there are challenges.

“The problem that we’re going to run into at North Fork is that North Fork, on average, pushes 25 million gallons a day into our system, and mobile or portable treatment facilities are just unable to handle that volume,” he said.

Chandler said that over the weekend, the city reached 95 percent of system restoration with non-potable water. People in the Eastmoor and Bee Tree areas in east Asheville got water back.

But some areas remain without any water, including Town Mountain and Webb Cove Road, that “have proven to be particularly problematic,” Chandler said, noting that includes 65 to 70 homes.

“A three-inch line that serves that area got washed out by a landslide after the storm, and so we’ve had to do a little bit of coordinating with NCDOT as far as road repair before we can restore service there,” Chandler said. “Our contractors are going to work on a temporary solution that we hope will be in place Wednesday or Thursday. That should restore service to most of the Town Mountain, Webb Cove areas that currently do not have water.”


Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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Analysis: ‘Valley’ of AI journey risks human foundational, unique traits | National

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 14:21:00

(The Center Square) – Minority benefit against the majority giving up “agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills” in what is described as a valley of an artificial intelligence journey is likely in the next few years, says one voice among hundreds in a report from Elon University.

John M. Stuart’s full-length essay, one of 200 such responses in “Being Human in 2035: How Are We Changing in the Age of AI?,” speaks to the potential problems foreseen as artificial intelligence continues to be incorporated into everyday life by many at varying levels from professional to personal to just plain curious. The report authored by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie of Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center says “the fragile future of some foundational and unique traits” found only in humans is a concern for 6 in 10.

“I fear – the time being – that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs and the tools will remain too centralized and locked down with interfaces that are simply out of our personal control as citizens,” writes Smart, a self-billed global futurist, foresight consultant, entrepreneur and CEO of Foresight University. “I fear we’re still walking into an adaptive valley in which things continue to get worse before they get better. Looking ahead past the next decade, I can imagine a world in which open-source personal AIs are trustworthy and human-centered.

“Many political reforms will reempower our middle class and greatly improve rights and autonomy for all humans, whether or not they are going through life with PAIs. I would bet the vast majority of us will consider ourselves joined at the hip to our digital twins once they become useful enough. I hope we have the courage, vision and discipline to get through this AI valley as quickly and humanely as we can.”

Among the ideas by 2035 from the essays, Paul Saffo offered, “The first multi-trillion-dollar corporation will employ no humans except legally required executives and board, have no offices, own no property and operate entirely through AI and automated systems.”

Saffo is a futurist and technology forecaster in the Silicon Valley of California, and a consulting professor at the School of Engineering at Stanford.

In another, Vint Cerf wrote, “We may find it hard to distinguish between artificial personalities and the real ones. That may result in a search for reliable proof of humanity so that we and bots can tell the difference.”

Cerf is generally known as one of the “fathers of the internet” alongside Robert Kahn and for the internet protocol suite, colloquially known as TCP/IP.

Working alongside the well-respected Elon University Poll, the survey asked, “What might be the magnitude of overall change in the next decade in people’s native operating systems and operations as we more broadly adapt to and use advanced AIs by 2035? From five choices, 61% said considerable (deep and meaningful change 38%) and dramatic (fundamental, revolutionary change 23%) and another 31% said moderate and noticeable, meaning clear and distinct.

Only 5% said minor change and 3% no noticeable change.

“This report is a revealing and provocative declaration to the profound depth of change people are undergoing – often without really noticing at all – as we adapt to deeper uses of advancing AI technology,” Anderson said. “Collectively, these experts are calling on humanity to think intentionally and carefully, taking wise actions now, so we do not sleepwalk into an AI future that we never intended and do not want.”

In another question, respondents answered whether artificial intelligence and related technologies are likely to change the essence of being human. Fifty percent said changes were equally better and worse, 23% said mostly for the worse, and 16% said mostly for the better.

The analysis predicted change mostly negative in nine areas: social and emotional intelligence; capacity and willingness to think deeply about complex concepts; trust in widely shared values and norms; confidence in their native abilities; empathy and application of moral judgment; mental well-being; sense of agency; sense of identity and purpose; and metacognition.

Mostly positive, the report says, are curiosity and capacity to learn; decision-making and problem-solving; and innovative thinking and creativity.

Anderson and Rainie and those working on the analysis did not use large language models for writing and editing, or in analysis of the quantitative data for the qualitative essays. Authors said there was brief experimentation and human realization “there were serious flaws and inaccuracies.” The report says 223 of 301 who responded did so “fully generated out of my own mind, with no LLM assistance.”

Results were gathered between Dec. 27 and Feb. 1.

The post Analysis: ‘Valley’ of AI journey risks human foundational, unique traits | National appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

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Trump urged to reconsider order gutting agency that gives grants to libraries, museums

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ncnewsline.com – Shauneen Miranda – 2025-04-02 13:00:00

SUMMARY: On March 14, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dramatically reduce funding for seven federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which awarded $266.7 million in 2024. The order aims to eliminate non-essential functions and cut agency personnel to legal minimums. The move sparked backlash from library and museum organizations, warning it would severely impact early literacy programs, internet access, job assistance, and community services. Critics urged Congress to intervene, while the administration framed the cuts as part of efforts to reduce government waste under the U.S. DOGE Service initiative led by Elon Musk. 

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The post Trump urged to reconsider order gutting agency that gives grants to libraries, museums appeared first on ncnewsline.com

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Raleigh City Council discusses transforming area near Lenovo Center, hears concerns

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www.youtube.com – ABC11 – 2025-04-02 08:44:01


SUMMARY: Raleigh City Council is considering a major redevelopment project near the Lenovo Center that would create a new sports and entertainment district with high-rise buildings, restaurants, shops, and upgraded arena facilities. The proposal, supported by city leaders and the Carolina Hurricanes—who agreed to stay for 20 more years—has drawn both excitement and concerns. Students and staff from nearby Cardinal Gibbons High School support the project but worry about pedestrian safety and construction impacts. City leaders suggested annual reviews to address ongoing issues. The council postponed rezoning decisions until April 15 to allow for more discussion and public input.

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New details are emerging about the bold new development that could transform the area around Raleigh’s Lenovo Center, creating a new entertainment district around the arena in west Raleigh.

More: https://abc11.com/post/raleigh-city-council-will-discuss-future-including-wake-bus-rapid-transit-project-housing-security/16114907/
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