North Carolina’s drought is pushing water levels lower and putting a sharper focus on whether the state’s water supply can keep pace with growth and a changing climate.

At Falls Lake, Raleigh’s primary source, levels are hovering just 2% above the threshold that could trigger restrictions. 

“It is incredibly unusual for Falls Lake to be two and a half feet down in the middle of April,” Raleigh Water Assistant Director Ed Buchan said.

Reservoirs typically refill through the winter and spring. This year’s dry stretch has disrupted that pattern, leaving systems with less cushion heading into warmer months.

But drought is just one piece of a larger strain on the state’s water supplies.

A system under pressure

A recent United Nations report warns that many water systems worldwide are moving beyond short-term shortages and into a more persistent imbalance. Researchers describe it as “water bankruptcy,” when long-term use and damage outpace what natural systems can replenish.

In those cases, recovery to past conditions is no longer realistic.

The report points to a combination of factors, including population growth, overuse, pollution and climate change. Drought plays a role, but increasingly as part of a broader pattern driven by human activity.

Some of the same global pressures are beginning to surface in North Carolina.

Growth, transfers and demand

Across the state, communities are growing and looking for new water sources.

In Fuquay-Varina, officials are seeking to withdraw millions of gallons per day from the Cape Fear River Basin to support future demand, while returning treated water to a different basin. The proposal has drawn opposition from downstream communities concerned about long-term impacts.

Moving water between river basins can reduce the supply where it is taken from, especially during dry periods.

“The more we transfer water out of river basins, the greater that’s going to impact rural communities,” Western Piedmont Council of Governments Executive Director Anthony Starr said.

Those decisions are becoming more common as utilities try to keep pace with growth, but they also raise questions about how much water can be moved — and from where — before systems begin to feel the strain.

Local decisions, limited visibility

At the local level, officials say they are often weighing those questions without a complete picture of long-term impacts.

In Chatham County, commissioners recently approved a moratorium on data centers, driven in part by concerns about water use.

“I think that is probably the single greatest concern, and that is that probably what was weighed by the minds of our commissioners in deciding to pass the moratorium more than anything else,” Chatham Commissioner Karen Howard said. “We know that our climate future is at risk. We are in the process of creating a climate plan and the use of water is a significant concern for us.” 

Howard said the pace of development can outstrip the ability to fully study its effects.

That uncertainty extends to smaller systems across the state.

“These rural systems don’t have the resources to do engineering studies so they don’t fully understand the impact before approving these projects,” said Heather Somers, director of the North Carolina Rural Water Association.

“If we don’t get some reins in place to reel that in and have some oversight on what these industrial users are going to pull from our resources, we’re going to be in trouble for sure,” Somers said.

Climate and compounding drought

Climate change is expected to make those challenges more complex.

Higher temperatures increase evaporation, while rainfall is becoming less predictable. That can mean longer dry periods followed by more intense storms, which do not always replenish water supplies in the same way.

Even when conditions improve, recovery may be incomplete.

“It takes a long time to get into a drought, and a long time to get out,” Buchan said.

Some water managers are increasingly looking at drought not as a single event, but as part of a longer cycle. Systems may not fully recover between dry periods, leaving less margin for the next one.

A changing balance

North Carolina’s water system has long depended on balance. Much of the water withdrawn by utilities is treated and returned to rivers, where it becomes part of the supply again.

But that balance can shift as demand changes.

Some large industrial users, including certain types of data centers, rely on cooling systems that remove water from the local system through evaporation.

“That’s water not going back to the Neuse River,” Buchan said. “It’s just gone.”

At the same time, long-term planning is built on projections that can be difficult to predict.

Regional utilities are working together through the Triangle Water Supply Partnership to map out demand decades into the future, but new types of growth and changing climate conditions add uncertainty to those forecasts.

“You’re really making a lot of assumptions,” Buchan said.

For now, utilities say North Carolina has the capacity to manage through the current drought.

But the combination of growth, shifting demand, climate variability and decisions about how water is shared across regions is raising a broader question.

Not just how to respond to this drought — but whether the system, as it exists today, can sustain what is coming next.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — As plants and flowers bloom this Spring, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission warns residents of the bees burrowing underground who have begun to emerge to pollinate.

The wildlife officials said they have received numerous calls from panicked landowners who have “a bunch of little bees hovering over the ground.”

This is because, according to wildlife officials, little burrows full of solitary bees reside across small, cool areas such as a front or back yard. The National Wildlife Federation said solitary bees make up about 98 percent of native bee species in the United States, and more than 500 of those species nest underground in North Carolina.

The burrowing bees nest in masses, according to wildlife officials. They have no hive or colony to defend, so they are more inclined to fly away from danger than feel the need to attack. Wildlife officials said only female solitary bees have the anatomy to be able to sting.

“Some people believe the solution is to pour gasoline into their burrows or spray them with insecticides to rid them of an area. But bees provide a crucial pollinator role to our ecosystem.”

According to wildlife officials, the wild bees provide pollination services for over 80 percent of flowers in NC.

“Furthermore,” officials added, “they contribute billions of dollars to our economy by pollinating crops.”

Wildlife officials said the ground-nesting bees hover above the surface for a very short time. They said after spending two to three weeks above ground, the bees won’t emerge again until next spring.

Before I came back to NJ 101.5 last August, I had a few months where things were quiet on the radio front in New Jersey and over in Philly. Quiet enough that my phone started ringing from other places.

Charlotte. Raleigh. Two separate conversations with two separate radio stations in North Carolina. I did the interviews. I listened to their stations carefully and gave their managers honest thoughts on how to improve their programming. I went far enough down the road that I had to actually think about it — not as a hypothetical, but as a real decision Linda and I would have to make about our lives.

I did not take either job. I came home to NJ 101.5 instead, which is exactly where I belong. But I spent enough time with those numbers — housing, taxes, cost of living — that they are still sitting in my head. And every time I read about another wave of New Jersey residents heading south, I think about what I saw.

What $500,000 buys you there

The median home price in Charlotte right now is around $415,000. In Raleigh it is around $426,000. That means $500,000 is not the ceiling — it is well above the median. It buys you a serious house. A newer construction home in a desirable suburb. Four bedrooms, three baths, a two-car garage, a backyard worth using. In some neighborhoods, a finished basement and a covered porch on top of that.

In and around New Jersey, $500,000 is a starting point for a conversation. In many parts of the state it gets you something modest. In Bergen, Morris or Essex County it barely qualifies as entry-level. The median home price in New Jersey sits around $584,000 — and that is the middle. Half the homes in the state cost more than that.

What $500,000 buys you here

The house math is only the beginning. The part that really stings is what comes after you buy it.

New Jersey’s effective property tax rate is 1.77 percent — the highest in the country. On a $500,000 home that is roughly $8,850 a year, and the statewide average bill has already pushed past $9,800. North Carolina’s effective property tax rate is 0.62 percent. On the same $500,000 home — the better house you bought for less money — that is about $3,100 a year.

The difference is more than $5,700 annually. Every single year. That is before you factor in that North Carolina has a flat income tax rate of 3.99 percent — dropping further — while New Jersey’s top rate hits 10.75 percent. That is before you factor in car insurance, which costs the average NJ driver about $3,400 a year compared to roughly $1,600 in North Carolina. That is before the tolls.

Add it up and the gap between living in New Jersey and living in Charlotte or Raleigh is not a number. It is a lifestyle.

What I found out about those cities

I want to be fair here, because during those months I paid real attention to both places. Charlotte feels like a city — South End, NoDa, Plaza Midwood, Dilworth. Real neighborhoods with restaurants and music and a downtown that works. Raleigh has the Research Triangle, Apple, Google, a university ecosystem that brings in young energy and jobs. The weather is genuinely good — not Florida humid, not the frozen tundra —this past winter fresh in our minds. 

Both cities are growing fast because people from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania keep arriving and discovering what the math already told them.

I have my own South Carolina data point too. In May of 2020, at the peak of COVID, Linda and I drove down to Charleston for over a week. Our reason was straightforward — South Carolina was still largely open when New Jersey was not. Open restaurants. Open bars. Folly Beach was packed and alive while the Jersey Shore sat empty. I liked it there. I liked the pace, the vibe, the waterfront. I remember thinking, I could live here. And what your money buys you in Charleston versus here is its own kind of revelation.

SEE ALSO: 192,00 have left NJ since 2020 — Is your town next on the list 

So why didn’t I go

Because of thirty-three years in the same house. Because of raising two kids here. Because of the friends we have known since before any of this happened. Because holiday and summer weekend gatherings are not a flight away.

When I thought about it honestly — really honestly — I realized I would rather leave the business I love than leave the home, the family, and the community we have spent a lifetime building. That is what kept me here. Not the taxes. Not the property values. Not the math — which, as I have just laid out, loses badly.

I made peace with that. I am genuinely glad I stayed. I am exactly where I want to be.

People leaving New Jersey are not leaving because they want to. They are leaving because the math eventually wins. I just happened to be one of the ones for whom it did not.

At least not yet.