A forum titled “Will the Water Run Out?” was held Tuesday night by the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke. The 300 chairs in the Duke Gardens Visitor Center weren’t enough, and another 100 or so and a TV monitor were added in the outside patio for the overflow turnout. These visitors were Durham’s best — green, savvy and clearly concerned.

The first big chunk of the meeting ran pretty much the way these meetings often run. This being put on by Duke, we first learned a bit about how much Duke has embraced the issue, low-flow shower heads for staff and students and all, some $50 million in various long-term conservation investments on the books, and, of course, the solicitation of recommendations. As we were all there to discuss a water shortage, I had to grin at Duke’s V.P. for campus services’ use of the phrase “full steam ahead.” Thankfully, Stage IV does not address steam generation.

The conversation covered the pertinent aspects of our situation, I suppose, with the speakers dealing with their own areas of interest, but there seemed to be a lack of a cohesive theme, in that we seemed to wander, as it were, in and out of crisis. There have been worse, much worse, droughts, we were told. And we are in a part of the country blessed with adequate precipitation, and things will eventually return to normality. There were lots of helpful numbers, but you had to listen for them, as they often seemed wrapped in hundreds of soft, surrounding words in the way Styrofoam shipping peanuts cushion fragile items in a shipping box. And I found them rather loosely presented a lot of the time, making me wonder how much the good experts might be, even if unconsciously, couching their comments in prose less technical than they might like so the public would understand.

To be sure, the forum was a very good thing. Durham should have been having these forums regularly for some time now. There was a good overview of plans to increase our water supply — welcome news about Cary helping us get access to Jordan Lake came from Sydney Miller, water resources program manager at the Triangle J Council of Governments. Rob Jackson, biology professor at the school, explained that it was the unfortunate confluence of unusual dryness and two or three late summer months of record heat that got us into this mess (my unscientific term). He said we need 15 to 20 inches of rain in the next three months and 25 to 30 inches over the next six months to fully relieve the drought. Due to El Niño, neither is very likely, he said.

Ted Voorhees, Deputy Durham City Manager, works for the city. It is his job to help oversee the operation of a big city, not to criticize anyone. He is not, therefore, with all respect, to be mistaken for the disinterested expert we might like to see host a future forum. So one cannot help wondering sometimes if, somewhere among all the smooth explanations, unpleasant, important facts may have been lost in the implicit editing that is always part of officials’ discourse with the public. No actual person, department or group ever seems to be to be connected with a lapse or mistake in Durham. Phrases like “missed opportunity” or “obvious mistake” never seem to be the subjects of sentences. And while good work is obviously being done, the idea that perhaps some things might have been done a whole lot better, or that Durham might, say, be more assertive against business interests fighting for their access to water, never got detailed attention.

Indeed, when asked why we are not yet at stage five, Mr. Voorhees cited very negative impacts on business, as if that were a full and adequate answer. Mayor Bell was at the meeting, and when invited to address the crowd, he demurred, a clear enough signal that this meeting was not going to be seized on as an opportunity by the mayor to rouse community spirit or even to explain and update — from the top — some very concerned citizens and reporters there to get the story. At least three other city and county officers participated actively throughout the session. When Mayor Bell did later respond to a question, he said Durham had no monopoly on answers.

Bill Holman, now senior visiting fellow at the institute, was admirably diplomatic, and he made strong points if you were willing to hear them. He stressed by repetition that Durham is charging less for water than some 90 percent of N.C. communities in its size category. He pointed out regretfully our ongoing missed chances to collect storm water and our need for better systematic planning, to begin using wastewater for non-potable uses, and for better, greener landscaping standards in new development. I think he slipped in, just at his close, that we need to raise water rates.

Citizen questions were very good, saving many from sleep. Indeed, they provided the best content of the meeting. From them, these points were made: Mr. Voorhees expects tiered conservation water rates by late summer this year. City Councilman Howard Clement asked what was being done to reach the Hispanic population. In answer, Mr. Voorhees cited translation of all materials; and when he mentioned a program introducing water conservation to school children to get their parents to conserve, moderator Bill Chameides offered the comment that it would be interesting to see, via some research, whether it was working. (Novel idea, that — checking to see if a project is working. Perhaps we should commission another study by the professors we paid $65,000 to study Durham’s gang problem.)

A lady who came all the way from Chatham County pointed out that some basic cultural values need to change, that many other people in other parts of this wide world do without a full shower every day — she called it standing under a waterfall — and that with a basin, one can clean oneself quite well with a fraction of the water. Obviously cheered when the crowd did not lynch her, she went on to condemn roundly our “obsession” with lawns, whose devotees would, one suspects, under Queen Chatham, share jail cells with the showerers.

When a lady from the Southern Environmental Law Center proposed a 25 gallon per person per day cap on usage and a surcharge, a la Raleigh, Mr. Voorhees said the data did not support the use of a cap and that Durham’s terrible, old, antiquated accounting software was not up to the job of sufficiently differentiating among classes of customers as it should. He did promise this would change this year, though. Still, I think this rather convenient answer lets the city government off too easy. Why have we labored for so long under the yolk of this now very problematical 1970s software? And Raleigh’s idea of a surcharge got short shrift.

Registered Nurse Joy Harper of Durham asked what percentage of water consumption goes to toilet flushing. The answer was an astounding 40 percent, although it wasn’t clear whether that was for overall or just residential usage. (Either way, it’s an awful lot of clean water wasted. Will our city officials ever stop allowing the mention of such things as “mellowing” and reduced flushing to be met with giddy, dismissive laughter? If we are really in danger, it is irresponsible to ignore a practice that accounts for 40 percent of our water usage. WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF WATER.)

In response to a question, County Commissioner Ellen Reckhow said that the joint city/county planning committee has asked staff to make recommendations about sustainability practices, drought-resistant landscape regulations and green building construction. These recommendations are expected to be presented at the February meeting. The state legislature is likely to consider authorizing the metering of private wells. About this, it was asked: “Should well owners be worried?” Bill Holman’s answer was “yes.”

The meeting had a strangely surreal atmosphere, sort of like being in a rowboat approaching a deadly waterfall. People wanted to hear about the reality of the situation in some realistic context. Finally, near the end of the meeting, a questioner burst the bubble with a needle of a question that simply invoked the theme of the session: “What will you do if the water runs out?” At last, the meeting found its focus with a moment of electric, silent anticipation. Mr. Voorhees answer was dramatic and striking: “We don’t really know.” He said the city has discussed the readiness of local retailers to ship in lots of bottled water, and he said the movement of water by train had been studied and rejected as impractical. Some stuff, huh? He said bottled water. The prospect of depending on bottled water would appear to put questions of how much water we need for flushing and bathing into some perspective. He used the word “rationing,” too, I believe, and said that the water might be turned off and on. Well, it took a couple of hours, but at least we got there.

Near the end a lady spoke with a slow, arresting dignity. She was driven away from New Orleans by Katrina, she said, and now lives in Durham. She said we must become more aware of our water resources; she said that for the fresh water that we are given, we should always be grateful and appreciative and give thanks.