Most of the residents on Roanoke Island do not have municipal water and rely on wells for drinking water. Dare County is planning to expand the water system to include these areas. The expansion is not being received very well by the residents who will be getting the water hookups.

The fear of high density development and the cost of the hookups is causing most of the residents to oppose the water expansion. Currently, the use of wells requires lot sizes to be fairly large. This is to keep the wells far enough away from the septic systems to avoid contamination of the wells. With central water, the lot size can be smaller and more can be built which leads to higher density.

The water expansion will bring fire hydrants to areas that currently do not have any. With this in mind it will be interesting to see if the county proceeds with the water expansion in the face of so much opposition.