PENDER COUNTY — Hampstead residents have started a petition regarding discolored water and reached out to commissioners after they said concerns were not being handled appropriately by Pender County Utilities, despite a recent water rate hike.
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“When you raise somebody’s rates and then they have brown water in their toilet, it ain’t good,” Commissioner Randy Burton said at the board’s July 15 meeting.
He was referring to a neighborhood in the southeastern corner of the county. People from the WyndWater community started a petition on June 22, demanding improved water quality. Kimber Lynn, a concerned resident of WyndWater, began the petition, now with more than 300 signatures. It calls on authorities and environmental officials, including the Environmental Protection Agency, to provide a long-term solution.
“According to the World Health Organization, access to safe drinking water is essential to health and a basic human right. Yet, we find ourselves deprived of this right,” Lynn stated in the petition.
Several WyndWater residents told Port City Daily they have reached out to Pender County Utilities regarding the discoloration and other concerns; however, many said they were not met by a sustained effort to resolve the problem.
Photos and videos submitted to Port City Daily show yellow- and brown-tinted water flowing from sinks and filling toilets and bathtubs.
Several residents in the WyndWater neighborhood, located near Highway 17 off Sloop Point Loop Road in Hampstead, have been experiencing water quality issues as far back as 2020. Many have said in addition to discoloration, there has been a strong sulfur smell permeating from their sinks, bathtubs, refrigerators and washing machines.
Matthew Buckingham wrote to Port City Daily in an email last week that a utility company employee told him the water conditions were “normal.”
“There is nothing normal about our water here in our community and surrounding communities,” he said.
Chair Brad George had “heightened” discussions with community members recently about the issue, Burton noted at Monday’s meeting. He added issues with water quality in the area are not new.
“This has been going on in this neighborhood — in this section of the neighborhood — since when the water was put in,” George said.
According to Anthony Colon, Pender County Utilities director, the brown water is attributed to new groundwater wells with more iron and recent construction from the move of a Highway 17 water line.
“The Highway 17 corridor in Hampstead has been experiencing hydraulic variances for years, particularly between Sloop Point Loop and Highway 210 near Surf City,” Colon wrote in an email Tuesday.
On June 6, Pender County Utilities issued a precautionary boil advisory, urging residents between the south end of Sloop Point Loop Road and Surf City to boil all drinking water. It came from a malfunction at the Sloop Point Booster Station, resulting in low-water pressure and discoloration for three to five days. The advisory was lifted on June 11, as the utility company tested the water and found no bacteria present.
However, WyndWater resident Leigh Ann Borgen reported that both his and his neighbor’s water has remained brown. He said he contacted the utilities and spoke with a woman about the brown water.
“She assured me that the water was safe to drink,” Borgen told Port City Daily. “‘It just has a little rust in it and won’t hurt you.’ I told her, at that point, that it was undrinkable and something needed to be fixed.”
According to Brandi Cobb, spokesperson for Pender County, the water is currently safe to drink.
Due to residents’ demand for action, the utilities flushed the neighborhood’s water lines on June 21, a little over a week after the boil advisory was lifted since the brown water persisted. Flushing the lines involves pushing water through the pipes at high speeds to scour the walls and remove debris and sediment.
No additional boil advisory has been issued.
Yet, WyndWater residents criticized the utility company for poor communication.
Katie Fluke said the person she spoke to at the utility company scoffed at her.
“I do feel that it was handled very inappropriately, especially since we were on a boil water advisory, but we never received any communication directly from Pender County Utilities, instead we received all communication through finding out on Facebook,” she said.
Fluke said she contacted Pender County Utilities to request compensation for the days she went without safe water and for the personal effort of draining her lines. She was entitled to $6 for draining the lines, she was told.
“However, I had to drain my lines multiple times, which adds up after a while,” Fluke said.
According to a representative from Pender County Utilities, line draining is not something the utility company covers and has to be done at the resident’s expense.
Other residents also took issue with the financial implications caused by the water quality issues, as they’ve had to purchase filters to address the problems. This has been compounded by the utility company’s recent rate increase.
On July 3, Pender County Utilities announced an upcoming change to their water rates and fee schedules, effective July 1, which transitioned the rates from a district-based structure to one based on meter size. It equals a 16.6% average water rate increase, a $5 service fee increase for standard residential meters, and a $1 increase in the cost per 1,000 gallons of water for meter sizes within a 1-inch to 8-inch size range.
Colon attributed the changes to rising operational costs — escalated at a national average at 23.2% from inflation — and the fact that the rate has not been updated since 2015, on top of sharp population growth. Commissioner Burton also brought it up at Monday night’s meeting.
“We just voted to raise their rate, and I understand that because it’s been 10 years and it was needed,” he said.
Though not on the commissioners’ agendas for Monday’s meeting, Burton said he wanted to get it on the record that he was taking citizen concerns seriously.
On top of spending more on water rates, Patrick Martin, another WyndWater resident, said his family is also spending additional money on a water filtration system in his home, due to persistent quality issues over the last nine months. Though he said the discoloration and sulfur-smelling water started in 2020 when the family moved back into the Pender County area.
The Hydroviv Water System costs around $200 per unit, with a separate unit required for each water location, such as the sink, shower, or refrigerator. Additionally, the need for frequent replacement filters adds to the cost. He said filters from the Hydroviv Water System are designed to last six months. However, his family has had to replace them in half that time due to a rapid buildup of brown sediment covering the filters.
“It’s a lot of filtration for water that shouldn’t be gross,” Martin said Tuesday.
He added he would like to get the filters tested to confirm what the build-up is.
“Pender County should be ashamed for charging us for this low quality,” Andrea Tholen, WyndWater resident, said.
Burton said at the commissioners’ meeting the utility company was addressing citizen issues.
Colon confirmed the new water and sewer superintendent, Brian Terry, is implementing new operation strategies that will include water-monitoring, extensive flushing of dead ends, and turning over Topsail-elevated water tank.
“Water treatment of the ground wells is in the works,” Colon added.
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