BRUNSWICK COUNTY — An international advocacy group is partnering with Brunswick County residents pushing county officials to ensure safe water for African American and low-income residents. This comes as federal spending cuts reduce grant opportunities, leading some to argue the county should directly fund water extensions.
READ MORE: Brunswick minority communities fight to address PFAS contamination
International human rights organization EarthRights joined Brunswick County residents at Monday’s commissioner meeting to request immediate action. Several residents said their dirty well water has forced them to choose between buying bottled water or medicine.
“For over 20 years some residents in Brunswick County have been reliant on bad well water for drinking, cooking, washing, and the county has ignored their urgent requests to hook up to water lines,” EarthRights campaign officer Audrey Schreiber told Port City Daily. “Since 2023, EarthRights has coordinated with the Brunswick County NAACP and tried to work directly with the county, flagging grant opportunities and our availability to have a meeting to discuss grant applications. We never received a response to those emails.”
This comes over a year after the group helped organize a petition on the issue; of its 376 signatories, many lived in unincorporated parts of the county near Navassa, Winnabow, and Supply. Brunswick County NAACP President Carl Parker Jr. told Port City Daily in 2023 around half of the county’s African Americans rely on well water, but the county has not provided an estimated figure.
“Instead of anything getting better for the less wealthy folks,” Parker said, “It’s getting to be more of a challenge.”
Parker said he and EarthRights sought to urge the county to take action ahead of the application deadline to the Department of Environmental Quality for Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) grants.
Brunswick County spokesperson Meagan Kascak said the county has 19 water and wastewater-related grant projects at some stage — application, design, construction — and has applied for three others that were not awarded.
She said the county’s Department of Commerce designation of Brunswick County as one of North Carolina’s comparatively prosperous counties limits the likelihood of receiving state grants.
“As a Tier 3 County, Brunswick is considered one of the 20 least economically distressed counties in the state,” Kascak said. “Because of this, Brunswick County is already at a disadvantage before our application is even reviewed by any state departments that administer grants like the NC Department of Environmental Quality.”
Brunswick’s active grants include $10.5 million from DEQ for the Southport sewer replacement, $3.9 million from DEQ for St. James water infrastructure, and $9.4 million from DEQ for the Midway to Clemmons force main.
She noted the county works with Washington D.C.-based consultant Ferguson Group to identify grant opportunities; the county paid $43,000 to the Ferguson Group and $80,000 to Ward & Smith last year for federal lobbying on issues including water and sewer capital improvement projects.
Kascak said the Ferguson group notified the county this week that two awarded grants — around $1 million for the Bolivia Water Line Extension Project and $5.1 million for the Longwood Road Water Line Extension Project — have been de-funded in the proposed FY2025 federal budget. The current House budget cuts $1.4 billion in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency’s State Revolving Fund and reduces USDA funding for rural water and wastewater projects by 20%.
The spokesperson noted the consultant advised the county to only try to fund one or two projects in the upcoming cycle. The county plans to re-apply for the Longwood Road Water project because it received a favorable ranking and had been previously awarded.
“Brunswick County management and Public Utilities staff have met and corresponded with Mr. Carl Parker multiple times and received some general areas where he would like to see projects,” Kascak wrote in an email. “Staff had already applied for grants for projects in a number of those areas like Albright and Brown Road (which would be part of the Bolivia Water Main Project) and Bellamy and Gore (already part of the Longwood Road Grant application)
Bolivia resident Sabrina Beal told commissioners Monday well water in her area deteriorated after intensive nearby development, forcing residents to buy water for cooking and dental care.
“People of this community struggle with health issues like cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, shaking disorders, birth defects and more,” she said. “We gather here today to appeal to the commission board asking that allocated funding for Brunswick County water and infrastructure be immediately used and dispatched to connect piping in all areas passed by.”
Parker, Schreiber, and former Brunswick County commissioner Charles Warren told Port City Daily the county has resources to make progress on the issue even without grant awards.
“For over two decades I’ve been trying to push the county to get water to Black communities outside of Cedar Grove, Royal Oaks, some parts of Shallote,” Warren said. “It just feels like to me a lot of the time they don’t want to do anything because they want to run Black people out of Brunswick County.”
Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan argued the county is mismanaging resources used to fund basic services including water access. She cited the Public School Forum’s most recent Local School Finance Study to illustrate her point; it ranked Brunswick County second in the state for highest total local revenue per student but 93rd for local appropriations as a percentage of revenue per student.
“Brunswick County is wealthy — where’s all that tax revenue going?” she asked. “There’s no excuse for this level of negligence. Access to clean, safe, healthy drinking water is a basic human right.”
Commissioners approved the county’s $392-million 2024-2025 budget last year, a 12.8% increase from the previous budget. Total revenues for the county’s general fund in 2024 were $328.9 million.
The county pays for water services through an enterprise fund — a separate account meant to provide self-sustaining public services through fees, in a similar manner to a private business — rather than tax revenue. Water extensions are funded from a combination of system development fees, bonds, increased water rates to pay off debt, state appropriations and grants.
“The County funds water infrastructure/projects primarily through fees that are too expensive for residents in these communities to pay,” EarthRights attorney Alexis Yeboah-Kodie wrote in an email. “From FY19-20 to FY24-25, county water installation fees have increased from $650 to $2,900. These are the cheapest installation fees for drinking water. Many impacted residents are elderly and on a fixed income and struggle to pay the $10 to $20 a week for two cases of bottled water. Then and now, residents urged the county to solve this water crisis with the county’s own resources and/or federal and state grants. It is troubling that the county has not addressed this crisis.”
The current water fund’s 2024 budget revenue is $54.1 million, including $43.4 million from sales and service, according to Brunswick County documents. The water fund had a net income of $9.5 million in 2023, $6.1 million in 2022, and $3.5 million in 2021.
“The utility department is self-sufficient because all of the development has been hooked up to the water,” Warren said. “They’re making a profit from what I understand.”
North Carolina allows counties to use enterprise fund revenue for other government purposes if expenses are already covered, according to UNC local government finance expert Kara Milonzi, although the practice has drawn accountability concerns. The Brunswick County water fund transferred $6.3 million of its revenue to other county funds in 2024, $7.5 million in 2023, and $7.8 million in 2022.
Port City Daily asked the county for details about the water enterprise fund and its transfers. Kascak reached out to staff about the inquiry but was not able to provide an immediate response.
A 2019 Environmental Working Group study found Brunswick to have the highest PFAS levels of 44 samples taken throughout the nation. In 2018, the county entered a $599,600 contract with project designer CDM Smith to explore the Northwest Water Treatment Plant’s expansion and optimal PFAS treatment options in PFAS in 2018. The $168-million project has faced delays for years; the county anticipates its completion in June.
Commissioner Randy Thompson told Port City Daily he was open to considering using general fund revenue to help pay for extensions in upcoming budget discussions.
“We have reinstituted a program that we had in place prior to Covid,” he said. “Where we put a considerable amount of funds to run water lines to communities that requested it. Matter of fact, our engineering department has an ongoing list of those areas ranked.”
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
Want to read more from PCD? Subscribe now and then sign up for our morning newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
