WILMINGTON – When the Wilmington area’s water system arrived in 1881, not a drop was for drinking.
The priority at the time was fire protection; for hydration and hygiene, the county’s residents pumped (not always clean) wells. It wasn’t until 1909 that the City of Wilmington bought Clarendon Waterworks and, under the leadership of John H. Sweeney Sr. as the city’s first chief engineer, formed its incipient public water and sewer department, according to an official narrative. A year later, the city erected a new treatment plant.
“Of course, we’ve come a long way with technology and equipment and the number of people we serve here,” Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) spokeswoman Jacqueline Valade said Friday morning at the newly expanded Sweeney Water Treatment Plant off N. Fifth Avenue.
In the four-year, $68-million project, CFPUA—the plant’s current owner—expanded capacity to 35 million gallons per day (GPD) from 25 GPD and added a new administration building, an ultraviolet water treatment facility, and a slew of other upgrades intended to serve the area for the next 50 to 100 years.
It is one of two water treatment plants the CFPUA operates in New Hanover County, the other being the nanofiltration plant in Ogden.
At a briefing at Sweeney Friday morning, before a pair of giant scissors sliced a ribbon on the completed project, officials emphasized the expansion’s importance. “It’s going to enable our area to grow and prosper,” Wilmington Mayor Pro Tem Earl Sheridan said. “It’s particularly important for us at the coastal areas here.”
Most of the county’s drinking supply starts as “raw” Cape Fear River water at the King’s Bluff intake in Bladen County. But because plenty other jurisdictions draw from the same river, farther inland, “There are a whole lot of people recycling (water) ahead of us by the time it gets down here,” said CFPUA Water Resources Manager Mike Richardson.
That means state-of-the-art treatment is needed here, where demand for potable water increases by at least one-and-a-half times during the hot and touristy summer months, officials said.
“This plant is going to handle anything that gets thrown at it,” CFPUA Board Chairman Jim Quinn said, adding it could probably cover the county’s entire service area, including the beach towns. And if growth returns in the form it took in the early-to-mid-2000s, “We’ll be prepared for it.”
Quinn, also a former Wilmington City Council member, said the expanded plant’s opening marks a new chapter for CFPUA, which has experienced its “rough spots” since its inception in July 2008, during the harsh economic conditions that followed regional growth and infrastructural challenges. “But I feel the authority has really hit its stride now.”
The project’s funding came from a $187 million revenue bond issuance in August 2008.
The Sweeney plant itself went into service in 1943 with the ability to process seven-million GPD, according to CFPUA. Jim Flechtner, CFPUA’s chief operations officer, said the plant’s growth to 35 million GPD nods to Sweeney himself, as well as his associates who laid the foundation.
“Their goals of public health and prosperity were the same,” Flechtner said.
Contact Ben Brown at [email protected] or (910) 772-6335. On Twitter: @benbrownmedia
