BURGAW — The Pender County Board of Commissioners are ready to approve a state funding request in the amount of $3.2 million to expand capacity at its water treatment facility from two-million-gallons-per-day (MGD) to 6-MGD.
This comes after a key interbasin transfer (IBT) certificate was approved in July that will allow the county to move water from the Cape Fear River basin to basins and sub-basins in the more populated eastern region of the county.
Pender County Public Utilities Director Kenny Keel said on Monday morning although the project is in its early funding phase, he believes funding approval from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) can be achieved by early 2019.
“In early 2021, we would probably have the expansion completed,” Keel said.
The county’s water plant is located on the western edge of the county, near U.S. 421 and the New Hanover County border, and is supplied directly from the Cape Fear River through a pipeline that also serves Brunswick County and the Cape Fear Public Utilities Authority (CFPUA), Keel said.
A growing population means a growing need for water
Keel said the county’s population growth and the IBT agreement to sell water in the future to municipalities like Surf City, Topsail Beach, and Burgaw were the key reasons to seek funding for the water plant’s expansion.
Components of the expansion will include doubling the number of granular activated carbon filters, which removes chemicals from the water, and an addition of a third water pump to deliver treated water into the distribution system, according to Keel. He also said that when the $28 million plant was completed in 2012, it was designed to accommodate such an expansion.
Additional funding may come from the county’s operations funds, by taxpayers, or from bank loans, Keel said, adding that such plans will become more clear once the county knows how much funding it will receive from the DEQ.
“As [the county grows] it’s going to get to a point in the not so distant future that we’re moving more than a million gallons a day from the water plant over to the eastern end of the county,” he said.
To move over a million gallons a day from one basin to another, the county needs permission from the state through the IBT certificate, Keel said.
According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, Pender County was the second fastest growing county in North Carolina from 2016 to 2017 at a growth rate of 3.5%, just behind neighboring Brunswick County.
Residents may attend the Pender County Board of Commissioners meeting on Monday at 4 p.m located at the Pender County Public Assembly Room.
Mark Darrough can be reached at Mark@localvoicemedia.com
