Mount Olive sets ground-breaking for sewer plant
By Bonnie Edwards
Published in News on September 22, 2006 1:45 PM
MOUNT OLIVE -- Residents and officials will break ground for the town's new waste water treatment plant Sept. 28 at the site of the original facility at 408 Wilkins Farm Road.
It has taken Mount Olive six years to get a regional sewer plant, which is being upgraded to double its capacity.
The first treatment plant was constructed to handle a million gallons a day. Town officials said infiltration was so bad a few years ago that, when it rained, the plant would sometimes have to handle more than two million gallons. The plant was just not big enough to cope with that much flow, they said.
When Mount Olive asked for help with the sewer problems, state environmental officials didn't even want to talk to them until they embraced a regional concept.
When the town of Calypso agreed to join the project, grant money started pouring in. Town voters then passed a $5 million bond to cover the balance.
The town also bought some land for a spray field land tree farm to utilize the effluent from the treatment plant.
The town of Calypso has since hooked onto the system, and other customers might be waiting in the wings.
In addition to the ground-breaking, Mount Olive officials announced that they would be providing copies of the 2004 Performance Report covering sewer system operations from July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2005, at the town hall.
The North Carolina Clean Water Act of 1999 requires each owner or operator of any wastewater treatment plant or wastewater collection system to provide an annual performance report to its users and customers.