Water, sewer grants received
By Steve Herring
Published in News on February 24, 2016 1:46 PM
Wayne County, Mount Olive and the Fork Township Sanitary District have been awarded a total of more than $6.1 million in state zero-interest loans for drinking water and wastewater improvement projects.
The county will receive $820,258 for rehabilitation of its sewer system, including installation of sewer flow meters at various sites.
Mount Olive will receive slightly more than $2 million to pay for modernization, including rehabilitation and replacement of gravity sewer lines and 40 manholes.
The loan comes with $500,000 in principal forgiveness making the total repayable amount $1.549 million.
Fork Township Sanitary District will receive $3.3 million for installation of waterlines and rehabilitation of a pump system.
It also includes $500,000 in principal forgiveness for a total repayable amount of $2.8 million.
Funding for the county and Mount Olive is through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund that is used to improve water quality by financing wastewater, stormwater and other clean water infrastructure improvements.
Fork's funding is through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund dedicated to drinking water sources, treatment, storage or transmission and distribution systems.
The county operates a small sewer system located in the Genoa community that pumps all its sewage to Goldsboro for treatment.
The county maintains approximately 9.24 miles of sewer lines, both gravity and force main combined, as well as 75 manholes.
In recent months the county has worked to control inflow and infiltration of groundwater and rainwater into the system by working on the manholes.
The county wants to install the flow meters to better gauge the volume being handled by the system.
It is one of the county's proprietary funds meaning it is operated like a business that provides a fee-based service to operate the system.
Mount Olive's project could keep an estimated 800,000 gallons of rainwater and groundwater out of the system annually and in doing so lessen the likelihood of a repeat of three recent sewer spills that dumped approximately 670,00 gallons of untreated waste into the headwaters of the North East Cape Fear River.
However, there is a "but" to the town accepting the money, Town Manager Charles Brown said.
Only $500,000 is basically a grant while the remaining $1.5 million is a loan that the town would have to repay between $50,000 to $60,000 annually, Brown said.
The town is not planning on turning down the money and is working with W.K. Dixon of Raleigh, the town's consulting engineer, to explore other options, Brown said.