April 26, 2006

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            The City of Raleigh is continuing to operate the G.G. Hill plant because of this spring’s severe drought, even though the merger agreement signed last year specified it would be closed.

            “The extra water will help” the drought situation, Ron Horton said. Horton oversees Raleigh’s suburban water and sewer systems: Wake Forest, Rolesville and Garner.

            The main reason, though, for changing to the 24/7 operation, Horton said, is to train employees who will be transferred to the planned 20-million-gallon-a-day plant near Garner that will draw water from lakes Benson and Wheeler. Horton said the Raleigh City Council has just approved a midyear budget package adding six employees at the Wake Forest plant.

            Horton said Raleigh still plans to shut down the Wake Forest plant at some point.

            “If we were not in a drought situation we would have been able to shut down that plant. Gallon-wise, it costs a lot more to produce water out of that plant,” Horton said.

            Jessee Walker, the operations supervisor at the Wake Forest plant, said the Smith Creek reservoir that provides the water, is in good shape. “It’s full to the brim now. It’s a good reservoir.” Walker said that during last year’s severe drought the reservoir was down 4 feet from full. It is supplied by Smith Creek, which rises in Franklin County, and by springs.

            The Garner plant, which has already been named for Dempsey Benton, Raleigh’s former utilities director, has been designed and is ready for bid, Horton said, but progress has been held up for an environmental assessment.

            In other news about Raleigh’s operation of the Wake Forest system, Horton said the water and sewer crews are settled into the former Chris Leith Kia dealership on Star Road. The crews service the Wake Forest and Rolesville systems, and in the future will also service Wakefield, Horton said. It will also be named the North Raleigh Operations Center at some future point.

            The merger agreement spelled out an estimated $16 million in improvements to Wake Forest utilities. (The purchase of a million gallons of water capacity added $3 million more.)

            “We’ve started the design of the water system improvements,” Horton said, and the plans are about 90 percent complete. The city needs to get easements and approval to cross under the CSX rail line. The new lines will improve water pressure and loop the system better, Horton said. Areas across the north side of Wake Forest have experienced long-standing low water pressure.

            “There is one project in Raleigh that will eventually help with the pressure,” Horton said. That is a 24-inch water line from the E.M. Johnston Water Treatment Plant on Falls of the Neuse Road that will feed the 1-million-gallon water storage tank that was just completed. It stands on Falls near its intersection with Old N.C. 98.

            Once the 24-inch line is complete, the water line through Wakefield will have to be connected to the Wake Forest system at a point along U.S. 1 (Capital Boulevard).

            Wake Forest began work on that connection in May of 2004 but was halted by Raleigh because of low pressure problems in Wakefield.

            “We’ve started on the sanitary sewer system evaluation, and we’ve started – though we’re not very far along – on the Smith Creek wastewater treatment plant upgrades,” Horton said.

            The upgrades for the Smith Creek plant will increase its capacity “and probably wind up changing the method of treatment,” Horton said. The thinking is that the solids will be sent down the pipe along the Neuse River to the city’s Neuse River Wastewater Treatment Plant.

            Also, “We’re doing a [wastewater] reuse master plan,” Horton said, and the Smith Creek plant is being evaluated as part of that master plan. The treated wastewater from the Smith Creek plant could be used for irrigation, in cooling towers and in other industries that do not need potable water.