LCFWASA
LCFWASA pumps untreated water from just north of Lock and Dam No. 1 on the Cape Fear River in Riegelwood, all the way down to the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant, north of the Isabel Holmes bridge in Wilmington. Water travels through a 48-inch pipeline that stretches 24 miles and crosses the river twice.
Crews are working to install a second, 54-inch parallel pipeline that traverses the same path. Once online, the $37 million project will immediately increase LCFWASA’s delivery output, from 45 millions of gallons a day (mgd) the current max to an estimated 62 mgd, without additional improvements necessary. It will also provide redundancy that will protect the system against catastrophe: In 2016 during Hurricane Matthew, the pipe ruptured, losing 12.5 mgd over a two-week period.
The Cape Fear River the Wilmington area’s primary source of drinking water has been polluted with toxic chemicals known as PFAS for at least 30 year. Traditional water-treatment systems were unable to filter out the chemicals. (Port City Daily photo / CFPUA)
WILMINGTON Make no mistake: Geoff Gisler is not pleased that Chemours recently violated a judge’s order to keep toxic chemicals out of the Cape Fear River.
Gisler, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), won’t be satisfied until the substances known as PFAS including Genx are no longer escaping from the Chemours plant near Fayetteville. Compared to several years ago, when there was little being done to stop high levels of PFAS from flowing into the river, Gisler believes the recent violations are a good problem to have.
BRUNSWICK COUNTY – Brunswick County is preparing to finally make long-planned adjustments to its water rates.
The charge increases will help the county pay off its debt for the $156.8 million
upgrades to the Northwest Water Treatment Plant. Starting in October 2022, the county must make annual payments averaging $8.4 million for the capital project. The improvements include an increase in capacity to 45 million gallons per day and the installation of a low-pressure reverse osmosis system to eliminate substantial levels of
PFAS from the Cape Fear River-sourced water.
(PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals used in manufacturing and cannot be removed by the traditional water-treatment process. They became a big concern locally when the compound GenX was discovered in the water supply.)