Overview:
• The estimated price to build two PFAS filtration plants has risen $61 million since March 2023
• PWC customers may feel the increase in higher prices for their drinking water
• The water line to the Gray’s Creek schools is due to be finished next summer
The estimated cost for the Fayetteville Public Works Commission to build two filtration plants to clear PFAS contamination has risen to $134 million.
Customers could foot the bill by paying more for water in the coming years.
The expected cost to build filtration plants at the PWC’s Glenville Lake Water Treatment Facility and the P.O. Hoffer Water Treatment Facility was $73 million in March 2023, CityView previously reported. Since then, the estimate rose to $80 million, then $111.2 million, and then nearly $116 million.
The price has been revised again, to $134 million, engineers from the Hazen and Sawyer firm told the PWC’s board on Wednesday. The price includes a 15% contingency cushion, PWC spokesman Gavin MacRoberts said.
“This takes into consideration changes in material, equipment pricing,” engineer Cory Hopkins said. The project needs additional infrastructure than previously expected, he said, and the initial plans had to be changed to work around existing infrastructure.
Renderings depict the two plants as multi-story buildings in which vast amounts of water will be run through granular activated carbon filters to capture the PFAS chemicals.
The PWC has obtained $81 million in zero-interest and low-interest loans to pay for the filtration plants, which are set to open in June 2029, according to Hazen and Sawyer. The PWC is pursuing grants and loans from the state and federal governments to make up the $50-million-plus gap, PWC General Manager Tim Bryant said.
What happens if the PWC can’t get additional funding to help pay for the plants?
“Customers have to pay for it. It goes into rates,” Bryant said.
Smaller facility starts on Monday
Meanwhile, $24.9 million worth of improvements to the Hoffer Treatment Facility are scheduled to begin operations on Monday, and some of the upgrades should capture PFAS.
This will not be as effective as the large PFAS filtration plants, but will help, Bryant said.
Fayetteville is “almost ground zero for PFAS contamination,” he said. “We can’t play politics. So we as PWC, that water system here in the city of Fayetteville and Cumberland County, we need to take a step forward to make sure we provide the cleanest water that we possibly can.”
The improvements include an upgraded a pumping station, a new electrical building, a new filtered water mixing vault, new valves, and a new powder activated carbon storage and feed facility.
Water line for Gray’s Creek schools
Also on Wednesday, the PWC board voted unanimously to pay T.A Loving Co. $7.5 million to run a drinking water line to two elementary schools in the Gray’s Creek community, where the schools’ well water has been contaminated with PFAS. The Fayetteville City Council will have the final say on this bid.
The legislature has allocated $12 million for the project.
Gray’s Creek Elementary and Alderman Road Elementary shut off their drinking fountains in 2017 after PFAS was found in their water. Cumberland County recently installed filters in the schools so the students and staff can use the fountains again while they wait for the PWC’s water system to reach them.
The PWC will run the line to the area, Bryant said, and the county will then connect the schools. The water line is due to be finished next summer.
The PWC is Fayetteville’s city-owned utility, providing drinking water, sewer service and electricity in and around the city. The water services supply more than 225,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers, the PWC website says.
PFAS chemicals, which have been used in many products over the years, have become ubiquitous in the environment. They may decrease fertility, have ill effects on children, increase the risk for cancer and cause other health problems, the Environmental Protection Agency has said. PFAS chemicals are known as “forever chemicals” because they are slow to naturally break down in the environment.
The EPA has told public utilities to filter PFAS from their drinking water supplies by 2031.
One type of PFAS chemical, called GenX, was discharged for years into the air and the Cape Fear River from the Chemours Co. factory on the Bladen-Cumberland county line near Gray’s Creek. The company has been blamed for PFAS in drinking water wells in the area, and in public water systems downstream to Wilmington in southeastern North Carolina.
The PWC’s water intakes are upstream from Chemours — its PFAS contamination is from other sources.
The EPA in May announced it plans to rescind previous restrictions on GenX.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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