Overview:
• Fuquay-Varina wants to pull water from the Cape Fear River and discharge its treated wastewater in the Neuse River.
• Will that reduce water supplies and increase contamination levels in the Cape Fear River?
• A public hearing on Fuquay-Varina’s request will be held at Fayetteville Technical Community College on December 4.
Officials in the Fayetteville area don’t want the Town of Fuquay-Varina near Raleigh to pull up to 6.17 million gallons of water a day from the Cape Fear River Basin.
Fuquay-Varina is asking the state Department of Environmental Quality for permission to increase its interbasin transfer—a transfer of water from one river basin to another—because the fast-growing Wake County town anticipates it will need more water as soon as 2030. Under state law, the DEQ must approve interbasin transfers.
The town currently pulls 2 million gallons per day from the Cape Fear River Basin and discharges its treated wastewater into the Neuse River Basin instead of returning it to the Cape Fear.
The DEQ will hold a public hearing on Fuquay-Varina’s request at 6 p.m. December 4 in Cumberland Hall Auditorium at Fayetteville Technical Community College, 2220 Hull Road. Additional hearings are scheduled for December 9 in Raleigh and December 11 in Pittsboro.
Staff of the Fayetteville Public Works Commission will attend the hearings to speak against the request, PWC CEO Tim Bryant told the commission’s board on November 12. The PWC as of 2024 had 93,522 water service customers (about 225,000 people) in and around Fayetteville, its website says.
The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on Monday to oppose Fuquay-Varina’s request.
“A transfer from the Cape Fear River Basin of this magnitude could have several effects downstream, to include increased pollutant concentrations in the river, and decreased water availability in the Cape Fear River Basin,” Assistant County Manager Faith Phillips said in a November 17 memo to commissioners. “These are critical items as Cumberland County continues to seek solutions to address contaminated private drinking wells.”
The Spring Lake Board of Commissioners plans to discuss the matter at its November 24 meeting, Town Manager Jonathan N. Rorie told CityView.
The Fayetteville City Council is also scheduled to consider a resolution about the transfer on November 24, city spokesperson David Scott said. “We are supporting PWC by ensuring residents are aware of the public meeting,” he said.
Town Has To Buy Water
Fuquay-Varina does not have its own water supply, so it buys water from the City of Raleigh, Johnston County and Harnett County, according to documents in the interbasin transfer request. Home to about 49,000 residents, the town says it needs more water to accommodate its growth.
To fill the gap, Fuquay-Varina wants to buy additional water from TriRiver Water, a public water utility that serves 40,000 homes, businesses and other customers in Sanford, Pittsboro, Chatham County, and Siler City.
The water would come from the Cape Fear River and be piped from TriRiver’s water treatment plant near Sanford to Fuquay-Varina, about 14 miles away. Then the wastewater would be treated and discharged into the Neuse River Basin instead of the Cape Fear.
This is not the first time Cumberland County has battled communities in the Triangle over interbasin transfers.
In 2015, the PWC and the City of Fayetteville sued to stop an interbasin transfer from the Cape Fear to the Neuse that had been approved for Cary, Apex, Morrisville and the Research Triangle Park, The Fayetteville Observer reported at the time. The dispute was settled out of court in 2018. The newspaper reported similar water rights disputes between the Fayetteville area and the Triangle as far back as 1989, if not before.
“If we’re going to have economic development, we’ve got to use that Cape Fear River,” Cumberland County Commissioner Glenn Adams, who has been involved in previous water disputes, said on Monday.
“We’ve had this conversation before,” he said, and in the past, when upstream users took water from the river they put it back.
Adams urged the public to attend the hearing on December 4 to argue against Fuquay-Varina’s request.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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