The Mount Olive Town Board, at its Tuesday, July 11, session approved resolutions accepting $14 million in federal funding that includes $6 million for work at the sewer plant and $8 million for work to stop water inflow and infiltration into sewer lines. (Steve Herring|mountolivetribune.com)
Action by the Mount Olive Town Board at its Tuesday, July 11, session clears the way for the town to receive $14 million in federal funding for much-needed improvements to its sewer system.
The board set the stage for the funding by approving resolutions accepting two American Rescue Grants and by approving capital project ordinances for both.
Town Manager Jammie Royall said he is unsure how soon the funding will start flowing, but that the money has to be expended by the end of 2026.
The $14 million includes a $6 million grant for improvements at the sewer treatment plant while an $8 million grant is earmarked to address the ongoing inflow and infiltration (I&I) problem that strains the treatment plant by adding to the volume of water that has to be treated.
Infiltration occurs when groundwater seeps into sewer pipes through cracks, holes, faulty connections and joint failure.
Inflow is when storm water flows into sewer lines.
Once in the system, the I&I water must be treated thereby adding to the volume being treated by a sewer treatment plant.
The $6 million is much needed, and will complement the $5.5 million in state funding the town received in 2019, but it still falls well short of the $30 million that Royall estimates it will cost to do all of the work needed at the treatment plant.
“You talk about $6 million, that is a lot of money,” Royall said. “We just got the $5.5 million in 2019, but the crazy thing with that is by the time we actually got everything done and got it going COVID come in.
“So that ($5.5 million) was only worth about $3 million. So you have that $3 million then this $6 million that really, with the price of stuff, doesn’t equal up to what it did before COVID.”
The $6 million will help, and the town is grateful for it, he added.
It will be used for updated electronics at the sewer plant and to finish tying everything together from the $5.5 million project, Royall explained.
That part of the work included eliminating the tree farm that had been irrigated by treated wastewater and replacing it with a spray-irrigation system where grass is grown, he said.
The $5.5 million was not enough to finish that work, Royall continued.
“So this ($6 million) should cap off everything from what is left from the $5.5 million that we received,” he said. “This will get us running. The bad thing, the $8 million to us is worth five times what the $6 million is for the treatment plant (because of I&I).
“If we don’t get that (I&I) done, we can’t even really see what the treatment plant is capable of doing and what it really needs to do because we have so much inflow coming in.”
Once the town can get a handle on I&I, then the treatment plant will be all right for the present, Royall said.
The town manager said he is unsure how much volume I&I is adding to what is being treated at the plant. However, he said, it would be safe to say that it is a considerable amount.
“If you have a gallon of sewer water and 20 million gallons of fresh rainwater, all of that has got to be treated,” Royall said.
The only thing that the state counts as far as the treatment plant is how much water from it goes into the creek that is the headwaters of the Northeast Cape Fear River, Royall said.
If the town bought enough land to use as a spry field and didn’t send anything to the creek, then the state would not care, Royall said, adding that what the state is concerned with is the amount of water going into the creek.
The town’s daily state-allowed discharge of treated wastewater into the creek is 1.3 million gallons.
The water has been tested, and after it is treated it is good enough to drink, even though it is considered “gray water” since it has been treated, the town manager said.
The $8 million will be used to replace sewer lines, some more than a century old and some made out of terra-cotta. It will be used for slip lining, too, a process in which a new epoxy-saturated pipe tubing is inserted into an existing pipe and then inflating the tubing and curing it into place.
The town also has received a $2 million grant through the Community Development Block Grant program for sewer work.
“That is getting ready to start very soon,” Royall said. “That is going to be for sewer and I&I really for the south end of town. CDBG money is always used in the most poverty-stricken areas.
“So that will actually be $10 million (total) that we will have going into I&I. I am really waiting for that because that is really going to let us know exactly we do have and what will be going to the treatment plant.”
A contract has been awarded for the $2 million project, and work should be under way soon, he added.
