By MARTY QUEEN
Senior Reporter
It’s early March, but it probably felt like Christmas for Morganton city officials Monday evening.
The N.C. Division of Water Infrastructure (NCDWI) came through with more than $11.5 million in a pair of grants that will allow the city to conduct much-needed and long-awaited upgrades on some of its vital wastewater infrastructure.
The City Council voted unanimously to approve resolutions accepting the two grants, one for $6.6 million and the other for $5 million, at its regular monthly meeting. The items were late additions to the agenda because officials didn’t find out the grants were approved until Monday.
The larger grant will be used for rehabilitation and improvements at the Catawba River Water Plant; the smaller will go towards improvements and expansion at the Silver Creek Pump Station. The crowd broke into a rare round of applause when the motions were approved.
“I feel like we need a drumroll or something,” joked City Manager Sally Sandy before briefing council on the news. City employees in attendance responded by drumming on the backs of their chairs. “For at least 10 years, we have been working on two large water and wastewater projects, and we have talked about them numerous times at this meeting, workshops, over and over again.
“And the great news is, we have received notice from the state today that the grant money that was included in the appropriations in last session that is coming to support these projects is being released. So, we can actually get these projects out to bid, move forward with them, and maybe complete them and stop talking about them.”
The $6.6 million Water Treatment Plant Sedimentation Basin Improvement Plan will upgrade the facility’s ability to filter solids from the water. In short, the project will include “lots of improvements to our sediment process,” Sandy said.
The Silver Creek project will include the use of new technology and enlarging the size of the pumps, both of which will help in flood events. Sandy said although the pump station is on the west side of town, it is “the workhorse in our sanitary sewer system.”
“This is more than just the west side. This is even bigger than that,” she later added.
The total grant amount of $11,655,353 is short of the city’s estimated cost by about $1.5 million, but Sandy said previous grants awarded to the city that were never funded should make up the difference without dipping into local funds. “We have multiple sources of funding for this project,” she said.
Preliminary steps on both projects are expected to begin immediately with applications for the necessary permits.
Marty Queen is the senior reporter for The Paper. He may be reached at 828-445-8595 or at marty@thepaper.media.
Menu