Standing on stage during a highly anticipated town meeting, microphone in hand, Spruce Pine Town Manager Darlene Butler responded to a question about lessons learned in the aftermath of the devastation wrought by the remnants of Hurricane Helene.
“I think it's pretty much a no-brainer with our wastewater system … When we get to the point of rebuilding our original plant, higher is going to be better,” Butler said. “That's something that FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers … Everyone's saying, ‘This is your opportunity to do it better,’ and we intend to.”
The office of Gov. Roy Cooper estimates that the initial destruction from the storm, statewide, is about $53 billion. In the Mitchell County town of Spruce Pine, the raging floodwaters washed away big chunks of the town’s wastewater treatment plant, leaving the sewage plant inoperable. Butler was one of several officials who spoke during the county-wide town hall meeting Nov. 12 in Bakersville.
Nearly 70 residents came to hear updates and get questions answered about storm-related issues, including the FEMA disaster recovery program, storm debris collection and internet connectivity.
In late September, the storm dumped one to two feet of rain on western North Carolina, depending on the location. The North Toe River, which borders the property where Spruce Pine’s wastewater treatment plant sits, breached its banks and swept vital parts of the facility away.
As of Nov. 21, there were 103 verified storm-related fatalities in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, backing up Cooper’s assessment that Helene “was the deadliest and most damaging” natural disaster on record in North Carolina. Five people in Mitchell County died in the storm, another two died from storm-related injuries and one person remains missing, according to a county official.
Days after the storm, Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Spruce Pine), who represents Mitchell County, told NC Health News there were no quick fixes to restoring the wastewater treatment plant.
“We're hoping to find some sort of solution that's temporary … tanks, technology, holdings,” he said. “We see pictures of them and those kinds of things, but it's not like a factory has got one sitting in the lot to send out to Mitchell County.”
Water infrastructure is an important issue across the state — whether it is damaged systems due to natural disasters or the growing number of rural water utilities that lack the finances to maintain system upkeep. Solving these challenges may require a radical shift in how some municipalities deliver community services.
A Three-Pronged Solution
Now, roughly eight weeks after the storm wrecked the region, there are some patches in place. The town’s wastewater treatment plant, which seemed damaged beyond repair, is believed to be processing 400,000 to 450,000 gallons daily, with support from a leased mobile sewage treatment unit, according to town councilman Wayne Peight. This is roughly half of the plant's normal capacity, Peight said.
In addition to the repairs at the plant, other resources were ready to be deployed to the area. During the week of Oct. 28, two mobile wastewater treatment units were delivered to Spruce Pine to address sewer needs.
“Each mobile plant serves a different area with higher needs and a vulnerable population,” Butler said. “One plant will serve the prison area and the community college. One plant will serve the high school, middle school, you know, several of those things.”
She noted that those modular plants were the first two components of their wastewater solution.
“The third component is to repair lines, repair the sewer plant itself, so that what we feed gravity-wise can still come to the plant,” Butler said.
The mobile units — called BluBoxes — were provided by Texas-based Integrated Water Services, an engineering firm that creates water and wastewater products for “clientele where conventional infrastructure is unavailable or extremely costly and time consuming to implement,” according to the company website.
Spruce Pine signed a six-week lease at a cost of more than $1.2 million to rent the modular sewage treatment units.
“We hope we don't have to extend that, you know, because it will be exponentially more expensive. But you have to do what you have to do,” Butler said.
Butler said the town anticipated that costs of the BluBoxes and repairs to the sewage treatment plant will be covered by insurance, plus help from FEMA’s public assistance program.
Modular Sewage Treatment Systems
The technology offered by the BluBox modular system could answer the question of how the town can relocate its plant to higher ground.
Each unit, about the size of a shipping container, requires less space than traditional treatment plants. One unit can treat from 70,000 to 150,000 gallons of waste per day, according to information provided by the company.
Depending on the size and scope of the job, the system can be scaled by linking units together to increase capacity, according to Todd Brunetti, the vice president of technical and digital services at Integrated Water Services. Also, a unit’s capacity can increase by adding what Brunetti described as “onboard supplemental processing units.”
Once the BluBox is delivered to the site and the unit is operational, a compartment called the EQ tank collects the different water coming from all over the city.
“Then that gets fed to the screen to pull out the big stuff, like hay, leaves, plastic gloves, whatever ends up in the water,” said Sofia Franciscus, Integrated Water Services’ business manager.
Eventually, waste is filtered through a series of membranes, which separate solids that get broken down by bacteria “that eat[s] all the nutrients in the water,” Franciscus explained. The remaining sludge is diverted to a tank, and the treated water is released into the Toe River.
A Happier Ending
Due to the successful repairs at the town’s sewer treatment plant, only one mobile unit is needed. Peight credits the engineering firm the town is working with for the progress at the plant.
“The process that was going to take longer than anything ended up going very, very well for them,” Peight said. “They were very efficient.”
It’s not clear what the total cost of restoring the plant will be or what the cost for a new plant, planned to replace the current one, is — or how that will affect ratepayers. Nonetheless, the community is gradually regaining a sense of normalcy, with the schools reopened and the town’s boil water advisory lifted.
Hise, who was distraught eight weeks ago as he described the damage Helene had inflicted on Spruce Pine’s sewer plant, weighed in on how things are progressing.
“No one is pleased that we are just getting treatment after nearly two months,” Hise said. “The town is doing everything possible to recover from the loss of the sewer plant, damages to the distribution system, the loss of the water intake in the Toe River, the complete destruction of our downtown, and multiple individual and business losses.”
But, he noted, “We are incredibly grateful for all that they are doing to lead this recovery that will absolutely take many years to get through.”
Speight said the mobile units served an important role.
“With those couple of package plants, we were able to first of all, hedge our liability and keep a whole bunch of waste out of the rivers.”
As for the future, Peight said: “We are currently negotiating the process to be able to start the planning and designing of a new plant. We've already started work toward getting a permanent fix.” He added, “But this one should carry us through the necessary time to do a solid, future-proofed fix that hopefully will benefit this community for 50 years plus.”
This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
