WF gets $2.175 M for reservoir, plant

Last Wednesday, March 23, U.S. Representative David E. Price announced that the Town of Wake Forest would receive $2.175 million for its Smith Creek Reservoir repairs as part of the $17.8 million in Community Project Funding (CPF) for the Fourth Congressional District.

If you are new to town and wondering why the town is responsible for repairs at the Smith Creek Reservoir, it is because after the Town of Wake Forest agreed to merge its water and sewer systems with Raleigh’s in November of 2004 and pay for the upgrades Raleigh said were needed, the G.G. Hill Water Treatment Plant and the reservoir became surplus property owned by Raleigh. They were returned to town ownership in 2009. They have sat untouched for years.

The Lagoon Closure Project is headed by Carrie Mitchell, a town engineer. It will consist of closing the existing alum lagoons and related structures and removal of three aboveground storage tanks.

The following are the answers to questions posed by the Gazette and relayed through Lisa Hayes, Strategic Performance Manager, and Bill Crabtree, communications and public affairs director.

Closure of the alum lagoons (alum was used to coagulate dirt and other particles from the water before additional treatment) entails removing the associated features (concrete divider, control panel, underground electrical lines, light pole, etc.) and filling in the lagoons. The three aboveground storage tanks were part of the water treatment operations. Two of the tanks were labeled as Sodium Hypochlorite and one was labeled Aluminum Sulfate; each tank has a volume of 6,000 gallons. The tanks were decommissioned (emptied and cleaned out) in 2009.

The town had sent out a request for bids on the closure project but none were received. The request will be advertised again in April.

Hayes provided this information about the Community Project Funding grant of $2.175 million:

“Please note as listed below that we are unaware at this time what guidelines the State or FEMA will request of us. The information and process below is how we understand it today.

“Our understanding is that process now shifts over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and can “take upwards of six months” to hear next steps.

“The approved funding, subject to FEMA guidelines, is $2.175 million.

“The Wake Forest Reservoir Project is proposed to address the safety risks associated with a reservoir that was built in the 1960s. The dam provided drinking water and was under the ownership of the City of Raleigh. In September 2019, ownership of the property was given to the Town of Wake Forest.

“The cost associated with the project is $2.9 million and will be completed in phases. (All phases will be budgeted with a 25% match by the Town of Wake Forest.)

“Work will include the removal of three aboveground bulk chemical storage tanks, demolition of the dividing wall in the sludge lagoon, backfilling the lagoon, as well as site restoration. Implementation of new safety measures will be included.

“The final phase includes the addition of recreational facilities such as trails, canoe/kayak pier, tree preservation areas and other outdoor recreation areas.”

The G.G. Hill building will probably remain as it is, decommissioned and empty, because there are no plans to raze it or convert it to another use.

The dam, built in the 1960s also, is fine but “NC Dam Safety has stated that there are no apparent problems with the dam, but it is considered high hazard due to the severe risk of property damage and/or potential of loss of life downstream in the event the dam failed.”

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Before the 1920s Wake Forest people had to use privies and wells, though Wake Forest College had some plumbing in dormitories by the 1890s.

The town’s first water system, installed in the 1920s, was fed by a small impoundment on Smith Creek. The water was piped to a treatment plant on Elm Avenue (Totally renovated, the plant is now a dentist’s office.) and then piped into an elevated water tank for distribution. The tank was decorated with colored lights for Christmas and also held the fire department’s siren for fires.

That system was proving inadequate by the 1960s, and the town decided to dam Smith Creek to form a reservoir that would provide the needed water. Mary Bolus, who with her husband owned Bolus Department Store, gave the land for the reservoir to the town. (The store building survives on South White Street, the recessed double-entry store with four display windows is now The Purple Door Day Spa and NC General Stores and is still owned by the Bolus family.) The winning bid to build the dam was $75,196. Mayor Wait Brewer, elected in 1963, and Town Clerk Anna Holden, the first woman in that position, organized, filled out, and applied for all the federal, state and local permits and grants to build the water treatment plant (later the G.G. Hill Water Treatment Plant in honor of a long-serving public works director) at the foot of the reservoir and the new 300,000-gallon elevated water tank on South White Street. The town also was building small sewage treatment plants on Richland and Smith creeks.

By 2000 it was again apparent that the town growth had surpassed by far its ability to provide water; the town already had a water contract with Raleigh to purchase up to 960,000 gallons a day. The town’s water treatment plant could provide 1.2 million gallons a day – as much as 2 mgd at times.

But, as an article in the Gazette in 2004 noted, “. . . on hot, dry summer days with irrigation systems spurting all over town, Wake Forest customers sponge up as much as 3.4 mgd. The extra water comes from the Raleigh contracts, ending in 2007, which provides up to 1.75 mgd. The Wake Forest water plant operators pump as much water as they can through the Capital Boulevard line because the water contract was so expensive. That keeps costs down at the town’s water treatment plant.”

In 2004 Raleigh had already extended water and sewer to Garner, whose own systems were failing, and water and sewer to Rolesville which, because it sits on a granite batholith, found putting in water or sewer pipes was too expensive for its population of well under 1,000 people.

Very soon Raleigh extended both utilities to Wendell, Knightdale and Zebulon.

Cary had once purchased water from Raleigh, but about 2004 began exploring water from the Cape Fear Basin and now provides that water to the western Wake towns of Morrisville and Holly Springs.

Between 1998 and 2004 Wake Forest went looking for water in what turned out to be all the wrong places because the town had substantial doubts about Raleigh’s water and sewer systems. And the town feared losing control of its utilities.

There was an effort to see if the town could tap into Kerr Lake water; there was a much more serious effort to tap the Neuse River water at the former Burlington Mills plant, which still had a water withdrawal permit. The town could expand its water treatment plant but it could not increase the volume of the reservoir.

There were studies by water supply experts –because the town had recently completed the Smith Creek Water Treatment Plant, sewer was not an issue – along with impassioned statements for and against Raleigh’s takeover at public meetings and barely concealed discord among the town commissioners and the mayor.

In the end there was really no choice except Raleigh, and despite misgivings it has proved to be the right choice.