Craven County Commissioners have approved nearly $9 million in funding to repair damage to the county’s water system that dates back to Hurricane Florence in 2018.

According to Assistant County Manager Gene Hodges, Hurricane Florence caused severe damage to the water telemetry system that serves the western part of Craven County. The system is the communication conduit that shares information between the county’s wells, water towers, and water plant and allows the water system to operate properly.

Hodges said that since the hurricane, the telemetry system has had a number of failures, with each site requiring daily in-person inspections and manual adjustments to maintain proper working function.

Craven County has selected McKim & Creed of Raleigh as the engineering firm for the repair project, which will be broken up into three phases. 

Phase 1 will consist of approximately 23 miles of additional fiber optic cable to extend Craven County's fiber network to the western part of the county and water assets on Highway 101. Phase 1 work will include electrical and telemetry upgrades to 17 water sites that will allow them to communicate with the water treatment plant near Lewis Farm Road.

Phase 2 will consist of new fiber being installed from approximately the northern end of the Slocum Creek Bridge in Havelock to an area adjacent to Roger Bell New Tech Academy.

Phase 3 will consist of new fiber being installed from approximately Grantham Road to the Havelock West End Fire Station. 

During their August 1 meeting, commissioners approved a total project budget of $8,769,261.

According to Finance Director Craig Warren, $7.2 million will come from American Rescue Plan funding while the rest will be paid from the county’s water fund balance.

The Phase 1 construction contract, which encompasses fiber construction as well as the new electrical and telemetry upgrade, was awarded to Turner Murphy Company, Inc for $5,164,144.

Warren said the Phase 1 project should take approximately one year to complete.

The repair project should fix the problem that residents in Cove City and other parts of western Craven County have experienced with low water pressure, according to County Manager Jack Veit.

“When Hurricane Florence hit we lost our old cable line that went to all the water sites," Veit said. "It cannot be repaired because we don’t own the line, it’s owned by the telephone company.This will put 26.2 miles of fiber across the county and hooks up every asset we have so now at the water plant they can see how everything’s working together, and that’s what we don’t have now.”

The telemetry project is just the latest of the county’s efforts to repair the damage Hurricane Florence wrought to the local water system.

In May, the county approved funds for a $1.8 million project to repair the Lawson Creek pump station, another victim of the storm. The pump station is a sub-surface vault containing pumps, pipes, valves, and electrical controls that interconnects under the Trent River the two water systems that Craven County operates.

The system is critical to the county’s plan to reduce the amount of water that is drawn out of the Black Creek aquifer in accordance with North Carolina state regulations.

More:Critical link in Craven water supply chain set for replacement

Hodges said the new pump station building will be elevated five feet off the ground, or nearly two feet above the high water mark, and stand approximately 15 feet tall. 

The Lawson Creek pump station serves as a redundancy, or back-up pump for systems that supply water for both north and south Craven County. If one of those systems went down without the Lawson Creek pump in place, the county would have no way to send water to those areas, Hodges explained. 

Construction costs for the project are $966,693 with a contingency fund of $97,000. The additional costs consist of architect and engineering fees.

Veit said studies have indicated that relocating the pump station away from the riverfront property at Lawson Creek would not be feasible due to hydraulic and financial concerns.

“There were studies done by water engineers to see if we could achieve the same pressure and same function of that component of the system away from the water, and it was determined that it was the most cost effective to raise it,” Veit said.

Reporter Todd Wetherington can be reached by email at wwetherington@gannett.com. Please consider supporting local journalism by signing up for a digital subscription.