Wanda Robinson, Sampson County Public Health Director, came before Salemburg town board as a town resident to request a waterline connect for her and her mother to combat water pump issues.
                                 Michael B. Hardison|Sampson Independent

Wanda Robinson, Sampson County Public Health Director, came before Salemburg town board as a town resident to request a waterline connect for her and her mother to combat water pump issues.

Michael B. Hardison|Sampson Independent

SALEMBURG — Sampson County Public Health Director Wanda Robinson is no stranger to formal speaking in front of elected officials on health department matters. At the Salemburg meeting Thursday night she stood before Salemburg town commissioners as a resident requesting to be connected to the town’s water system.

Robinson approached the town board during public comments at the first-held commissioner’s meeting of 2025 this past Thursday. In her remarks, she voiced concerns over issues her and her mother were having with their water pump. In hopes of remedying that, Robinson made a request of town officials to have the homes of the two connected to the Salemburg’s water.

“Me and my mother both live on Old Fayetteville Road,” explained Robinson. “We’ve been having a lot of trouble with our water pump.”

While she didn’t specify the problems, Robinson said that looking into finding someone to fix those issues was troubling in itself. She noted discovering that the town could possibly help her with connecting to an existing town water system that runs to a trailer park near their home.

“In trying to figure out how to get those issues solved,” she said, addressing the town commissioners. “I was told that there’s a connection that could possibly be made that could run across to my mom’s house from where the mobile homes are near where she lives.

“To do so, however, I was also told that I had to come before you all to make a request to see if it’s possible for us to be connected to that system, so that’s why I’m here tonight,” Robinson added.

The board couldn’t give Robinson a definitive answer whether her request could be carried out or not. The town will need to complete a preliminary survey to determine if the request is possible.

To get a better understanding of the scope of the potential project, Mayor Joe Warren asked Public Works Director Scott Owen to share a deep dive into the process.

“What has to be done when you have to run a line as you’re requesting, that’s what we call a waterline extension,” Owen explained. “In order to do a line extension, we have to get an engineer and a surveyor involved. After that, we have to get approval to even do the project, and then we have to find someone to put the line in.”

Owen also said the length of the water line also had to be taken into account, which he estimated currently was at least ‘two football fields’ or roughly around 1,000 feet. While all those factors sounded like deterrents, that wasn’t the case, as Owen said he was just listing steps in the process and was in fact going to start looking into it.

“I said all that to say that’s some of what it’ll take to get all this going,” he said. “For now we can go out there and start taking a look at it to get a ball park pricing of what it could cost if they put the extension in and then we can go from there at that point in time.

“After that, it’ll be on the town for rather or not they want to allow the extension to be put in or not,” he added.

Robinson also inquired into if she needed to do any paperwork or an application for her request but Owen said all he needed to do was legwork.

“I just need to do some footwork and legwork so we can kind of get an idea of what it’s going to cost and we’ll go from there,” he said.

“As soon as we know something we’ll give you a call,” Teresa Smith, Town Clerk, added.

Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.