The county’s water system was once again a big topic of discussion at the Dec. 1 Board of Commissioners meeting. Public Works Director Mark Turlington shared an update on various water projects, and residents of the unincorporated area of the county near Roseboro were present to bring forward their concerns about water in their community.
The Ivanhoe project, which has been in the works for several years now, is nearly complete, Turlington reported. “They’re on the last three miles laying the water main,” he stated. “We have started recruiting the last phase and started recruiting it on Nov. 17, and they’ve got through Jan. 15 to sign up for water in that last phase to get water to their house. Hopefully, in another two months, we’ll be getting the booster pump for that site, and once we get the booster pump, we can start sending water to houses in that community.”
A conditional grant to provide water to Old Warsaw Road, which was announced at last month’s meeting, was also briefly discussed. Turlington shared that he is working with the engineers now to get the paperwork signed, and that he will send a letter to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality on Feb. 8 to get the ball rolling.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Elaine Hunt, a resident of Old Warsaw Road who’s been coming to the commissioners meetings to speak about water issues in her community for more than three years, thanked Turlington and the board for their work to get the grant approved.
The permits for the Clement Phase 2 project are completed, Turlington said, and his staff has started working on the needed easements.
Finally, Turlington addressed an incident that happened last week at the iron and manganese treatment plant on Faison Highway. “The man that went to check the well found that a line had been busted,” he explained. “At that same time, we began to get calls throughout the county of dirty water. We had on Tuesday, Wednesday put together, over 50 calls on discolored water. The line was not tightened and it blowed out, and it also appeared that — we cannot be sure of this — but it also appeared that the vessel was trying to clean itself. Well, all of that was mainly cut off, so we don’t know what happened there, and we think some of where we cleaned the water, got back into our system. It’s no harm to anybody. It just caused the water to be dark and discolored.”
Turlington added that he had talked with the contractor about the issue. “I had my men this morning to cut the system off,” he said Monday night. “It will stay off until I’m 110 percent sure that it is ready to be put in service. This is the second time we’ve been through this with this contractor, and there’s no sense in it. I’m embarrassed for us that they have been digging for this contract and this whole deal. But like I said, we have got the treatment plant cut off, it will not will not be turned back on until I am guaranteed we do not have this problem again.”
Charles Royal, who said he lives near Roseboro, spoke up during the public comment portion of the meeting to “complain about water and PFAS.”
He said that there needs to be other safeguards in place to protect his community’s water, other than just occasional testing. “You’ve got kids playing and they get skin bruises and take a bath, then they what? They’re getting that PFAS into their system,” Royal stated, showing the commissioners a new water filter and then a rust-covered filter that had been used on his water.
Antoinette James of Old Mintz Highway in Roseboro spoke after Royal. “This is a bittersweet moment,” she said. “I’m happy for Ivanhoe that they’ve got their water, but it’s bittersweet because in Roseboro, we would also like clean water. It’s disheartening, aggravating and it’s becoming costly. I can only speak for myself, but I have spent a lot of money to keep my well running, my mom’s well running. If we’re not dealing with the PFAS situation, then we’re dealing with rust. If we’re not dealing with rust, we’re dealing with iron.”
She continued, “My point is we deserve clean drinking water just like everybody else, and we’ve been asking, we’ve been asking, we’ve been asking, we don’t get any answers. It’s starting to feel like we’re begging now, and we shouldn’t have to beg for something that is a human right.”
She reiterated what Royal had said, stating that she is a nurse. “They say don’t cook with it, don’t drink it, we’ll give you this clean water filter, and this is what you do for your whenever you need clean water, but we shower and we bathe and we do everything else in that dirty water. That’s not being filtered. And he’s right. If you have a cut, if you have a scrape, if you have some kind of open wound on your body, it’s just common sense that that PFAS and all of that nasty water is getting in your system. We’re not stupid. And this whole way through, people talk to us like we are, and we’re not. We know that the situation that we’re in is a dangerous situation, and it needs to be fixed. We are taxpayers, we add to Sampson County’s economy, just like everyone else does.”
When it was time for commissioner reports and concerns, Commissioner Lethia Lee stated that she would like for Turlington to address James’s and Royal’s concerns about the water on Old Mintz Highway.
Turlington responded that the county had applied for a $5 million grant to bring water to that community. He said that the county should be notified in January or February if the grant was approved.
In other business related to public works at the Dec. 1 meeting:
- The commissioners unanimously approved a contract between Sampson County and Kimley-Horn for engineering services related to water and building infrastructure.
- Commissioners also unanimously approved a water main extension project for the community surrounding the Sampson County GFL Landfill to Herring-Rivenbark, Inc., for $3,701,287.35. “The project will include the completion of approximately 88,200 linear feet of water main, which will provide water services to South Salemburg Highway (NC 242), Lakewood School Road, Bubba Gump Lane, Laurel Lake Road, White Woods Road, Marion-Amos Road, Fleet Cooper Road, The Avenue, and Bonnetsville Road,” explained David Ross, project manager for Dewberry Engineering. Turlington said that public works will be recruiting homeowners in that area Jan. 12 through March 11. “The people that sign up during that period will get water at half-price of what it would generally be,” he added.
- A capital project ordinance, totaling $1,255,000, was adopted for the addition of two groundwater wells, one at King Road and one at Taylors Bridge. The primary goal is to increase the capacity of the county water system and the amount of potable water available for county residents, Ross said.