OWASA receives update on proposed upgrade of water treatment plant

GOVERNMENT

By Adam Powell
Correspondent

At the Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) Board of Directors’  meeting on January 9, the organization held a lengthy discussion about PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and proposed updates to the OWASA water treatment plant, located at 400 Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established new regulations for PFAS substances in local drinking water supplies nationwide in April last year. Local municipalities and water suppliers nationwide must now report PFAS results to the EPA in their annual Water Quality Report.

States are required to come up with specific regulations based on new Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) while also designating PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid} and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid) materials as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

Under the new MCL regulations, the government is attempting to significantly reduce, if not eliminate altogether, PFOA and PFOS materials from the national water supply in the future by establishing MCL goals of 0 ppt (parts per trillion). OWASA and other wastewater treatment facilities nationwide must comply with new PFAS materials regulations by April 2029.

OWASA plans massive expansion of Carrboro plant to meet 2029 deadline; funding uncertain

To accommodate the required PFAS regulations, OWASA proposes an $83.7 million expansion of its Carrboro wastewater treatment plant. The modernized plant would utilize a substance called granular activated carbon (GAC) and Ion Exchange (IX) resins, which have proven to be an effective way to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from water. The project was initially price-tagged at approximately $75 million but was increased by nearly $9 million in December.

Vishnu Gangadharan, Director of Engineering and Planning for OWASA, provided a comprehensive update to the OWASA board and the community about the entire project, from cost estimates to the types of compounds being targeted and the sampling already taking place. He indicated that costs could continue to rise, depending on when construction actually begins.

“It (the latest estimate) represents a $9 million increase from the class-five estimate (previously of $75 million),” explained Gangadharan. “With the considerable changes in what this project was at this point last year, it’s got some escalation in there to the midpoint of construction.”

According to Gangadharan, Orange County does not currently qualify for state grants due to its relative prosperity compared to other areas around North Carolina. As an independent body, OWASA is looking at having to somehow raise the necessary funds for the project on its own through bonds unless it can find a group of like-minded utility organizations around North Carolina seeking similar funding to work together for financial assistance on the project.

OWASA Deputy Executive Director Stephen Winters provided more specifics on exactly how the organization is currently strategizing to pay the cost of the upgrades. The organization is considering a series of tiered borrowing to absorb the costs.

“(OWASA) will finance it mostly by bonds,” explained Winters. “They’ll be amortized over 25 years. Hopefully the equipment lasts longer than that, right? It would be unlikely that we would borrow day one to fund the whole thing.”

Winters projected annual costs of approximately $3 million to $5 million per year over the 25 years, including interest, for OWASA to construct the upgraded facility.

“Just a note to some of the external funding sources that we’re pursuing: we are part of a multi-district lawsuit (seeking additional state funding),” added Gangadharan. “We’ve been receiving funds for the planning stages, and we do intend to apply for the larger project once we have enough project definition. So we’re likely in the fall of this year to pursue funding for the entire project. We’re (also) looking in other ways, in other areas, for ways to support this investment. There was a lot of work that was done in the summer and fall and winter of last year to kind of get us to this point. We did some intensive subsurface investigation to understand what we’re going to run into during construction and the permitting. I talked about setting up permitting and the parking question, (along with) defining the backwash requirements that are necessary for the PFAS treatment.”

What are PFAS substances?

Gangadharan explained what PFAS materials are, how they work, and how the town intends to manage these so-called “forever chemicals.”

“This is a large group–thousands of different synthetic chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer goods for many, many decades,” explained Gangadharan. “They are extremely hard to break down, and therefore, they accumulate in the environment. They accumulate in humans and animals. They’re often used for their water- and grease-resistant properties. There are a lot of different common consumer products that use them. They don’t degrade easily. So it’s useful to look at how they cycle through the environment.”

PFAS are synthetic chemicals, not found in nature, that initiate in industry, Gangadharan indicated, and there are several different pathways through which humans can be exposed to PFAS, either directly through consumer goods, directly through the environment, through the air, or through the water we drink and the foods we eat. Human exposure to consumer goods leads to waste infrastructure such as landfills and wastewater treatment plants.

“Because these are forever chemicals, that’s not the end of the story. There’s a pathway back to the environment through the waste infrastructure,” added Gangadharan. “Our charge is looking at these two pathways here (landfills and wastewater treatment plants). Certainly the pathway for water treatment is a little more well-defined with the regulations that came out (from the EPA last spring). Wastewater is still very much under development in terms of what type of regulations may be enacted in the future, but we’re looking at that as well.”

Gangadharan informed the OWASA board that five specific compounds have individual limits: four parts per trillion for people and PFAS, and the rest of them at 10 parts per trillion. Then there’s a group of four compounds that the EPA has placed in a hazard index. “That is the unitless value that is based on the combination of the four compounds there, proportional to the risk that has been established for those four compounds,” clarified Gangadharan.

OWASA staff focused on heavily reducing PFOA compounds in local water

The OWASA chief engineer added that the organization does not appear to have difficulty meeting any of the limits, except PFOA and PFAS.

To begin the process of modernizing the OWASA wastewater treatment facility, the organization hired Black and Veatch (a Charlotte-based global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company specializing in infrastructure development) to assist with the design of the drinking water treatment project. “What we’re going to design for is based on the PFOA compound, and with a target goal of three parts per trillion.”

Gangadharan provided some context as to the amount of the substances in question, mentioning that for the Cane Creek Reservoir, four parts per trillion in that body of order is equal to three tablespoons. 

“Extremely small amounts,” explained Gangadharan. “And it’s kind of amazing that we can even detect things at that concentration, but we do. There are some EPA-approved methods that help us do that, and that’s the basis of our monitoring program that’s been ongoing since 2018. There are samples that are taken quarterly at different parts all throughout the system to help us understand what’s going on with PFAS as it moves through the system.”

Gangadharan mentioned that OWASA staff did find elevated PFAS levels in the Cane Creek Reservoir, as opposed to University Lake, which required some additional sampling in 2023, prior to the EPA’s approval of the new regulations.

“We started really wide with different ways that we could address the problem and not assuming that we were treating it at the plant,” commented Gangadharan. “We looked at offsite options–anything from building a new water treatment plant to treating at the feeder coups themselves, remediating soil at those fields and also looking at the treatment, a new treatment process, at the water plant. For many reasons (most of them related to cost and time) those were not feasible, certainly not within the compliance deadline time of April 2029.”

OWASA Public Information Officer Katie Hall went into specifics about the organization’s efforts to inform the community about PFAS substances and the proposed expansion of the OWASA plant. The efforts included media outreach, updated details on the OWASA website, a series of community chats to extend community engagement, and conducting surveys with those who participated in the community chats.

Regulatory environment could lead to future changes

Given that the January OWASA meeting took place less than two weeks before the inauguration of the new American President, Donald Trump, there were questions from OWASA members about the possibility that the new EPA regulations could be reversed, which Gangadharan addressed.

“There’s a lot of speculation there,” said Gangadharan. “What I can say? What we have heard is that it’s unlikely that there’s going to be any sort of reversal. There is possibly some avenue towards different limits that would still require us to think about treatment. But even that method, even that outcome, would take years to get to. I don’t think it’s a quick process.”

“We have uncertainty in the regulatory environment,” added OWASA Executive Director Todd Taylor in response to an inquiry about possible easing of regulations from Board of Directors member Todd BenDor. “But what we do know, all that we do know, is what EPA has told us. And it says (by) 2029 we have to be putting out water that is at a certain level (of MCLs). Until that changes, I can’t give you with any sort of intelligence about what we do in that circumstance.”

“You know, if the regulation completely goes away, then it becomes a board decision,” continued Taylor. “In Wilmington, with (the) GenX (contaminant crisis in the Cape Fear River), they decided to go ahead and install the (EPA-required) treatment. There was no regulatory driver to do that. It’s just a concern for the community health. I think that’s the question that you all would be faced with.

“If regulation doesn’t necessarily go away but actually changes, then do we have other options available to us? And that’s possible. But right now, really, what the driver of all that ($75-million expansion) cost is: you’ve got a 20-million-gallon-a-day plant. And unless you want to re-rate the plan, the treatment has to be able to handle that volume of water. So it has to be able to treat all of that water, and that’s what’s really driving most of the design. The technology we’ve proven–the GAC (granular activated carbon)–will work and be effective at removing the PFAS.”

“The GAC performed considerably better than we would have expected from the 2023 bench-scale testing, which was good news,” added Gangadharan. “We did get proof that both media (GAC materials and Ion Exchange resins) would be feasible to use for PFAS removal to meet our treatment goal.”

OWASA targeting eminent domain of adjacent property as part of expansion

Four months after the EPA established its new PFAS mandates (late-August 2024) OWASA held a public meeting to provide the community more specifics on the proposed modernization of the Carrboro wastewater treatment facility. At that meeting, OWASA indicated that it would need financial assistance to complete the project. OWASA is also looking at securing more land for its facility, since it will need to expand outward as part of the project.

OWASA has set its sights on 131 Fidelity Street, a tract of just over one acre located at the northwestern edge of the current facility. If acquired, OWASA is looking to utilize this land for additional parking for the facility.

OWASA is considering acquiring the 131 Fidelity Street property (which is currently assessed at just over $250,000) through eminent domain.

“The action to pursue eminent domain of that property allows us to prepare a concept plan for (The Town of) Carrboro. And we’re shooting for early Feb. for presentation to Carrboro of that concept plan. That allows us to get that permitting step off, which is critical.”

Gangadharan clarified that, by the end of 2025, OWASA expects to be through the SUP (special use permitting) process, which will allow the organization then to move into construction of the offsite parking at 131 Fidelity Street if OWASA can successfully acquire the property from the Town of Carrboro. The offsite parking must be constructed first before the expansion of the actual facility can take place.

“All of the permitting that’s needed for this project must happen before we put these out to bid, obviously, and the construction of that offsite parking needs to happen before we start any of the other construction on (the OWASA wastewater facility) campus.”

*The following is a partial re-write of the above article with corrections requested from OWASA Public Information Officer Katie Hall and Adam Feffer, P.E. :

OWASA plans massive expansion of Carrboro plant to meet 2029 deadline; funding uncertain

To accommodate the required PFAS regulations, OWASA proposes an $83.7 million expansion of its Carrboro wastewater treatment plant. The modernized plant would utilize a substance called granular activated carbon (GAC), which has proven to be an effective way to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from water. The project was initially price-tagged at approximately $75 million but was estimated to increase by nearly $9 million in December.

According to Gangadharan, it may be more challenging for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area to be awarded state funding due to the communities’ higher average income. As an independent body, OWASA hopes to reduce the project costs to ratepayers by raising State and Federal funds, possibly working with other utility organizations around North Carolina seeking similar funding to work together for financial assistance on the project.

“Because these are forever chemicals, that’s not the end of the story. There’s a pathway back to the environment through the waste infrastructure,” added Gangadharan. “Our charge is looking at these two pathways here (wastewater treatment plants). 

OWASA staff focused on heavily reducing PFOA and PFOS compounds in local water

The OWASA chief engineer added that the organization does not appear to have difficulty meeting any of the limits, except PFOA and PFOS.  (This is the first sentence under that header)

OWASA Public Information Officer Katie Hall went into specifics about the organization’s efforts to inform the community about PFAS substances and the proposed expansion of the OWASA plant. The efforts included media outreach, a new web hub, “PFAS and Your Water,” focused on PFAS data and information, updating a series of community chats to extend community engagement, and conducting surveys with those who participated in the community chats.

Regulatory environment could lead to future changes

Given that the January OWASA meeting took place less than two weeks before the inauguration of the new American President, Donald Trump, there were questions from OWASA board members.

“We have uncertainty in the regulatory environment,” added OWASA Executive Director Todd Taylor in response to an inquiry about possible Federal-level easing of regulations from Board of Directors member Todd BenDor. 

Finally, the driver of all that ($75-million expansion) cost is: you’ve got a 20-million-gallon-a-day plant. And unless you want to re-rate the plant, the treatment

OWASA is considering acquiring the 131 Fidelity Street property (which is currently vacant and assessed at just over $250,000) through eminent domain.

***UPDATE: This article is a partial rewrite to reflect some additional information gathered after the original posting.

Adam Powell is a reporter on local news and sports and an education communications professional. A 2001 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Powell has served as managing editor of multiple local publications, including the Mebane Enterprise, News of Orange County and TarHeelIllustrated.com. The public information officer for Rockingham County Schools in Eden, N.C., Powell is the author of four books and lives in Mebane with his wife and two children. This reporter can be reached at: Info@TheLocal Reporter.press