Andrews – Water and sewer infrastructure might not be glamorous, but Mayor James Reid considers it the “backbone” of a town.
Using that analogy, Andrews’ spine is poised to support its residents for decades to come, with nearly $14 million now flowing into the town for major water and wastewater upgrades.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Reid said of the funds during an April 15 town work session. “You never see this.”
Gov. Roy Cooper officially announced July 27 that communities statewide will receive a record $789.4 million in water and wastewater infrastructure funding to help pay for 385 projects statewide. The funding stems from the American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021.
Andrews will receive $13,798,000 for drinking water line replacements and wastewater treatment plant upgrades, while the town’s overall grant money for infrastructure is expected to clock in around $18 million. The majority of Andrews’ infrastructure funds, about $11 million, will be spent on an extensive rebuild of the wastewater treatment plant.
“We’re really excited about it,” plant operator Tim Wood said. “It’s a pretty big deal ... something Andrews has needed for a long time. The plan is to keep the back end of the plant that we’ve got now and to build a new oxidation ditch plant below our existing plant.”
According to Wood, an oxidation ditch provides an extended aeration process. It is essentially a large holding tank with an oval shape similar to that of a racetrack. Ditches typically are shallow and allow for a greater amount of organic matter to be broken down by aerobic bacteria. The process aids in the removal of components like nitrogen and ammonia.
Wood said construction on the new plant is expected to begin next year and could be completed by 2024. Before that happens, another portion of Andrews’ grant funding will be used to help replace the main pump station of the plant. Construction on the new pump station should begin later this year.
“It’s the heart of the plant,” Wood said. “It’s old, it’s worn out, it’s basically one of those things that’s nickeling and diming us to death.
“It’s just aging, everything there, the equipment is old from the control panel to the relays to soft-start motors to the pumps. Those pumps are very expensive to fix and when one thing goes wrong, it’s like a trickle-down effect, it starts affecting other stuff.”
Wood estimates that an average of 450,000 gallons of wastewater go through the plant each day. The main pump station controls the flow throughout the whole plant.
“If it shuts down, there’s nothing moving through the plant, which means the whole town’s wastewater starts backing up into the line,” Wood said. “Without the pump station, none of it goes anywhere, it eventually would back up and come out of the ground.”
Another $1.8 million is going toward sewer line replacements at Higdon, Higdon & Sherrill Mobile Home Parks – a project that is already underway.
While the bulk of Andrews’ grant funds are going toward those wastewater treatment upgrades, key elements of the town’s drinking water systems will likewise get a makeover.
“We’re getting a million dollars for a new transmission line that goes from the water plant into town, that feeds everything,” public works technician Tony Sharp said. “The lining of the (current) pipe inside is concrete and the outside is asbestos-fiber. If we can get that done, we’re in pretty good shape on the distribution side.”
Sharp said the current water line has been in the ground since the mid-1970s. The new line will have to be placed in a different location, as portions of the existing structure cut a path underneath multiple homes and businesses.
Andrews also has engineering plans in place for a new $1.5 million, 1-million-gallon water tank that will serve as the main tank of the three used by the town.
“Leatherwood is our main tank,” Sharp said. “(The replacement) will be a metal tank, glass-lined, state of the art. It’ll have a wireless system where they can control it from the water plant and talk back and forth to it.”
Automation and electronic systems are a key component of Andrews’ water infrastructure upgrades. Pete McNeely has managed the water treatment plant for about a year and a half and said four more valves need to be replaced as part of a process that will eventually allow the plant to be 100 percent automated. The facility currently is about 50 percent automated.
“It’s a little extra work checking the levels, making sure the same amount of water is coming in as is going out,” McNeely said. “I really want this place to work as good as it did when it was first built.”
Andrews also plans to outfit the water treatment plant with a new Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) – a control panel that monitors inputs and makes decisions based on inputted logic, which in turn controls the state of output devices. McNeely expects the new PLC panel to cost between $100,000-150,000.
The water plant makes about 550,000-650,000 gallons of water per day, according to McNeely, but is capable of producing up to 2 million gallons of daily water if the town’s demand grows.
“It does make really good water because we have pristine source water coming into this place,” McNeely said.