Town of Black Mountain works to repair ‘severe damage’ to well system

Local water production to resume for first time since Tropical Storm Helene

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
February 5, 2025

A network of 10 wells and pumps that generate approximately 40% of the water supply for the Town of Black Mountain will resume operation this week for the first time since September.

Restoring power to the system is the latest step in the process of repairing infrastructure damaged by Tropical Storm Helene.

Approximately 8,700 Black Mountain customers were among the nearly 100,000 residents of Asheville and surrounding areas without potable water for nearly two months, following the natural disaster. Black Mountain Public Works crews reconnected multiple severed water lines in the weeks after the storm, according to director Jamey Matthews, but much of the infrastructure used to tap the series of local aquifers was destroyed.

“Our wells were severely damaged,” said Matthews, in his 18th year with the department. “We are just getting them back up after Helene.”

All 10 wells, which generate 517,000 gallons of water per month for customers who purchase water from the town, were left without power.

“When all the power went out for all that time, once they were turned back on it cooked the controls,” he said. “It didn’t ruin the motors, but it destroyed everything that controls those pumps.”

The town has been purchasing additional water from the City of Asheville, which sources its supply from the North Fork Reservoir, just outside of Black Mountain town limits, according to Town Manager Josh Harrold. Water from the nearly 6-billion-gallon lake, which experienced disruptive turbidity for five weeks after the storm, has since accounted for all of the local supply.

“We budget a little over $500,000 every year to purchase water from the City of Asheville,” he said. “This year, that figure went up because the rates increased for bulk purchasers for the first time in a quite a while.”

The town allocated approximately $525,000 for the purchase of water in the current fiscal year.

“We had a few months were there was no water coming from Asheville and there was no charge at all,” Harrold said. “So, I don’t anticipate going over the budgeted amount.”

The process of resuming local water production has been underway since last fall, he added, noting the town received $3 million through an N.C. Department of Environmental Quality loan to begin repairs in the watershed.

“This is what’s known as a bridge loan, which gives us emergency funding from the state that is paid back when we receive FEMA funds,” Harrold said. “But, everything has to be done through a process, so for us to access those funds we have to have an engineered design, and that requires bidding. We’re working on all of that right now.”

Restoring and improving the town’s water system will be a long process, according to Matthews.

“There is a lot of work to be done,” he said. “You really can’t underestimate the damage that this storm did to all of our infrastructure, but especially this water system. The controls were burned out, the motor starters were damaged, two waterlines were torn out in the watershed and all of the control wiring was damaged.”

One of the pumps, he added, was covered in more than six feet of water.

“That’s one we obviously need to replace,” he said. “But, when you see the hard freezes we had a few weeks ago, we’re spending a lot of time replacing frozen and busted lines. We’ve been incredibly busy since the storm.”

Town crews will begin installing new Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) panels in the coming days, according to Harrold, while new generators will supply power to the wellhouses. The water will then be sampled and tested before the system is back online, the public works director said.

“We need to make sure they are all working correctly before we get the system back up,” Matthews said. “That’s what we’re working on right now. So, at a minimum, we can get them up and running.”

Town administrators are preparing to release a Request for Qualifications to begin the process of selecting an engineering firm to complete the design.

“That’s the next step in the process,” Harrold said. “We’ll be seeing that design process moving forward in the coming weeks.”