Third in a series.

CASTLE HAYNE — A battle has been brewing for more than seven years over Titan America’s plans for a limestone mine and cement-manufacturing plant on the banks of the Northeast Cape Fear River. Much of the opposition has been based on the plant’s possible threats to regional air quality, but many are also worried about its possible effects on the area’s drinking-water supply.

Titan’s subsidiary, Carolinas Cement Co. announced in 2008 its plans to build  a modern cement-production plant at the former Ideal Cement Co. site on the south bank of the river in northern New Hanover County. Ideal Cement Co. closed in 1982. Titan, which has a corporate parent based in Greece, wants to build a new plant, expand the existing mining operations and produce up to 2.4 million tons of cement each year. The company had initially planned to have the new plant up and running by 2011.

“The project is still going but it’s taking a lot longer than we thought it would. We’re still progressing with the project,” said Bob Odom, Carolinas Cement’s general manager. “We’ve still got a long way to go. It will be 2020 at the earliest before this plant gets going.”

Carolina Cement is moving forward with a smaller-scale part of the project. A bulk cement-bagging operation at the site is now fully permitted and construction has begun on the building. The bagging operation was allowed to proceed with no need for a county special-use permit, a zoning process that opponents are hoping to use to block the company’s broader plan.

“The bagging operation would be part of the new plant but right now it’s a separate operation,” Odom said.

‘Good Neighbors’

Some in the community support the Carolina Cement’s expansion plans, citing the potential for job creation and other economic benefits. A group called the Coalition for Economic Advancement was formed to support the project. Supporters also say Titan has a long history as a responsible environmental steward.

“Sustainable Development is a top Group and Company priority, deriving from our Governing Objective and Values and aiming to combine business goals and long term economic performance with respect for people, society and the environment,” according to Titan America’s website. The company says the plant here will be built with the most advanced pollution controls of any cement plant in the world.

Odom said the company’s operations here will be similar to its plants in other communities where it operates, namely Roanoke, Va., and Medley, Fla., just north of Miami.

“We’re good neighbors there and we’ll be good neighbors here,” Odom said. “We haven’t done the best job getting that information out but once we’re here, everybody’s going to say, ‘What was the big deal?’”

The project is a big deal to many in the Wilmington area. Opponents, many of whom became engaged in more than a half-dozen grassroots organizations that eventually came together to form the Stop Titan Action Network, say the operation will be a major polluter.

The Southern Environmental Law Center says the project’s cement kiln and expanded rock quarry would require the destruction of about 1,000 acres of wetlands and would be a major new source of mercury pollution in the Northeast Cape Fear River, which is already impaired by the neurotoxin. The facility would also emit significant quantities of other pollutants, including carbon monoxide, lead, cancer-causing benzene and hydrochloric acid, as well as carbon dioxide, according to SELC, which represents groups that challenged the state air-quality permit for the plant.

Titan will need more than 16 federal, state and local permits to operate. So far, the only permit issued is the state air-quality permit. The case challenging that permit is pending in the courts.

Meanwhile, opponents have shifted their focus to the potential effects the Carolina Cement’s mining operation could have below ground. The company’s proposed open-pit mine would go down about 80-85 feet, requiring heavy pumping of groundwater. Public-water purveyors are also paying close attention.

“I can say it’s on our radar,” said Mike Richardson, water resource manager with the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. “Anytime you have a mining operation with a considerable amount of water being pumped out there’s potential for a problem. You never really know until it’s pumped out.”

Titan’s proposed new 1,868-acre mining site is about six miles north of an authority’s water treatment plant and its well field, which started operating in 2009. Richardson said the plant is an important part of the authority’s overall resources in that part of the county.

“That plant is 20 percent of our water production,” Richardson said. The remainder of the authority’s water production comes from the Cape Fear River.

The extent of the  mine’s effects on the plant will be difficult to estimate because of the complex nature of the groundwater system, according to a 2013 study prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the authority.

Odom disagrees. He said the effects should be no different than the operations that have gone on for decades at the existing site.

“Mining has been going on here for almost 50 years with no adverse effect on the aquifer. We’ve had no wells go dry,” Odom said.  “We currently mine to about 85 feet so there’s no big change in that respect. We’ve seen nothing negative.”

Rep. Rick Catlin, R-New Hanover, said the operation will likely affect groundwater levels, especially where the mine’s draw-down effects intersect those of the authority’s wells. The authority had already experienced problems, such as disappearing ponds and streams, related to over pumping, Catlin said.

“As a hydrogeologist, I think it will be a problem,” he said. “It will have an impact on the water wells in the northern part of New Hanover County. When two draw-downs meet each other they add together.”

How Much Water?

Estimates of the amounts of groundwater that must be removed to allow dry-pit mining at the site have ranged from 2.5-5 million to 10-16 million gallons a day. Odom said the most likely amount is about four million gallons a day. Opponents dispute the figure, noting the company’s 30-year plan requires far more dewatering.

Mike Giles, coastal advocate with the federation, said the company is on record saying its operation will eventually cover more than 3,000 acres and require pumping as much as 16 million gallons per day.

“Titan is not disclosing any information about their project except information they can cherry pick to minimize their effects upon both surface and groundwater resources,” Giles said.

The company plans to discharge the water into the Northeast Cape Fear River but Odom said other options may be possible. Odom said the company had discussed those options with officials at the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority.

“We have spoken with them in the past about dewatering the mine,” Odom said. “We can offer the water to the county if the county wanted it. The question is: How are we going to get it to their treatment plant? It’s a money question.”

Mine dewatering could also affect groundwater supplies in areas beyond New Hanover County, according to a study commissioned by the N.C. Coastal Federation and conducted in 2014 by GeoResources Inc.

Curtis Consolvo is the hydrogeologist at GeoResources who prepared the report, which he described as a review of existing information. Consolvo said comparing the effects at the Titan site with other large industrial operations that tap aquifers, such as the PCS Phosphate Co. mine in Aurora, in Beaufort County, isn’t always as simple as it sounds.

PCS’ mine dewatering accounts for about half of all water withdrawn from the Castle Hayne aquifer for industrial purposes. The Canadian-owned company draws about 65 million gallons of water a day from the aquifer to allow dry-pit mining, and the company’s current permit allows for daily withdrawals of up to 78 million gallons. The pumping creates a cone-shaped depression in  the water table that extends outward about 20 miles from the center of the mine, according to PCS.

There was, according to reports, a sudden drop in water levels in wells tapping the Castle Hayne in 1965 when the Aurora operation began. PCS has for 50 years monitored groundwater levels and quality through a network of about 200 wells around the plant site and throughout Beaufort County. PCS said water levels stabilized shortly after pumping started and have remained consistent since pumping began in 1965, with no significant change in the water quality. Because the cone of depression has not grown in size since PCS operations began, the company’s geologists say the Castle Hayne can support the high pumping rate.

The results of the Titan operation in New Hanover County may be different, Consolvo said.

“These aquifer systems are very uniquely characteristic from place to place, so you cannot look at their rates of withdrawal and look at the impacts and apply them to New Hanover (County). The hydraulic properties are location specific,” Consolvo said.

The deeper, Peedee aquifer is also characteristically different, compared to the Castle Hayne aquifer. Water flow is slower in the Peedee so it takes longer to recharge after withdrawals.

Widespread draw-down effects from the Castle Hayne mining site may be more pronounced in the lower aquifer, according to Consolvo’s study. A “broad, far-reaching cone of depression” can be expected in the Peedee aquifer from the draw-down while effects to the overlying Castle Hayne aquifer will be more localized, perhaps affecting local wells and potentially reducing recharge rates to the Peedee aquifer for the affected area, according to the study.

“I had found that it looked as though the impacts in the Peedee would be more regional. I can’t name a radius and that’s why those issues are going to need to be studied. You’ll have to collect data to try and name numbers,” Consolvo said.

Consolvo’s study notes that cumulative draw-down from the mining operations at the Titan site could also make wells and well fields tapping the Peedee aquifer in the region more vulnerable to saltwater intrusion.

Some problems described in the study have been seen before. “Past dewatering operations at quarries in the vicinity of the proposed CCC (Carolina Cement Co.) site have a history of affecting residential wells in the area.”

Past quarry operations were connected to problems at 10 area wells in the late 1970s. At the time, the quarry depth was far less, 35 feet, with a mine area of 1,212 acres. “The deeper pumping levels and the larger area may cause more extensive well impacts.  Pumps may need to be lowered and/or wells replaced,” according to Consolvo’s study.

Richardson said the authority’s biggest worry is the potential problems with the deeper Peedee aquifer, which is a preferable source because of its higher-quality water.

“Our long-term hopes are that we can continue to use the deeper aquifer. We are monitoring the situation,” Richardson said. “Titan has been on our radar screen for a while. We’re not jumping up and down, we’re just monitoring.”

In addition to the authority’s facilities, well sites in nearby Pender County and at least four other existing industrial well sites within a six-mile radius of the Titan site could be affected, according to the GeoResources study.

Existing Problems

Proposed mining operations at the site could also allow contaminants from an adjacent, former processing plant for chromite ore to spread in the groundwater system. The contaminants are now considered effectively controlled but that could change with large-scale withdrawals.

A pump-and-treat remediation of chromium-contaminated groundwater has been going on since 1975. Dewatering at the site may substantially alter contaminated groundwater flow, according to the GeoResources study. Those effects may also be more pronounced in the lower, Peedee aquifer.

“I think it’s fairly well stated that the remediation that’s been ongoing, you’d have to look at how the proposed pumping would alter what’s already being done,” Consolvo said.

During a six-month reporting period in 2010, about 3,200 pounds of chromium were removed from the upper aquifer and 40 pounds from the lower, with similar amounts removed over the previous six months, the report notes.

Other contaminant releases have occurred at the site. An unknown amount of petroleum leaked from underground storage tanks that were removed in 1989, according to the study. Cleanup efforts have included removal and treatment of affected soils but the extent to which dewatering at the mine would affect contaminant plumes at the adjacent site is unknown.

Odom said his company is aware of the nearby contamination and careful to not exacerbate the problem.

“We are aware of the water problems and we are very cognizant of that. We have followed the rules that have been in effect and we will follow all rules that will be in effect,” he said.

Part I: Drinking Water: An Imperiled Resource

Part II: Researchers Focus on Groundwater

Learn More

• About Carolina Cement Co.
• The GeoResources Study

Second in a series

WILMINGTON — The increasing demand on drinking water resources is one of the major issues facing those who live and work in Eastern North Carolina, according to a U.S. government report.

State officials estimate the New Hanover County population, now more 216,000, will increase by more than 38 percent by 2030 and by 100,000 people in the next 25 years. That’s not including the seasonal tourist population, which swells during the warmer months. Add in industrial development and the potential for problems grows. Then, there are the other growing communities in the larger Cape Fear region – many of which depend on the same groundwater or surface-water resources.

Groundwater and surface water resources are related but problems below ground aren’t as easy to spot and until recently little research has been done. A 2012 report by the U.S. Geological Survey showed that because of long-term over pumping, groundwater levels in the Peedee, Black Creek, and Upper Cape Fear aquifers of the state’s central coastal plain in counties to the north of New Hanover County have declined substantially over the past 30 years. The survey, which was done in cooperation with Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, was the first scientific study of its kind in more than 40 years.

“It was a good partnership, they have expertise and know-how,” said Mike Richardson, the authority’s water resource manager. “Naturally we want to see what the current and the future is. We can’t prepare unless we know the things that are going to affect us. This was an opportunity to learn more about the current groundwater situation and the impacts of saltwater as it continues to encroach into these aquifers.”

Kristen McSwain is a USGS hydrologist who worked on the study. She said the report provides merely snapshot comparisons of data from 1964 and 2012 but big changes have occurred over the years.

“There’s been explosive growth in the area and groundwater is a resource that’s heavily used,” McSwain said. “It (the study) was basically to look at groundwater quantity and quality in comparison from the ‘60s to today but with only two data sets it’s hard to draw conclusions. This is not a long-term statistical study.”

McSwain said the specific reasons for the declines in groundwater quantity can’t be readily identified, based on the results of her work. “All I can say is they declined. I can’t say why and I can’t say when. What it indicates is a need for increased monitoring,” she said.

Groundwater chemistry showed similar changes in the comparison, including indications of saltwater intrusion into the freshwater aquifers. “But again, it shows that monitoring is needed. I don’t know when it happened,” McSwain said.

A National Water Census

Research is continuing at the state and federal levels. The scope for these studies goes far beyond just groundwater and also beyond New Hanover County’s borders.

New Hanover County’s drinking water supply comes from a combination of surface water and groundwater. Wilmington relies mainly on the Cape Fear River as its drinking-water supply, and so do many other communities.

The Cape Fear River basin, the state’s largest river basin, extends from near Greensboro and High Point in the Piedmont to the Wilmington area on the coast. The area includes all or part of 27 counties. More than 21 percent of the state’s population lives in the more than 9,000-square-mile basin area.

A state law passed in 2015 authorized the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality to study all uses of ground and surface water in the Cape Fear River Basin, including public water systems, industrial facilities and agricultural operations.

The study is supposed to identify potential conflicts among the various users and offer recommendations for developing and enhancing coordination in order to avoid or minimize those conflicts. An interim report is expected this year with the final report due in 2017.

A separate but related study is underway at the federal level. The USGS Coastal Carolinas Water Availability Study is a step toward assembling a national water census. Chad Wagner, USGS associate director for investigations at the N.C. office of the South Atlantic Water Science Center in Raleigh, is heading up the work, which began in October

The study is different from the state’s work in that it’s a three-year project due for completion in late 2018 or early 2019, and it’s wider in scope, including coastal basins in southeastern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina, but there is collaboration.

“We’ve definitely been in communication with the state and we let them know what we’re doing,” Wagner said.

The goal is to use the results to develop and refine water-use estimates for agriculture, public supply and industrial sectors. The water-use data will be site-specific to allow tracking of water from its source to the ultimate users and its disposal, both within and beyond the study area.

For surface water, models will be used to evaluate potential changes in water availability and salinity in response to various water uses and climate-change scenarios. Ecology, including fish and plant life, will also be examined in terms of responses to changes in flow.

Groundwater flow models of water-supply aquifers will be used to simulate the effects of various usage scenarios and gauge the problem of saltwater intrusion from pumping.

The coastal region was selected for study because of current and projected population increases and the effects on fresh and saltwater ecosystems. The recent history of frequent coastal storms and droughts here was also a factor. The area is also deemed a groundwater capacity-use area, or an area where demands on water resources have reached a point where coordination and regulation may be needed to avoid threatening or impairing those resources. The region is also considered vulnerable to sea-level rise, land-use changes and climate change, in terms of effects on aquifer water levels and saltwater intrusion.

Local Planning

New Hanover County is working toward completing a comprehensive planning document for future growth with goals for preserving and protecting water quality and supply. The plan recommends establishing a groundwater- and aquifer-protection ordinance.

“There’s an increased awareness of the protection of our drinking-water supply,” said Chris O’Keefe, New Hanover County’s planning director.

Dylan McDonnell , a long-range planner with New Hanover County’s planning department,  said the county expects to have the planning document completed by early spring. The effort, which began more than a year ago, includes input from a 12-member advisory committee made up of local residents and approval by the county planning board and board of commissioners.

The advisory committee raised the issue of water resources, McDonnell said.

“There was not a concern as far as quantity,” he said of the county’s water supply. “We just want to make sure we have sustainable sources for the future and to make sure we’re not degrading them to the point where we can’t use those sources. We weren’t singling out certain industries or looking at industry in general, we were looking at creation of our land-use map, an overall, general vision that the county has for the future.”

The plan is also not a zoning ordinance, McDonnell said. “That’s the next component after we finish with the comprehensive plan, revising our zoning ordinance, which was written in 1969.”

Meanwhile, officials in charge of the county’s public water system are putting in place new technology also meant to ensure there’s enough water for future demand. This includes a new process of pumping treated water back down into the aquifer for storage until it’s needed. The process, known as aquifer storage and recovery, or ASR, is set to become operational this year at a plant near Wrightsville Beach in the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s system.

The system is expected to provide cost-effective, seasonal storage of treated water, said Mike Richardson, water resource manager with the authority. Part of the cost savings is having no physical tank to maintain. The ASR system may also allow the water treatment plant to operate more efficiently during lower-demand periods while being available to meet the need during periods of peak demand. The system can also provide an emergency supply and could slow or reverse the effects of saltwater intrusion in the aquifer.

Economics and Race

There are more than 6,000 regulated public water systems in the state, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. About 75 percent of the state’s population lives in areas served by community water systems, and many others and visitors to the state are served by other types of public water systems, such as workplaces, schools, parks or restaurants.

Homeowners in communities without access to public water rely on domestic wells. North Carolina has the fourth-highest number of private well users in the country. The high rate of dependence upon wells and septic systems is partly because of the rural nature of the state with its many unincorporated communities. Economics and race are also factors.

A study in 2015 by the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill found that 26 percent of North Carolinians rely on private wells, as compared with 14 percent nationally and 49 percent use septic systems, compared with 24 percent nationwide.

Septic system failures can lead to contamination of well water, and the high density of septic systems in rural communities is a public health risk associated with increased incidences of bacterial and viral diarrheal diseases, according to the report by Julia Marie Naman, a 2014 Gillings School alumna, and Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the school.

“Unequal access to water and sewer services can have considerable health effects,” they write, “and disproportionately burdens the politically vulnerable.”

Naman conducted interviews during 2013 with 25 elected officials, health officials, utility providers and community members in North Carolina’s New Hanover, Hoke and Transylvania counties. She found that economics was the primary factor determining whether access was granted to municipal services. Improved public health was described as a minor reason.

Problems with septic systems tend to be underreported, according to the study, because local health departments rely mainly on homeowners or their neighbors to report failed systems and repairs can be costly.

The Gillings research team has also found statistical evidence that race plays a factor in who does and does not have access to municipal water services in North Carolina. This lack of access also increases people’s health risks.

The research concluded that better understanding the health costs and benefits of water and sewer extension and considering these factors in the local decision-making process may help address disparities in access to municipal services.

Part I: Drinking Water: An Imperiled Resource

Part III: Groundwater: Gauging the Titan Effect

Learn More

• USGS and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Report
• Groundwater Protection: Underground Injection Program
• Disparities in Water and Sewer Services in North Carolina

First in a three-part series

WILMINGTON – There’s an old saying, “You don’t miss your water until the well runs dry.”

These days, the adage could be tweaked to also reflect the undesirable stuff that’s in the water – just ask the people in Flint, Mich., where the public water supply has become contaminated, the result of a government cost-savings measure.

Closer to home, drinking water sources have become contaminated by coal-ash ponds and illegally dumped chemicals, failing septic systems and, in many coastal areas, salinity drawn in when too much groundwater is pumped out. Sharp declines in the region’s groundwater levels have also grabbed attention.

More than three million N.C. residents rely on groundwater as their primary drinking-water supply. In the state’s coastal plain, 55 percent of the population depends on groundwater for drinking, according to the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service. More than four million N.C. residents rely on surface-water supplies, according to the state Division of Water Resources. Groundwater and surface water are connected.

Climate change and sea-level rise, along with what some describe as explosive population growth, industrial development and other changes on the N.C. coast, could make freshwater availability and competition for the water rights a big issue in the years ahead. Here in the fast-growing southeastern part of the state, demands on water resources, both surface water and groundwater, are prompting officials to look at new ways of dealing with the problem over the long term. Their worries aren’t based on theories or predictions, fights over water rights have already begun.

Triangle communities, including Cary and Wake County, obtained permission in 2015 to draw increased amounts of water – tens of millions more gallons a day – from Jordan Lake, a reservoir at the headwaters of the Cape Fear River. Downriver, officials in Fayetteville and Wilmington, both of which get much of their drinking water from the Cape Fear, opposed the decision. The dispute prompted lawmakers to mandate a study of water resources across the entire Cape Fear River basin to identify these conflicts and avoid or minimize them in the future.

“Making sure that we’ve got sustainable and safe water in North Carolina is extremely important for our future and for our present citizens,” said Rep. Rick Catlin, R-New Hanover, who introduced the Cape Fear Water Resources Availability Study bill that was passed last year.

Catlin is a hydrogeologist by profession. He doesn’t plan to seek re-election when his term ends this year. The decision to focus on his business doesn’t mean Catlin’s involvement in water issues will end when he leaves office.

“I’ll continue to work on that even after I’m no longer an elected official,” Catlin said. “I know how important it is to make sure we don’t run out of water and that we don’t have contamination.”

In addition to municipal demands for water resources, large-scale industrial water users have long been known to have significant effects on water supplies. Demands for water are increasing from commercial, industrial, mining, irrigation and other sectors, according to government reports.

Some say plans to expand a mining and cement-manufacturing facility near Castle Hayne in New Hanover County could have negative effects on groundwater and surface water resources in the region, although officials with Titan-America, the company behind the plans, and others dispute those claims.

The project will require the excavation of an open pit adjacent to the Northeast Cape Fear River in order to extract and process the raw materials, calcium carbonate and limestone, for producing Portland cement. The process will require pumping about four million gallons of groundwater a day to allow dry-pit mining as planned, according to the company. Environmental groups, including the N.C. Coastal Federation, contend the amount could be four times the amount the company claims and that this dewatering process is a threat to regional groundwater supplies. Titan says no effects on groundwater are anticipated to affect groundwater quality.

“We’ve had no wells go dry and we’ve been mining here almost 50 years,” said Bob Odom, general manager at Carolinas Cement Co., Titan’s local subsidiary. “We’ve seen nothing negative.”

Catlin remains skeptical.“It will have an impact on the water wells in the northern part of New Hanover County,” he said.

We’ll take a close look at Titan’s groundwater discharge in the last part of this series.

Contamination on the N.C. Coast

Evidence emerged in 2010 that coal ash ponds at Duke Energy’s Sutton Steam Plant near Wilmington were contaminating groundwater. The Wilmington plant is just one example – more than 85 percent of drinking water wells tested near the 14 Duke Energy coal ash sites in North Carolina are contaminated and unsafe for cooking or drinking, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Duke Energy was fined in 2015 and ordered to clean up the coal-ash mess here and at its other N.C. facilities but the cleanup has been slow going. Soon after the state announced in March the $25 million fine, which was ultimately reduced, Tom Reeder, North Carolina’s assistant secretary for the environment, said in court filings that the penalties should have been bigger. “They’ve nuked this whole drinking water source for the Wilmington area,” Reeder said at the time.

Just up the coast, decades of water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune exposed more than 750,000 Marines and their families to chemical toxins at alarming concentrations, as base officials refused for years to acknowledge the problem. People living or working there from 1953 to 1987 were potentially exposed to drinking water contaminated with benzene, and other toxic chemicals used for industrial cleaning, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. A 2014 study showed links between the contamination and higher incidences of death from cancer and other diseases. Previous studies had raised similar concerns. Victims accuse Marine Corps leaders of years of inaction.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., pressured the Veterans Administration for assistance to veterans sickened by the water at the base.  The VA announced in August that new regulations may allow some veterans to receive disability pay if they were sickened by drinking contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.

“The scientific research is strong and the widespread denials of benefits will soon end. Now these veterans and their family members will not have to fight for benefits they are due,” Burr said at the time.

Saltwater Intrusion

Increasing demands on groundwater supplies are causing saltwater to be drawn into freshwater aquifers in a number of coastal areas, yet another contamination threat to what many have long considered an imperiled resource.

Research shows the proposed deepening of the shipping channel that serves the N.C. Port of Wilmington has the potential to alter nearby groundwater flow and potentially allow a direct pathway for saltwater intrusion.

Even private, residential irrigation wells can have an effect. “That has actually caused some saltwater-intrusion problems,” Catlin said.

Catlin said rising rates for water from the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority prompted many homeowners in his district to put in private irrigation wells to save money. Legislation he sponsored directs the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality to study data on irrigation wells so the extent of their effects can be better understood.

“I found out that they were required to submit data on irrigation wells and they have not been doing that,” Catlin said. “DEQ has that data but hadn’t used it, so now we’ll have a lot more information on aquifer usage.”

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Richard Spruill is an associate professor of hydrology at East Carolina University. Spruill said the complex aquifer systems that underlie the coastal plain are tapped extensively by municipalities, industries, agriculture and individuals, creating lots of problems.

“The biggest challenge seems to be a fair and equitable allocation of water resources based on regional differences in the resource itself,” Spruill said.

Few cities across North Carolina’s coastal plain take their drinking water supply from surface water. Greenville draws from the Tar River; Kinston, which is a partner with several neighboring small towns as members of the Neuse Regional Water and Sewer Authority, draws from the Neuse River; and Wilmington relies on a combination of the Cape Fear River and groundwater supplies.

“Everybody else throughout the coastal plain is using groundwater,” Spruill said.

For surface water-dependent communities, the biggest issue is drought and how that relates to flows in their respective river systems. For those relying on groundwater, the concern is often other big users.  Operations in this region that pump water from the ground face little regulation covering the effects on other users.

The big difference is, that with groundwater supplies, the resource is more likely to be mismanaged. Spruill said that’s the case across the coastal plain and beyond, up and down the East Coast.

“We don’t address it because it’s out of sight, out of mind. It’s different from our river system,” he said.

Coastal Population Growth

The steady population growth in coastal areas means more long-term use of groundwater in places where demand was previously more seasonal in nature. Beach towns that were once sleepy during the winter months have grown now that more people are choosing to live there year-round.

“As more and more people move to these locations the demand is higher and higher all year long so the aquifer doesn’t have time to recover,” Spruill said.

A recent U.S. Geological Survey study showed evidence of potential problems. Samples collected in 2012 from 97 well sites in Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties show saltwater intrusion has moved landward since the mid-1960s. The saltwater-freshwater interface in the Castle Hayne aquifer has crept about a mile inland in northeastern New Hanover County. It’s also a problem in the Peedee aquifer near Carolina Beach at the southern end of the county.

Spruill said a new attitude is needed.

“We seem willing to mismanage the freshwater groundwater supplies until they go salty. Is that the right thing to do or should we reduce use until we can bring it in to balance so it doesn’t go salty? We should not mismanage our fresh groundwater systems in such a way as they become salty simply because we have technology to treat the saltwater when it comes,” Spruill said.

What areas are at the greatest risk and what are the timeframes involved? There’s no clear answer, Spruill said.

“We don’t know enough about the position of the fresh water-saltwater interface to predict when it’s going become a problem in the coastal plain,” he said. “I can tell you it’s occurring at lots of different places in North Carolina and South Carolina.”

Saltwater intrusion required construction of a reverse-osmosis treatment plant in Emerald Isle at the west end of Bogue Banks. The plant went online in February 2013. The process is effective but more expensive than standard treatment. It takes 10 gallons of saltwater to produce seven to eight gallons of freshwater, with about two gallons of wastewater that is pumped into Bogue Sound.

Seola Hill is director of Bogue Banks Water Corp., which operates the Emerald Isle plant. He said that before building the plant, several of the corporation’s wells on the west end of Bogue Banks were approaching or exceeding the state’s maximum chloride count of 250 parts per million, the measure of saltwater intrusion.

“There was also a secondary reason, other easterly wells were also showing higher chloride levels and the problem was growing over time,” Hill said. “as a long-term solution, we built a high-capacity reverse-osmosis plant to see if we can keep that saltwater intrusion from migrating. We theorized that the water was migrating from west to east in our area and by over-pumping we could keep the migration of saltwater localized. It’s actually done that. It’s worked really well.”

The reliance on reverse osmosis will likely grow, Spruill said. “It will become an increasingly important problem in coastal areas,” he said. “Salty water exists in the Castle Hayne aquifer as far inland as Elizabeth City.”

In addition to Elizabeth City, Outer Banks communities including Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo and Ocracoke Village rely on reverse osmosis. To the south, Figure Eight Island has also seen some saltwater intrusion.

“We’re in a situation where we have to plan ahead. The cost of quality water will go up,” Spruill said. “There’s enough groundwater to meet Wilmington’s needs now and in the future but most of it is salty. That will require new sites for new wells and reverse-osmosis plants and there is some impact from discharging salty water into an estuarine environment.”

Part II: Researchers Focus on Groundwater

Part III: Groundwater: Gauging the Titan Effect

Learn More

• USGS: Water Use in North Carolina
• N.C. Division of Water Resources
• UNC: Groundwater in North Carolina