County buying land for water treatment plant

Craven County is set to buy land for a new water treatment system.

The Craven County Board of Commissioners, convened as both that board and as Craven County Water Board, voted this week to approve an offer to purchase 10 acres from a 60- to 70-acre tract near Carolina Pines.

“The land is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Ellis,” said Jim Hicks, county attorney. The tentative purchase agreement price is $238,530, a negotiated price for a deal that includes working out some easement and lease details.

Like the last tract considered near Stately Pines, the land is located off U.S. 70 between New Bern and Havelock, but farther from supply and distribution lines. It is also farther from residential areas and less likely to prompt objections like those from Stately Pines residents who believed a treatment plant there would adversely affect their property values.

This tract includes a Progress Energy easement and the agreement provides for a 60-foot county easement for water lines to the public treatment facility and back to Lewis Farm Road and the Carolina Pines community.

There is also a current easement with a farming tenant who leases some of the land nearby that Hicks said the Ellises must renegotiate before the purchase can be finalized.

The county has asked for 60 days for test drilling, said Harold Blizzard, Craven County manager.

The decision to buy land and move forward with the project comes after talks about buying water from the City of New Bern water treatment plant didn’t pan out. While the current purchase price and conditions appeared favorable for both systems during those talks, county officials feared the long term cost would be more to county water users than increases almost certain to be part of building a new county water treatment plant and associated infrastructure.

Craven County water is now pumped from wells in the Black Creek aquifer, which does not need treatment and, more recently, the Pee Dee aquifer which requires only minimal treatment.

“We’ve been spoiled with the water quality in Craven County,” Blizzard said earlier. “It’s so good we don’t treat it.

“We know we will now have to treat it but our goal is to build a facility that up front will cost more but will produce higher quality water than most entities which get their water from the Castle Hayne,” he said.

The county is moving forward to build a $24 million water treatment plant to be paid for, as the land purchase approved, with county water system funds. The system’s enterprise fund has some money saved and will borrow about $15 million for the expansion.

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