BY ANA RISANO
Managing Editor
Water continues to be top of mind for Moore County as the government looks to address current and future infrastructure needs.
Recently, the Board of Commissioners held a special meeting to review a list of ongoing, planned and potential projects related to water and sewer. A main focus of the evening was pinning down a future water source.
“A couple of years ago we did a long-term study with LKC Engineering looking at our current supply, our current customers, our future supply and future customers,” said Public Works Director Brian Patnode. “Unfortunately, we are not water rich; we don’t have any large rivers or lakes that we can pull from. We have the Deep River or Drowning Creek.”
Patnode referenced a graph throughout his presentation, which has been shown at previous meetings, indicating what the county’s daily supply needs look like over the next 30 years. There’s an estimated gap of 5.5 million gallons a day in 2055, with use potentially beginning to outpace demand in 2029. But that depends on the county’s projected growth.
The commissioners made no decisions at the meeting, with Chair Nick Picerno saying more time is needed to parse the information.
“I think you’ve given us so much information to go home and digest that we probably need to do this again, shortly,” Picerno said, suggesting another work session is scheduled in a month to narrow down considerations.
The last major development regarding a water source for the county happened this spring, after the commissioners identified Crystal Lake — with an additional intake on Little River — as a water supply option to help address the county’s future needs. It would involve building and operating a water treatment plant.
Other considerations have included drawing water from Deep River in the northern end of the county, and a potential partnership with Southern Pines to build a water intake further downstream of the town’s existing intake on Drowning Creek. The commissioners expressed the least amount of interest in the Deep River proposal at the meeting, which is estimated to cost $174.6 million.
But each project comes with its own challenges, benefits and price points.
Crystal Lake
In March, the commissioners selected LKC Engineering to complete an evaluation of the Crystal Lake and Little River water supply plan.
Patnode said the initial analysis estimated the county could pull 2 million gallons a day out of the lake. In a follow-up test, it was determined the safe yield, or how much can be pulled out on an average day safely based on variables like storage and drought conditions, is 1.4 million gallons.
But that does not mean the county cannot go above that many gallons. Adam Kiker with LKC Engineering said the safe yield takes into account peak days that would pull closer to 2 million gallons.
“The safety yield factors in a curve that represents the demand throughout the year, month by month, that gets fed into the model to predict it,” Kiker said. “You would not pull 2 million gallons every day, or even a quarter of the days. It’s a small number of the days.”
Patnode also noted 2 million gallons, on top of what the county currently pulls through water contracts with neighboring entities and wells, does not fill the gap of 5.5 million gallons a day. So the second phase of the plan would involve placing an intake at Little River that pumps water back to Crystal Lake to increase how much water can be processed.
The county is also working to see repairs are done to the dam that holds Crystal Lake, which was heavily damaged by flooding during Tropical Storm Chantal last year. The dam was built in 1902 and holds between 80 and 100 million gallons of water.
The county itself cannot use taxpayer funds to fix the dam, nor can it repair the road atop it. Because of this, the group of property owners who own the lake, Crystal Lake Support Inc., have sought FEMA funding for the necessary repairs. The group is set to receive roughly $380,000 for the dam project.
But the work is mainly to stabilize and restore the dam so the road can be fixed and reopened, with funding only for returning the dam to its pre-existing condition. To better withstand future storms and meet current standards, the cost would be closer to $5 million. That price is calculated into the estimates for phase one of the project.
The water supply project, broken up into two phases, would cost $175.87 million in total, making it the most expensive project.
Drowning Creek
The Drowning Creek Southern Pines Alternative is the most cost-effective option presented, at $117.46 million. The plan would involve entering a partnership with Southern Pines to build a water intake farther downstream from the existing town reservoir and use the town’s water treatment plant.
Kiker said an important aspect of the plan is for the intake to be downstream of Aberdeen Creek and the county’s wastewater plant discharge, which adds a significant amount of water into the watershed.
Picerno shared an interest in this proposal, noting the wastewater plant releases up to 6 million gallons of treated water daily and would continuously feed water to the intake.
“These other two options, you don’t have that guarantee that you would with a partnership with Southern Pines. Also the cost difference is tremendously different,” Picerno said.
He asked Kiker about the robustness of the source. Kiker noted it would be comparable to the other water supply plans, even with the treated wastewater feeding into it. He added entities across the state have similar setups.
“I’m thinking in a drought, a river dries up, a creek dries up, but wastewater doesn’t dry up,” Picerno said. “It’s going to be perpetual.”
The Southern Pines Council last discussed the proposal in August 2025, when it decided to defer consideration about modifying its existing water supply relationship with Moore County until county officials signal if they want to expand the partnership.
Contact Ana Risano at (910) 585-6645 or ana@thepilot.com.
