Morganton, Valdese, Drexel water interconnection halted

Three Burke County municipalities are pressing pause on water interconnection and turning to other infrastructure projects after one municipality did not receive the grant funding needed to continue.

The City of Morganton and the Town of Drexel received a combined $15 million in funding for the project, but the Town of Valdese did not receive any funding for the project. Now, the three communities are trying to decide how to bridge the gap, though no final decisions on how to proceed have been made.

When the Town of Valdese requested grant money for the Morganton-Drexel-Valdese water interconnection, staff also submitted a request to cover repairing its raw water intake system that had been impacted by Hurricane Helene.

Town Manager Todd Herms said eligible municipalities were told to request funding for any potentially eligible project.

Valdese was awarded the maximum $10 million from the N.C. State Water Infrastructure Authority (SWIA) to address the raw water intake system and received no funding for its piece of the interconnection project.

The water intake project was marked as a higher priority by the N.C. Division of Water Infrastructure (DWI), Herms said.

“Both DWI and SWIA openly acknowledged during their 2025 meeting to award funds that the interconnection project would not be fully funded,” Herms said.

Herms said when approached by Valdese staff, DWI offered to let the town move its water intake funds to the interconnection project, but doing so still wouldn’t have funded the project. Herms said another $20 million would be needed.

“For those reasons, the town declined to transfer the funds and instead will pursue the water intake project using its Helene funding while continuing to research and apply for other funding sources,” Herms said.

Coordination between the three municipalities led to requesting additional funds to close the gap, Herms said, but none of DWI’s other programs had sufficient funding for the project.

“If (DWI) were to award sufficient funds to all three entities to fully fund the project, then Valdese would be interested in completing the interconnection in the future,” Herms said. “However, given the funding award limits that DWI imposed on Helene funds and the anticipated cost of interconnecting Morganton, Drexel, and Valdese, it is unlikely that the project will be fully funded and therefore would not be feasible.”

Herms said that with additional costs and no clear revenue opportunities, it would not be in the best interests of water customers in any of the three towns to pursue the project with current funding.

MORGANTON

The City of Morganton, which received $10 million in funding for the interconnection, has decided to move forward with another application, requesting about $5-6 million through the State Revolving Funds for Hurricane Helene recovery implemented by the American Relief Act of 2025.

Engineering firm McGill Associates is helping with the application process and if awarded, the funds would be used to update the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems at the Water Treatment Plant and throughout the water distribution system.

The update, expected to increase the resilience of Morganton’s water system after Hurricane Helene, would also add permanent automatic backup generators at all booster pump station sites and tank sites, along with an update to the chemical feed systems at the water plant.

The application comes with the fourth round of applying through the State Revolving Fund. The second round is when Morganton, Drexel, and Valdese applied for funds to support the interconnection.

DREXEL

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality allocated more than $5 million to the Town of Drexel for the interconnection project, and staff are working with engineers and the NCDEQ to move the funds to another resiliency project, according to Town Manager Bill Carroll.

“We do not yet know what will be allowed, but we will work diligently to ensure the funding is used one way or another,” Carroll stated, adding that the town has published a Request for Qualifications seeking a design engineer for the next project.

Water distribution and wastewater collection system design, water and sewer line extensions and replacements, pump station design and rehabilitation, water storage facilities and system upgrades, and more are listed as possibilities in the RFQ’s general scope of services.