Fontana Dam – Graham County’s smallest municipality has been lauded for the quality of its water, being named as one of 64 North Carolina municipalities to receive optimization awards for 2021.
The awards were first announced by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality in August, and the Town of Fontana Dam’s award focused specifically on the optimization of turbidity at its water plant.
Improving its municipal facilities has been a major focus for the town for the past year and beyond.
“There are over 500 different water plants in the state, and that was just as low estimate,” said Town of Fontana Dam clerk Zelerie Rogers at Nov. 23’s meeting. “It’s not an easy award to get. There’s a lot that goes on behind it.”
Both Rogers and Mayor Rob Hardy alluded to the quality of the lake water going into the plant.
However, Rogers emphasized that the town’s treatment process also played a significant role.
“That water source has always been there,” Rogers said. “That’s where we’ve always gotten our water, so there has been work that’s gone into it to adjust it.
In addition to announcing the award, Rogers also said the town would have to pave the road leading to its wastewater plant, due to the need to access manholes underneath and the damage it would do to the drive, as well as fulfilling an obligation to the N.C. Department of Transportation.
She said that she had given permission to begin the larger project, but that the contractor did not do paving.
“Because that is something in our encroachment obligation with DOT, that’ll be something (we’re) working on as far as finding a paving company to come in here and do that,” Rogers said.
“We’re getting price estimates from two or three different companies.”
Hardy said he hoped the project would be far along by next spring, with the town’s collection system moving in a better direction.
“The hope is once we can get our wastewater side of things sort of squared away, we can get around to addressing the water losses on the other side,” Hardy said.