The town of Hillsborough provided an update Friday afternoon with residents on efforts to restore water and sewer services.
Flash flooding from Tropical Depression Chantal sent raw sewage into the Eno River earlier this week, prompting a boil water advisory. The town lifted the advisory on Wednesday, but people in the town are still urged to conserve water.
“Our water plant is not online right now, but we are on the verge of getting it back online,” said Hillsborough Utilities Director Marie Strandwitz on Friday afternoon. “We had flooding of our finished water storage tank, which is an in-ground storage tank [that is] partially buried and we have vents on the side of it.
“So, the Eno River came up and got into those vents and we visibly saw contamination of river water into our finished drinking water.”
Strandwitz said it prompted the town to issue a boil water notice.
“Typically, we would only issue an advisory, but since we visibly observed that flooding, we went straight to a notice even before we took a bacteria test,” Strandwitz said on Friday. “But I can say right now that we have gotten the tanks cleared out and sanitized, refilled and we are actually waiting on our final bacteria testing right now.”
Strandwitz said the town can put its wastewater treatment plant back online once it doesn’t have bacteria.
“Testing of water samples found no bacteria in the system. However, customers are urged to continue to conserve water to maintain water supply in the system because the Water Treatment Plant is offline,” read a Wednesday statement posted on the town’s website.
On Friday afternoon, town leaders provided an update on the flooding at Hillsborough’s wastewater treatment plant. According to the town, the flooding has resulted in 75% of the town’s raw sewage spilling into the Eno River since Monday.
“I would like to give a huge thank you to the city of Durham because they are supplying the town with our water right now through our distribution system,” Strandwitz said.
Eno River State Park remains closed due to high water, according to ncparks.gov. Earlier this week, around 80 people living near the Eno River had to be rescued from floodwaters by boat.
The town of Hillsborough also has the loss of roughly $7 million in federal grants for critical water and sewer projects.
The planned projects included relocating a pump away from the Eno River and building a water boost station to allow the town to receive water in emergencies.
The need for upgrades to the water and sewer system is something top of mind for Hillsborough’s residents.
“They have had problems before with exposure to flooding,” said Lee Gordon, who has lived in Hillsborough for 60 years. “I understand there was a FEMA grant they were supposed to receive, but that was canceled, so they’re back to square one.”