About 75 to 80 percent of Asheville’s water customers again have city water, albeit a non-potable variety that has sedimentation in it.

At the Wednesday morning daily Helene briefing, Asheville Water Resources spokesperson Clay Chandler gave that estimate on restoration to the system’s 63,000 customers, with the caveat that pockets of customers still remain without water. Chandler presented a map showing water had returned to all areas of the city, although a system-wide boil water notice remains in effect.

“Obviously, that service will expand as the system pressurizes and tanks fill and pump stations start operating,” Chandler said. “So while that map looks pretty full, it is not meant to denote that every single person in that service area has service. That is meant to represent that substantial service has returned to those areas.”

Areas at higher elevations in particular will take longer to return to service, Chandler said. Often the tanks that feed homes at higher elevations are also higher up, and the city relies on pump stations to move the water from lower elevations up to the tanks and the homes at higher elevations.

“And we can’t just flip the switch on those, because there’s a lot of air in those water lines that has to be bled off,” Chandler said. “If we turn on a pump station and there’s a lot of air in the water line, it’ll burn it up. And those things are extremely expensive and extremely difficult to replace.”

The return to potable water will take longer, but Chandler said steps were being put in place Wednesday to help clear up the murky water at the city’s primary reservoir, North Fork, in the Black Mountain area. Essentially, the lake was “flipped upside down” from the torrential rains of Sept. 27, leaving it murky from suspended clay particles.

Several large containers of a treatment mineral, aluminum sulfate, arrived at North Fork this week and workers were to begin treating the raw lake water with it today. Aluminum sulfate is a “salt-ish” mineral the department uses in regular treatment of the lake water, as it makes clay particles coagulate and sink, leading to clearer water for filtering and treatment. 

The water department also will treat the raw water with additional amounts of caustic soda – another chemical it regularly uses – which regulates the water’s pH level so the aluminum sulfate can work most effectively as a coagulant.

Asked if the increased chemical usage could cause problems with lead leaching into the system, Chandler said no.

“I don’t think there’s any concerns, just because, again, we use these two chemicals in our normal treatment processes,” Chandler said. “I will say, however,  that the EPA has asked for and we are putting together a lead testing plan, again, out of an abundance of caution, and I think we’ve got that plan submitted to them. If we haven’t, we will shortly, and it will be implemented almost immediately upon them signing off on it.”

Chandler said that during normal treatment processes, the aluminum sulfate/caustic soda application ranges between 3 and 4 parts per million. For the ongoing in-reservoir treatment, the application will be about 10 parts per million.

“While that sounds like a shocking increase, there is some context to keep in mind,” Chandler said, noting that reservoirs with normally high turbidity routinely require treatments at 10 parts per million and higher. “Some drinking water reservoirs susceptible to things like industrial/commercial runoff can reach as high as 60 parts per million.

“We know that the water contents do not meet EPA safe drinking limits for turbidity. No one should drink or otherwise consume it directly from the tap.”

Expect a brown tint in water at first

The water the city is sending out now is heavily chlorinated but will initially have a brown tint in people’s homes, mainly from suspended clay particles, Chandler said. The water department recommends flushing the water for about 15 minutes through an outdoor hose or the bathtub.

“It’s worth noting that we test at more than 40 sites throughout the system daily,” Chandler said. “We sample for chlorine levels, coliform, E. coli, and manganese, among others. The results have been well within parameters set by our regulators. The one exception is chlorine, only because we’re hyper-chlorinating so we can provide service until the turbidity issue at North Fork is resolved.”

Earlier in the week the city said it had committed to installing a “curtain” system in the 350-acre lake, near the intakes to the water treatment facility. The curtains, which also will help control sedimentation entering the intakes, are on order, Chandler said.

“Of course, those curtains are sourced from Florida, and Florida’s had a couple of things to deal with in the last couple of weeks,” Chandler said, referring to hurricanes Helene and Milton that struck the state. “So the curtains haven’t arrived yet, but we have made the decision to go ahead and start treating the area immediately around the intake of North Fork, and we will move out from there.”

The city decided not to wait on the curtains because “it could be a few days, or a couple of weeks before they get here,” Chandler said. “But they’ll be in place at some point.”

The sediment comes from forest debris from the watershed, Chandler said, and is mostly fine sand, silt, and clay.

Helene dropped a deluge of rainfall in the Black Mountain/Swannanoa area, and that washed out the two main distribution lines coming out of North Fork, as well as a bypass line that serves as a backup.

The city and its contractors worked around the clock to restore the bypass line, which can feed the whole system, as well as numerous distribution lines that washed out, mostly in the Swannanoa area. Water started returning earlier this week to the 80 percent of customers who had been without it.

Normally, North Fork and its 22,000-acre mostly forested watershed provide the reservoir with fairly pristine water. Returning it to that state is a key to bringing back potable water to customers, as North Fork serves about 80 percent of the city’s system.

The city’s Mills River plant is serving the remaining 20 percent, as the third facility, Bee Tree reservoir in Swannanoa, remains out of commission because of Helene damage.

Still no timeline for potable water’s return

The city has not offered a timeline for a return to potable water, other than to consistently say it will be “weeks.”

As far as areas that remained without water, Chandler specifically mentioned the Eastmoor Neighborhood and the Bee Tree area, both in eastern Buncombe County. The storm washed out a 6-inch line that serves Eastmoor.

Contractors from TP Howard arrived there Wednesday to begin installing a temporary line that will provide reduced water pressure to 75 homes in the area while a permanent water pipe is put in place, the city said in a daily summary. Lower elevation homes will receive service before homes in the higher elevations. After flushing sediment, homes in the lower elevations should employ water conservation measures to ensure homes in higher elevations can receive water, the city said. 

In the Bee Tree area, a water pipe that serves about 40 homes “will require backfilling for stabilization before it can handle water pressure,” the city said, noting crews should complete that work late today or early Thursday.

The city reminds its customers that a “boil water notice” remains in effect for all customers, including those in southern Buncombe served by Mills River plant. The city says it’s being done “out of an abundance of caution, as North Fork is online and there are zones, especially along the service boundaries, where water from the two plants can potentially mix.”

The city also offered this advice: 

Any water intended for consumption — drinking, cooking, brushing teeth — should be boiled for at least one minute beforehand. Water out of the tap is safe for handwashing (unless hands are being cleaned for food preparation), showering (be careful not to swallow water while showering) and laundry. The water is safe for washing dishes, as long as a dishwasher’s temperature reaches a minimum of 170 degrees, which typically happens when the “sanitize” setting is activated.

You can find a comprehensive list of frequently asked questions here.

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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Here’s today‘s round of Helene-related questions, my mildly smart-aleck answers, and the real answers:

Question: I wonder if you can get any insight into the lack of restoration of service to Spectrum customers. It isn’t reported anywhere, and all we can get from Spectrum is that we are in an outage. We did kind of figure that out. The last update we got (and those are infrequent) was that there were 38,000 outages in Buncombe County. Any insight you can gain as to why restoration is taking so long would be greatly appreciated.

My answer: I do love a little Helene-related snark. 

Real answer: Among the various outages folks have been dealing with — water, power, cell service, internet, roads — I feel like Spectrum has generated the most ire. But that may have been true before the storm, also.

Patti Michel, the Spectrum spokesperson for our region, offered some helpful perspective.
“Nearly 1.2 million Spectrum customers were left without service in the wake of Hurricane Helene,” Michel said via email, noting that their field technicians have made significant progress restoring service. “Communities in North Carolina were struck particularly hard by the storm, and there are still areas that we can’t access or aren’t safe for us to enter to assess damage and restoration needs.”

Spectrum crews follow local utility teams as they complete their work. The company’s goal is to “complete restoration to our remaining communities as soon as we can,” Michel said.

“We have heard our customers and will be providing more timely updates and county specific restoration details until services are restored,” Michel said. “We appreciate our customers’ feedback and their patience.”

On Wednesday, Michel sent an update on service restoration in our area.

“We continue to make progress and expect to have completed repairs to our network in all but Buncombe, McDowell and Polk counties in North Carolina by Oct. 19,” Michel said. “Some repairs are taking longer than we initially anticipated due to the significant damage done, the time it took to gain safe access to the hardest impacted areas, and the need to make additional repairs following local construction.”

For those three remaining counties, Michel said Spectrum expects to “complete network restoration to accessible locations with power by Oct. 21.”

“We are communicating directly with those customers that are still not connected, providing them an updated estimated completion date based on their location,” Michel said. “We continue to provide daily updates, including county specific information at Spectrum.net/Helene.”

Some individual locations may require additional work to restore service.

“If a customer’s service is not restored by Oct. 21, we ask that they notify us so that we can address any remaining issues,” Michel said. “In addition, if a customer is aware of a downed cable wire we ask that they report it at Spectrum.net.”

At the Buncombe County daily Helene briefing on Thursday, County Manager Avril Pinder said Spectrum has told the county it has restored service to about 70 percent of county customers, leaving 28,000 without service.

Question: I’d love to see an answer man column on Spectrum’s billing policy during the extended service outage. There’s a Reddit thread where people are sharing their experiences trying to get account credits during the outage. The upshot of the thread, and my own experience, seems to be that Spectrum may give you a credit (if you jump through the hoops to ask for it) IF your power is on but your internet is off. But if your power is off, they won’t give a credit because they don’t consider the outage to be their fault. I’m not 100 percent sure that’s the official policy, as it’s not entirely clear. In any case, their resistance to pausing billing is frustrating and seems like a pretty good corporate villain story. We have FEMA and various public and private agencies assisting our community in numerous ways, but Spectrum’s stance is that disaster victims should continue paying Spectrum even when Spectrum is not providing any service in return.

My answer: I think for at least a couple of months it’ll be fine to say, “Helene ate my bill.” 

Real answer: Michel also addressed this issue.

“Customers experiencing an outage should contact us and we will work with them directly regarding any credits, as each will have unique circumstances and needs,” Michel said. 

Spectrum bills are typically printed and sent out automatically, so in some cases customers may have been awaiting bill delivery when the storm struck.

Question: I’ve heard that the City of Asheville is spending $100,000 apiece to drill wells at city schools. That seems like an outrageous amount of money per well. With city water starting to return, why are they even bothering with this? And are they really spending that much money per well?

My answer: Hey, you go without a shower for two weeks, and a $100,000 well starts to sound pretty darn reasonable.

Real Answer: I broached this subject at the Thursday morning daily Helene briefing with Asheville City Schools Superintendent Maggie Fehrman. While that $100,000 figure was kicked around at an earlier briefing, Fehrman said that would have been inclusive of adding “lots of different filters and water treatment, as well as having to drill significantly deep wells.”

In short, that was a maximum potential cost, a “very high” estimate.

“The range we’re getting now is somewhere between $12,000 and $15,000 per well,” Fehrman said.

City Schools “did successfully drill a well at Hall Fletcher (Elementary),” Fehrman said, and they sited potential well locations at Asheville High but have not dug them there. The high school would require several wells “to be operational if the city water went out for whatever reason,” she said.

ACS said a company called ClearWater dug the well. The cost for drilling,  labor and parts was $30,168.

“The district plans to submit the cost of the well at Hall Fletcher Elementary School to FEMA as a reimbursable expense,” ACS Chief of Staff Kimberly J. Dechant said via email.

But ACS is taking a pause on the well program right now.

“Right now, we are changing our focus to be primarily on securing drinkable water through donations, bottled water, etc., and are grateful for the support from Buncombe County Schools for helping deliver and work out the logistics for all that,” Fehrman said. “So we’re pausing on the wells until we can get our students back in schools and be up and running again at full speed.”

But well-drilling is still on the table, longer-term. 

“We are going to be very strategic and systematic as we look at continuing to drill wells at each campus, just so we have a backup if something happens to the city water,” Fehrman said. “Probably once or twice a year, we do have water outages for whatever reason, and if water goes out for a certain amount of time, we do have to send students home. So our goal is to have wells on each campus so that regardless of what happens, we do have backup water.”

Fehrman noted that right now all of the system’s 10 schools have non-potable water. ACS plans to reopen Oct. 28 for half-days, and the system is securing enough potable water for students to attend school for that amount of time.

“FEMA did provide guidance on how many liters of water we need per person per hour,” Fehrman said. “Using this formula, we are able to provide enough water for every student to return on a shortened instructional day. We are diligently working on identifying additional sources of drinkable water for our students so that we can return to a full instructional day as soon as possible.”

Fehrman said they have not signed contracts for future well drilling.

“We’ve gotten several numbers on costs, so we’re also being very intentional about making sure that we are getting a good price on wells, as we look at adding those to our campuses in the future,” Fehrman said.

Question: Any idea when Amazon will resume deliveries?

My answer: This reminds me to recommend that Asheville City Schools check out Amazon well prices before making any decisions.

Real answer: An Amazon spokesperson pointed me to a company blog post about the company’s disaster relief efforts, as it also speaks to limiting customer disruption.

“With the temporary closing of some Amazon facilities, and likely damage to roads and other infrastructure, there may be impacts to customers in the region,” the post states. “We will utilize our national fulfillment network to complete customer orders from outside the affected region.”

You might not get orders quite as fast.

“We will also adjust delivery estimates as the storm’s impact becomes clearer so customers can have the most accurate information on when their packages will arrive,” the post states. “Customers will see updated delivery times for their specific orders, and are encouraged to contact our 24/7 Customer Service teams for additional assistance.”

The Amazon facility in Mills River (Henderson County) is operating normally, by the way. As conditions continue to improve, deliveries will arrive more quickly.

On the relief front, Amazon noted that it operates 14 Disaster Relief Hubs globally. Amazon “has donated over 25 million relief items to support more than 170 disasters worldwide.”

Question: It’s wonderful to live in a city that feels there is no need to give citizens access to services at City Hall. I drove downtown yesterday hoping to visit the city water department (yes I know we are in a crisis, but I question if customer interfacing employees are helping to dig the pipeline) to report that all our neighbors have been restored but we are still without water. My assumption is that if they don’t know it could be years before they discover one meter is not generating revenue. As I was walking towards City Hall I was impressed by the amount of volunteers and National Guard members that were stationed in front of the building providing water and access to portable toilets, but I was taken back a bit when I tried to enter City Hall and was told by a very nice security officer that they were closed and may reopen next Monday. Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned, but what the heck is wrong here? I thought that being open for business was a good sign of strength and resilience.

My answer: Hey, some folks have been longing for City Hall to close for years. 

Real answer: Kelley Klope, a City of Asheville spokesperson, said the iconic City Hall, “like many other buildings in Asheville, faced significant challenges due to prolonged power and water outages. 

“The restoration of water on Tuesday, the 15th, was a crucial step, but safety and health concerns remained a priority,” Klope said. “The decision to close City Hall was made to protect our employees and the public.”

“Without water, essential services such as restroom facilities and fire sprinkler suppression systems were compromised, making it necessary to shift our focus to recovery efforts,” Klope continued. “Many of our dedicated city employees have been actively engaged in the community, assisting with donations, distributions, and education initiatives during this critical time.”

Klope said they’re grateful that many employees are flexible and can work remotely. 

“We appreciate your understanding and support as we navigate these challenges and work towards restoring normal operations,” Klope said.

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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