Asheville’s North Fork Reservoir will get another turbidity-reducing mineral treatment next week, as the lake’s murkiness continues to decline.
At Friday’s daily Tropical Storm Helene briefing, Asheville Water Resources spokesperson Clay Chandler said the key turbidity level dropped again since Wednesday, falling below 17 Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTUs) by Friday morning, about a 1 point drop from Wednesday. Also, the amount of lake water the city is able to push into the system for filtration rose from 17 million gallons to 19 million, also a good sign as the city slowly heads toward providing potable water again.
The ultimate goal is to get turbidity down to 1.5-2.0 NTU, which would allow for optimal filtration.
Helene devastated the city’s water system Sept. 27, knocking out transmission lines from North Fork, which provides 80 percent of the city’s drinking water, and leaving the 350-acre lake a murky mess. Chandler said North Fork’s output capacity hovered between 17 million and 19 million gallons Thursday, until a 16-inch water line on Patton Avenue broke in the afternoon.
“And if you were anywhere in the area of Patton Avenue yesterday afternoon, you saw water on the street, but that’s been fixed,” Chandler said. “So that’s a good example that our ability to push treated water into the system is going to depend, obviously, on turbidity continuing to fall and no major breaks in the system.”
The city is pursuing a two-pronged approach to restoring potable water: reducing the reservoir’s turbidity through the installation of turbidity curtains to still the water, coupled with a four-day application next week of aluminum sulfate and caustic soda; and pursuing the installation of an Army Corps of Engineers mobile treatment facility at North Fork to treat high-turbidity water.
“They have verbally awarded the contract to a contractor for that project,” Chandler said of the Army Corps of Engineers. “That contractor will be on site early next week for a site visit, and the build-out will begin shortly after that.”
The timeline for that project’s completion remains late November or early December. Chandler explained that while the equipment, which allows filtration of high-turbidity water, will come in on trucks and is considered mobile, it still requires some construction, as well as determinations on what size of equipment is most appropriate.
“There is a lot of piping that’s going to have to be installed,” Chandler said. “Just right now, our estimate is that the piping is probably going to take up most of the build-out time. It’s not just a few feet — it could be as much as a couple of thousand feet.”
Additionally, the units have to be laser-leveled when set into place, as even a small amount of unevenness could cause problems or even damage.
Asheville Watchdog asked Chandler why the city initially said it could not process North Fork water until the turbidity level had dropped to 1.5 to 2 NTU but is now filtering 19 million gallons a day of water with 17 NTUs.
“We’re able to push treated water into the system due to the change not only in the overall level of turbidity, but also in the density of the turbidity-causing material,” Chandler said after the briefing. “Initially, the turbidity was thick mud, which would obviously wreak havoc on our filters. Since then, the overall level has lowered and the particles have ‘slimmed up,’ so to speak, so they can be washed out of the filters.”
By comparison, the water in the city’s Bee Tree Reservoir in Swannanoa remains a thick mud with a turbidity in the 140 NTUs range, down from more than 200 initially, he said.
The city needs North Fork to reach 27 million gallons of water per day being treated and sent out to fully pressurize and flush the system. That flushing and repressuring could take two to three weeks, Chandler has said previously, so a return to potable water could still not come until mid-December.
Chandler also noted that North Fork’s 20,000-plus acre watershed sustained “significant tree loss” during Helene, including from a possible tornado that twisted off trees half-way up.
“We don’t expect the quality of the water to decline,” Chandler said. “The tributaries that are pushing water into the North Fork Reservoir now are crystal clear.”
Starting next week, a contractor will begin the city’s third application of aluminum sulfate and caustic soda at North Fork. The materials help clay particles coagulate and sink, leaving clearer water to filter.
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. The Watchdog’s local reporting during this crisis is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go toavlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-01 13:32:00
(The Center Square) – Directions on curriculum measured age appropriate and access in public libraries to materials considered harmful to minors are in a proposal at the North Carolina House of Representatives.
Parental Rights for Curriculum and Books, also known as House Bill 595, adds to state law a section for age-appropriate instruction for students; a human growth and development program for fourth and fifth graders; and says reproductive health and safety education shall not happen before seventh grade.
Rep. John A. Torbett, R-Gaston
NCLeg.gov
The bill authored by Rep. John Torbett, R-Gaston, and filed Monday additionally has sections on instructional materials and clarification of “defenses for material harmful to minors.” Public library access for minors is in a fourth section.
Gender identity instruction, a buzzword of recent election cycles, is prohibited prior to students entering the fifth grade. The proposal extends that to prior to the entering seventh grade.
The bill would require parental consent to learn about some elements associated with sex education – infections, contraception, assault and human trafficking.
State law allows schools the option to adopt local policies on parental consent for the reproductive health education.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-31 16:37:00
(The Center Square) – Judicial warfare is eroding the confidence in Americans’ justice system leaving a blight on justice itself, says a North Carolina congresswoman who leads the Rules Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C, is speaking out against judges blocking the president’s decisions as granted in the Constitution ahead of a Tuesday congressional hearing.
“As of late, we have certainly seen a slew of rulings by rogue judges that surpass their own constitutional authority,” she said in a post to social media Monday afternoon. “This is judicial warfare in the flesh. If it is not remedied in a commonsense and expeditious fashion, these exercises in partisanship will do further irreparable damage to the nation and to the confidence of Americans in our justice system.”
More than a dozen orders from President Donald Trump – more than in the entire time Joe Biden, Barack Obama and George W. Bush served as presidents – have been thwarted or attempted to be blocked. Among the judges in the spotlight is U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, a pivotal figure in deportation of people accused of being in gangs in addition to just being named to preside in a case involving military operations and a messaging app.
Boasberg, appointed by Bush to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 2002, was nominated to the federal bench by Obama and confirmed in the Senate 96-0 in 2012.
Boasberg on Wednesday issued and on Friday extended a temporary restraining order that prevents Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people believed to be part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. A hearing, Judicial Overreach and Constitutional Limits on the Federal Courts, is at 10 a.m. Tuesday to be conducted jointly by the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet, and the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from within the Judiciar Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.
California Republican Darrell Issa is chairman of the former committee, Texas’ Chip Roy the latter. North Carolina Democrat Deborah Ross is a minority member of the former; North Carolina Republican Mark Harris is a majority member of the latter.
Witnesses scheduled include former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Cindy Romero, a victim of criminal activity believed perpetrated by Tren de Aragua in Aurora, Colo. Also on the invite list are witnesses from the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
Other federal judges drawing fire from supporters of the president include Biden appointees Amir Ali, Loren AliKhan, Deborah Boardman, Angel Kelley and Brendan Hurson; Obama appointees Paul Engelmayer, Amy Berman Jackson, John McConnell and Leo Sorokin; Bush appointee Joseph Laplante; Bill Clinton appointee William Alsup; and Ronald Reagan appointees John Coughenhour and Royce Lamberth.
“Without question,” Foxx said, “exceeding constitutional mandates as a matter of judicial philosophy does nothing more than blight justice itself.”
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-31 15:21:00
(The Center Square) – Wildfires continued to burn Monday in the Carolinas, though a sign of optimism arose with a burning ban lifted in 41 South Carolina counties and measured rainfall in both states.
Largest of the fires is Table Rock in Pickens and Greenville counties of South Carolina. The Black Cove fire is burning in North Carolina’s Polk and Henderson counties, the Rattlesnake fire is burning Haywood County, and the Alarka 5 fire is in Swain County.
South Carolina’s Horry County at the Atlantic Ocean and North Carolina border, and the northwestern counties of Spartanburg, Greenville, Pickens and Oconee remain under a burning ban. In North Carolina, all 100 counties have a ban in effect.
The Table Rock fire size is about 13,191 acres in South Carolina and 574 in North Carolina, the Forestry Commission of the former said. Containment is about 30%.
The Persimmon Ridge fire is 2,078 acres in size with 64% containment. Rain Sunday into Monday measured nearly 1 inch.
The Covington Drive Fire in Myrtle Beach is about 85% contained and in mop-up and strengthened firebreaks stage.
In North Carolina, the Black Cove complex of fires are 7,672 acres in size. It includes the Black Cove (3,502 acres, 36% contained), Deep Woods (3,971 acres, 32% contained) and Fish Hook (199 acres, 100% contained) fires. Rainfall overnight into Monday helped the battle.
