In an attempt to understand why the Town of Jamestown is raising sewer rates by 30%, water rates by 4%, property taxes by 20%, and imposing a new stormwater utility fee to pay for a changing list of items, including “expansions” to underperforming water facilities, we dove into the NC Division of Water Resources’ collection of municipal water profiles and planning reports. Here’s what we found.
Part I. In 2010, Jamestown’s tap water supply source switched over to Deep River/Randleman Lake, sold by PTRWA (Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority) These reports (linked) show that the Town of Jamestown’s contracted water purchasing commitment exceeds the town’s needs:
PTRWA sells its finished (drinking) water to Jamestown and local towns (PTRWA “partners”) in units of “Million Gallons Per Day (MGD).” The partners’ commitments through 2057, and actual use in 2022, are:
- Archdale – commitment is 1.559 MGD; actual average use in 2022 was .902 MGD
- Randleman – commitment is 1.0 MGD, actual average use in 2022 was .67 MGD
- Greensboro – commitment is 7.93 MGD, actual average use in 2022 was 6.858 MGD
- High Point – commitment is 2.78 MGD, actual use in 2022 was 2.73 MGD (except High Point says it gets ALL of its water from High Point, so this must be the water it sells)
- Jamestown has a contract with PTRWA that expires in 2057 for an “allocation” of .775 MGD. Jamestown fulfills this through a commitment to purchase PTRWA water from Greensboro in the amount of .125 MGD, and a commitment to purchase PTRWA water from High Point in the amount of .5 MGD. In 2022, Jamestown’s actual average use of PTRWA water from Greensboro was .0910 MGD, and PTRWA WATER from High Point was .373 MGD.
- Jamestown also has a separate contract to purchase water from High Point in the amount of 1.0 MGD (we don’t know if this is also from High Point’s PTRWA share, but we do know that in 2022, Jamestown did not use any of it).
So, based on the Town of Jamestown’s own usage projections, it will be purchasing more water than the town needs for the next 50 years, while charging residents higher property taxes and fees to pay for expansions at PTRWA’s treatment plant that Jamestown, with its declining population, does NOT need:
In Jamestown’s 2022 Water Planning Report, the text box in section 3 states “We (Jamestown) purchase most of our water from PTRWA and that water is routed through the distribution system lines of Greensboro and High Point.” If Jamestown doesn’t use its entire annual “allocations” it still has to pay for it. The report was completed/submitted by Jamestown’s public services director.
The report shows that Jamestown purchases 1.775 MGD water a year (.775 MGD from PTRWA plus 1.0 MGD from High Point), but uses less than a third of that. In 2022, Jamestown’s actual usage was .464 MGD. Which means Jamestown paid for 1.311 MGD that it didn’t use.
Part II. Jamestown claims it needs millions of dollars for capital water projects due to an urgent need for expansion, yet Jamestown’s own projections show the town has access to more water than it needs to supply existing and future demand through the year 2070. The Town of Jamestown is also trying to convince us that there’s an “urgent” need for expansion of Eastside Wastewater Treatment Plant and Riverdale Pump Station:
“The projected water/sewer payments for Eastside [Water Treatment Plant] and Riverdale Pump Station for expansion should be way over [what they] projected,” Finance Director Judy Gallman told Jamestown News’ Carol Brooks in a March 29 report. “We will be paying out millions of dollars.”
In that same story, town manager Matthew Johnson said, “the reasoning is a recent audit, capital projects and in-house items.” The “audit” he refers to hasn’t taken place yet. It’s a stormwater audit, scheduled for June 7th & 8th, 2023.
In reality, Jamestown’s population has decreased over the past ten years. Jamestown’s metered water customers have been decreasing since 2018, and the sewer customers (half of which include Adams Morgan/Greensboro) are also decreasing (due to a new Greensboro-installed pump station).
Jamestown residents’ tax increases and higher sewer/water fees will be paying for Eastside and PTRWA’s compliance fixes, filtration and upgrades required to get rid of PFAS and meet federal and state water quality standards. The wastewater/sewer “expansion” is for increased capacity needed by real estate developers for their new projects in Greensboro, High Point and Jamestown.
This is on top of what developer DR Horton – with the help of Jamestown’s land attorney – got Jamestown to commit to paying for (new water and sewer infrastructure for their new 1,500-home development at Mackay and Guilford roads):
In its 2022 Water Planning report, Jamestown says it will need to purchase an additional .425 MGD of drinking water from PTRWA “when the [PTRWA Randleman Reservoir Treatment] plant is expanded around 2025.” Jamestown’s own projection numbers fail to back up this statement, showing the town will be purchasing more water than it needs for the next 50 years.
Seaboard Group and City of High Point made a mess in Deep River and Randleman Lake and have been sitting on it for decades. High Point- and Greensboro-based factories and landfills continue to discharge pollutants into Deep River, Bull Run and their tributaries. The industrial polluters, landfills and “Responsible Parties” are supposed to be paying for this.
Jamestown’s town manager played along with the water utilities narrative, dismissing residents’ concerns about watershed rules and water quality, and downplaying new rules and findings about contaminants in our drinking water.
Jamestown’s “share” for the Eastside “expansion”($8.04 million) and Randleman/PTRWA Treatment Plant “expansion” ($4 million) are being financed by High Point and PTRWA.
These costs are being dumped on Jamestown residents in the form of a 20% property tax increase, a 30% increase in sewer fees, a 4% increase in water rates, and a new monthly stormwater fee, according to the March 29 article in Jamestown News.
On top of all this, Jamestown’s town council voted to spend our $2.8 million federal ARPA funds – (funds earmarked for water and sewer infrastructure projects) on NON-water and sewer projects: (1) three-quarters of one mile of new sidewalks ($2.3 million), (2) a dog park, picnic shelters and “moving the volleyball court” at the public park ($315,000), and (3) an unidentified “stormwater feature” for the golf course ($210,000).
Part III. When compared to the water planning reports of PTRWA partners Randleman and Archdale, Jamestown’s numbers make zero sense and prove there is no need for “millions of dollars” to meet future demand. Look at the three towns’ 2022 metered connections for drinking water:
Jamestown – 2509 residential connections plus 178 commercial/industrial/institutional connections
Randleman – 2320 residential connections plus 290 commercial/industrial/institutional connections
Archdale – 4628 residential connections plus 425 commercial/industrial/institutional connections
Jamestown projects its future demand to grow from .464 MGD in 2022 to .9630 MGD in 2070, so Jamestown’s purchased (contracted) drinking water amount of 1.775 MGD will far exceed the .9630 MGD the town projects it will need in 2070.
Randleman has about the same number of customers as Jamestown, and purchases 1.125 MGD a year. In 2022, Randleman’s average usage was .773 MGD, so Randleman paid for .352 MGD that it didn’t use. Randleman projects its future demand to grow from .773 MGD in 2022, to 1.246 MGD by 2070, but it’s not talking about going into debt to pay for a PTRWA expansion – Randleman simply says (in its water planning report) that one day it might have to buy more water from PTRWA.
Archdale is almost twice the size of Jamestown, and purchases 2.2 MGD a year. In 2022 Archdale customers used .9103 MGD, so Archdale paid for 1.289 MGD that it did not use. Archdale projects future demand to grow from .9103 MGD in 2022, to .9924 MGD by 2070, so the town says nothing in its water planning report about needing an expansion.
Plus, High Point says it doesn’t need to buy any more water from PTRWA because it has all the water it needs from its City Lake and Oak Hollow Lake supplies.
The single PTRWA partner that needs more water is Greensboro: an additional 4.9 MGD in 2030, 6.35 MGD in 2040 and 6.35 MGD in 2050, bringing it to a total projected demand of around 25 MGD in 2070.
Part IV. Actually, when you add it all up, there’s nothing to suggest that a need exists for any expansion at all. What it looks like PTRWA needs, is a new $120 million water filtration system to filter out all the PFAS and 1,4-Dioxane.
In its water planning report, PTRWA states that it’s “currently in the 30% design stage for a water treatment plant expansion that will also most likely include the addition of treatment to address emerging contaminants. It is expected that this expansion and emerging contaminant treatment projectile necessitate expansion and improvements in the wastewater treatment process. Final design for the expansion and emerging contaminant treatment project is expected to be complete by the middle of 2024 with construction beginning at that time.”
UPDATE: In October 2023, the City of High Point and PTRWA submitted four applications to the NCDEQ, asking for $120,685,000 to treat the PFAS and 1,4 Dioxane contamination in Randleman Lake. The funds would have come from a big pot of stormwater infrastructure money the Biden administration gave to the State of North Carolina for public water systems and municipalities. Their grant application was turned down.
This isn’t about Jamestown and the PTRWA partners paying for an “expansion” of PTRWA’s treatment plant. It’s about making the taxpayers pay for treatment technology that PTRWA needs to get rid of all the forever chemicals, PFAS, 1,4-Dioxane and VOCs in Randleman Lake.
PTRWA was warned back in 1997 that this would happen. PTRWA, the partners, and the NCDEQ knew that turning an industrial waste stream into a drinking water source was a BAD idea. It wasn’t a secret and was covered extensively in the local media.
Decades later, they’re forcing Jamestown, High Point and Greensboro residents pay to fix it, instead of holding the POLLUTERS and Responsible Parties financially accountable.
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