Public hearing set as Charlotte Water requests an increase in daily water intake

ROCK HILL, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Charlotte’s water department is looking to increase its water withdrawal from the Catawba River basin for households to use and return a portion of that wastewater to a separate basin.

It is called an inter-basin transfer

Officials want 63 million gallons of water every day to store away for a reliable water supply for the future. It’s an increase from the current daily maximum of 33 million gallons.

That water wouldn’t be returned.

“We’re concerned about the impacts for our growth potential down the road and we’re also concerned about the impacts this will have on communities up and down the river basin during drought conditions,” said Executive Director of the Western Piedmont Council of Government Anthony Starr. “So, the most significant drought that everyone thinks about was about 15 years ago when there was another inner basin transfer request being discussed, and we were in severe drought conditions at that time. And it was close to impacting operations of our public water systems up and down the Catawba River. And so we know that is just a matter of time before we have another extraordinary drought situation like that again.”

Starr says the more of these transfers that happen, the greater the difficulty is to come through those drought seasons.

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He says leaders believe these inter-basin transfers should be temporary, especially once they get so large as what Charlotte has operated and proposed.

“And they should be building the infrastructure in the basin or the area that’s going to receive the water instead of withdrawing more and more water out of the river for the transfer out of the river basin. It isn’t a sustainable, environmentally sustainable practice,” Starr said.

But officials say this has been planned since at least 2010. Charlotte Water currently takes about 116 million gallons per day from the Catawba River basin but the system returns about 100 million gallons of that. The highest peak transfer in 2023 was 26 million gallons.

In a statement sent to Queen City News in May, water officials say “the 30 MGD – which would not be fully used for several decades – likely represents less than one percent of the water which flows from the Catawba system today.  So, we are preliminarily talking about a relatively very small amount of water that was projected more than a decade ago.  At [the] bottom, CLT Water’s IBT proposal is exactly on track with where Catawba River stakeholders predicted we would be more than a decade ago.”

Starr believes Rock Hill neighbors would be significantly impacted by drought conditions because they’re downstream from the withdrawal. It could limit the amount of water households use if a drought becomes too severe.

And some are just finding out about the request.

“I think that’s very concerning. I wasn’t aware of it until now. The population has just seems like it doubles constantly around here so water is definitely a concern,” said Charlotte Proffitt, a Rock Hill neighbor.

Rock Hill city manager and chair of the Catawba Wateree Water Management Group, Jimmy Bagley, says he’s not ringing the alarm—just yet.

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He wants Charlotte Water to discuss solutions with its stakeholders before fully requesting the water.

“I think a prime directive all of us should have is if we’re taking water out of the basin, we should try to do as much as we can to put it back. And that way down below us can use it. So whether we’re returning against the wastewater plants or however, I think that’s ideal,” Bagley said. “We all know it’s a finite resource, and at some point, there’s just not going to be enough to give everybody everything they want. So the question is how do you allocate that?” he asked.

“It’s unclear how much this would impact local customers’ water bills. It could lead to the more water you transfer out of the river system, the greater concentration of pollutants are left behind. And so that and could theoretically increase the treatment cost of of water plants downstream from where they are withdrawing water,” Starr said.

There will be another public input meeting at 6 p.m. in Rock Hill at Dutchman Creek Middle School.

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