Hillsborough leaders discuss flooding at Eno River pump station
Hillsborough leaders say that the town's water treatment plant should
be back online by Monday as the recovery from the
storms continues
Until then residents are being asked there to conserve water
Overflow from the damaged pump station remains along the River
Walk Greenway and in Gold Park and those
areas will likely be closed we here for weeks
Meanwhile Hillsborough's mayor is speaking about canceled federal grants that
he says would curb future flooding impacts
WRO's Flynn Snyder is live with the growing cost the
town is facing to handle floodwaters
nearly $7 million
That's how much money Hillsborough's mayor says was recently cut
from FEMA grant funding that would have gone to improvements
near the town's wastewater treatment plant
In light of recent flooding from Chan Hall the town's
mayor says it is a substantial loss to the town's
future public safety and economic development
This 1970s pump station that handles 3/4 of Hillsborough's wastewater
sits in the Eno River floodway
Town leaders say it needs to be moved
Flooding damaged the station during the previous storms and Tropical
Storm Chantal has taken it offline once again as preventing
us from being able to effectively treat our waste water
That relocation was supposed to be paid for by millions
in grants from FEMA
Hillsborough leaders say that money has now been cut
In April the agency announced it was ending the program
and canceling grant applications from previous years
A spokesperson called the program wasteful and ineffective
This is a very substantial amount of money for a
small town like Hillsboro and to lose it
Suddenly was very impactful
Several other municipalities in our area had winning applications during
the impacted time period or checking on the status of
those grants
The impact of Tropical Storm Chantal on the river pump
station is exactly the type of scenario that BRI grants
were intended to protect the public against
Town leaders say they'll now look to other grant programs
for funding that is going to set our timeline back
at least 6 to 8 months because they will not
start reviewing applications until this fall into the winter
So town leaders say they were also going to use
that funding to boost connectedness to other water systems so
that customers can continue to receive clean drinking water during
emergencies like the one they saw over the weekend
In recent days Hillsborough has had to pay the city
of Durham for clean drinking water until the town gets
their own treatment plant back up and running again
Flint Snyder WRL News live in Hillsboro