Canton throttles water to paper mill to save reservoir levels

Dec. 30—CANTON — Leaks from broken water lines at the Canton papermill have been gradually draining the town's water reservoir since the weekend cold snap, jeopardizing the town's water supply for residents unless action was taken.

Town leaders in Canton took an unprecedented step to restrict Pactiv Evergreen's water supply to save the reservoir and prevent widespread water outages.

The move was done after extensive communication and cooperation from mill officials, said Mayor Zeb Smathers.

"We are, have been and will remain a mill town," Smathers said. "We are proud to have the mill, not just for Canton, but the whole region."

Still, the town had no choice but to throttle six major water lines going into the mill — a step taken Thursday in concert with mill leaders.

"Drastic times call for drastic measures," Smathers said. "It is not something we did lightly. The mill cooperated with us and it made a huge difference. This speaks to our partnership and our relationship with the mill. They don't want anyone without water and we don't want them without water."

By Friday afternoon, it seemed to be working. The Spruce Street reservoir had begun to fill back up.

"The Spruce Street reservoir is slowly refilling for the first time since the water breaks," Smathers said. "It's well on the way to being restored."

Still, about 100 or so town residences were without water Friday, and Smathers warned that it would likely be Saturday morning before the water levels were high enough to restore service.

The mill's water levels will be restricted until the internal leaks are identified and a repair timeline is available.

Jon McCarthy, mill manager at Pactiv Evergreen, said he had been actively working with the town manager on a public statement. But he said he wasn't authorized to speak about the issue beyond that.

Much of the water to operate the machines used by the paper mill comes directly from the Pigeon River, and isn't metered by the town. Water used for sinks, drinking, showers and restrooms is purchased through the town, however.

Water through Christmas

During an emergency Canton town board meeting Friday, town officials outlined the water issues set off by the arctic blast over Christmas.

To the relief of many, the water lost through line breaks didn't lead to major disruptions until after Christmas, said Canton Town Manager Nick Scheuer. That's because town crews began working around the clock on Dec. 23, missing Christmas with their own families to keep the water flowing to town residents.

If it wasn't for the "hard work and amazing sacrifice" of town employees, the town would be in a far worse situation, he added.

While all the leaks in the town's water lines were fixed by Thursday, the system was still hemorrhaging water. Water usage charts revealed a possible reason for the uphill battle — Pactiv Evergreen water consumption was up 60% over the normal usage levels, said Scheuer.

That's not to say there weren't major breaks in the town's aging infrastructure that contributed to the problem the day after Christmas.

On Friday, Dec. 23, the town began receiving meter shut-off requests from homeowners whose own pipes had frozen or broken. The town also had numerous 4- and 6-inch line breaks between Dec. 23-27, Scheuer said.

"Because of the combination of town water line breaks and infrastructure damage to Evergreen utilities, the Spruce Street Reservoir began to lose water on Saturday night (Christmas Eve) and was impacting residents by early Monday morning," Scheuer said. "The water treatment plant has been running 24 hours a day to try to keep up with demand."

Deja vu

The town had taken steps before the cold snap to be ready for water woes, which were seen during the last big freeze. Repair parts and valves were sourced in advance, arrangements were made with public works staff to be on-call as needed, and the town geared up its emergency notification and social media outreach.

The town also reached out to the mill. A water metering system showed the mill's water usage during the previous big freeze was 150,000 and 200,000 gallons day above normal.

"We touched base with our industrial partners about lowering utilization and coordination regarding potential damage," Scheuer said. "As we recognized the severity of this issue, we also worked through the voluntary and then mandatory water consumption protocols."

In late 2018, the town experienced an eerily similar situation after a cold snap broke water lines belonging to both the town and the mill.

There were water supply interruptions at households in both Canton and Clyde.

Clyde Town Administrator Joy Garland said this go around, there were no outages at all for Clyde.

"We came out very well except for a few frozen water lines," she said. "Our staff assisted Canton through the weekend."

Richard Hodge, the past Canton public works director, assumed that role in Clyde last summer, so he is luckily familiar with Canton's system, Garland said.

The town spent $1.7 million to upgrade the Spruce Street reservoir in 2019, a move Scheuer said greatly reduced the problems the town would have had otherwise.

Water would have run out 36 hours sooner had it not been for the improvements, Scheuer explained, saying it also allowed pressure to be maintained for customers, despite the decline in tank volume.

Looking ahead, a $9.2 million allocation from the N.C. General Assembly was set aside to cover flood-related water and wastewater system damages in Canton.

Major upgrades at the town's water filter plant that will significantly increase the available water supply, along with undertaking a systematic repair of vulnerable lines.

"All of these things combined will help us be more resilient to these types of events," Scheuer said.