By Emily Weaver
Daily Record of Dunn
DUNN – The Local Government Commission gave the city of Dunn the go-ahead Tuesday to obtain a $9.1 million State Revolving Fund loan to pay for work that will address the city’s current sewer moratorium.
With the loan of $9,166,274 the city is expected to complete its projects that will lift the system-wide moratorium in fiscal year 2027.
“Sewer rates are expected to increase by 12.4% by the end of the project,” according to a release from the Office of State Treasurer Brad Briner.
The extra cash is set to pay for an assessment of the city’s aging sewer lines and manholes “to identify sources of inflow and infiltration to free up capacity and reduce sanitary sewer overflows by replacing defective lines.”
The city maintains 88 miles of sewer line. Many of the pipes date back 77 years or more. Leaks and overflows have been a constant problem, pushing the city into violations. Dunn agreed to pay a fine of $15,063.69 to settle the penalties associated with those violations in 2022.
The state’s Division of Water Resources reviewed the city’s monitoring data and overflow reports at the beginning of 2021. The division determined Dunn’s then-65-year-old wastewater treatment plant “was unable to adequately treat the volume of wastewater it was receiving,” according to a Special Order by Consent with the state’s Environmental Management Commission. The city’s plant was “subsequently placed under a moratorium prohibiting the introduction of additional wastewater.”
The moratorium banned the addition of new sewer taps, limiting the amount of new customers and developments the city could add onto its system during a local construction boom.
City officials have been working on projects approved in a state Special Order by Consent to address its infiltration and inflow problems. As those projects are completed, the city is allowed to add a certain number of new taps and customers to its system.
