KANNAPOLIS — A number of candidates for city government say Kannapolis should consider building a second reservoir on land the city owns in Rowan County as at least part of a plan to meet long-term water needs.
That’s despite the determination by a consulting firm hired by the city that such a reservoir is not a good investment. The firm says the city would spend too much for too little water in return.
City Council candidate Darrell Hinnant disagrees. He says the city should seek Rowan County’s help in paying for the lake, which he believes would be large enough for recreational use without danger of contamination.
Other council candidates who said they’d consider building a reservoir are Gene Rigdon and Annette Sloop. Ken Dennis, one of three challengers to incumbent Mayor Ray Moss, was even more strongly in favor of it. Among other things, Dennis said, “We definitely need to build a reservoir at Second Creek.”
The city owns nearly 4,000 acres in Rowan County along Back and Sills creeks, between N.C. 150 and N.C. 801. Kannapolis bought the land in 1989 from financier David Murdock, who purchased it along with Cannon Mills.
Former Cannon Mills owner Charles Cannon bought the land piece by piece when he realized his plants and the residential village around them would eventually need more water than Kannapolis Lake could provide. But in May a consulting firm hired by the city to study the city’s water needs and recommend the best ways to provide water told the council the reservoir probably isn’t feasible.
It would take eight to 10 years just to get permits to build the lake, the consultants said. And at a projected cost of $14 million — in today’s dollars — the reservoir would yield only about 5.8 million gallons of water a day.
The consultants determined “there would be way too much cost for the limited benefit we’d get out of it,” Interim City Manager Mike Legg said. That is, when the lake could provide the projected amount. “We’ve got four reservoirs in the county now, and they’re just so susceptible to drought.”
Instead, the consultants favored partnerships with other governments, such as the deal signed last week that will ship finished water south from Salisbury, which draws from the South Yadkin River.
After paying $2.4 million toward construction of the pipes, Kannapolis will be able to buy up to 2 million gallons a day without an interbasin transfer permit, and could get up to 3.1 million gallons a day with the permit.
That’s fine in the short term, Hinnant said. But even with the Salisbury line, the city faces a water deficit within a decade if growth matches predictions, city officials said. And the Salisbury line is treated water for which the city will pay about $2.78 per thousand gallons, when it costs Kannapolis less than 60 cents per thousand gallons to treat its own water, with the difference paid by water customers going toward maintenance, capital and other costs.
“If we buy finished water at a higher price, there’s no money to pay for those internal things, so the citizens have to pay twice,”Hinnant said. “That’s why I’m in favor of raw water.”
Cauthen says he’s in favor of the city treating its own raw water, too. But he said Second Creek doesn’t provide adequate flow for another reservoir and he supports building a raw water line from the Yadkin River.
The answer might be a combination. Both Legg and Hinnant said the best use for a second reservoir could be as a holding facility for raw water until the city needs it, when dry periods deplete Kannapolis Lake, for instance.
Hinnant contends that would be cheaper in the long run than the city buying water from Albemarle through Concord, another deal being considered, because water from the Yadkin would flow downhill, requiring less expensive infrastructure to get it to its destination. The consulting firm is scheduled to present its final report to the council within a month or two. The reservoir could still be among the options presented, but it’s not likely, Legg said.
“We’ll have to make these decisions, and clearly we’re not going to pursue one of these others if the reservoir turns out to be one of the recommended alternatives, but to date it hasn’t,”he said. “It would take a lot of high-priced water to make up for those capital costs.”
Hinnant says the answer is to seek a way to unburden the city of some of the costs. He said the lake would be large enough for activities like boating and fishing without endangering water quality. He said that might make it attractive for Rowan County.
“I don’t think that any of those kinds of things were looked at in the initial analysis,” he said. “And I am comfortable that those kinds of additional things that could be worked through would lower the cost of the reservoir so that it would then make good sense for us to be in the raw water business rather than finished water.”
Contact Scott Jenkins at 704-797-4248 or sjenkins@salisburypost.com
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