SALISBURY — The city of Salisbury is working to identify new funding sources for the planned $31.5 million Water Resiliency Project after the federal government pulled back from a FEMA grant program that would have provided $22.5 million of the expenses.

The Water Resiliency Project plans call for a new raw water pump station and related connected facilities on the Yadkin River due to repeated flooding and hazardous access conditions at the existing station on Hannah Ferry Road.

The city has already spent over $3 million with Cube Hydro contributing over $2 million of that number for engineering fees. Cube has an agreement in place to provide the local match, pledging a total of $9 million in funding.

So far, the city has completed a full environmental assessment and received a Finding of No Significant Impact, both steps in the permitting process to make the project a reality.

“We’ve already invested over $3 million in the project, we’re going to see it through. The only question at this point is how is it going to get paid for?” said SRU Director Jason Wilson in an interview on Wednesday.

The project is expected to cost a total of $31.5 million, with Cube Hydro contributing $9 million and FEMA contributing $22.5 million through the BRIC grant, which was originally begun to assist local governments with reducing emergency hazard risk. However, the agency ended the program in early April and announced the withdrawal of all applications and funding from the 2020 through 2023 fiscal years.

“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters,” stated a FEMA spokesperson when the announcement was made.

Wilson said that the project was necessary due to an increasing flood elevation tied to sedimentary buildup along the river. Wilson and Assistant City Manager Kelly Baker pointed to a flood event in 2020, where the water rose high enough that it actually entered the door of the building, causing SRU to pull the power and implement emergency measures.

The city has a mutual agreement with the City of Statesville that allows the two to pull water from their interconnected systems, which was utilized in 2020, but Wilson said that the agreement is only a “stopgap.”

“I’d look at it as we’re looking to manage our risk and be more resilient than we are now. Because we’ve been able to maintain our operations for the most part, other than pulling power for that 24-, 48-hour period in 2020,” said Wilson.

Wilson noted that SRU serves every municipality in Rowan County in some ways and even services the Northeast water system for the county government. In total, SRU services approximately 53,000 people every day. All of those rely on the Yadkin River water plant, which is SRU’s only raw-water intake facility.

“Speaking for myself, after Hurricane Helene, there’s a heightened sense of awareness that one good storm could wipe it away,” said Baker.

Wilson added onto Baker’s sentiment, saying, “My daughter goes to UNC Asheville, and they were without drinking water in the city of Asheville for almost two months. And we went up there and helped do some of the work. You take for granted a drinking water supply, and when you don’t have it, it really puts things into perspective,” said Wilson.

The current facility is designed to withstand a 100-year flood event, which means that the flood has a 1 percent chance of happening in a year, but Wilson said that the 100-year flood events are now impacting the operation of the facility, as they did in 2020. The new facility would be built higher, with Wilson saying that the floor would be above the 500-year flood line.

The new facility would also be built with an elevated bridge rated to allow access to the building to fire trucks and other utility vehicles. SRU staff are currently forced to access the current facility by boat when the area floods.

However, a massive wrench was thrown into those plans when the federal government moved to shut down the BRIC program. Baker noted that while the city had never actually been awarded the funding, the process had reached the point where they anticipated reception.

Despite that, SRU and city officials have been consistent with the message that the project is not optional and not dead in the water, with the city pivoting and working to find new avenues for funding.

“From the technical side of things, from the design, permitting and working to put the project out to bid, it’s business as usual. We’re working behind the scenes to figure out how we’re going to pay for it, is what it boils down to,” said Wilson.

Baker added that the project has strong support in the state and federal legislatures, pointing to U.S. Senator Ted Budd and U.S. Representative Addison McDowell as two who have been particularly instrumental. With that support, the city is looking into other sources of state and federal funding that could replace the BRIC grant. Baker added that the city still has not received official notice on the cancellation, and so were still working with federal officials “to just see what those options are.”

“We’re working other avenues here to see what’s available, because there’s some deadlines coming up for applications and letters of intent for other funding programs that have cycles coming up,” said Wilson. “We want to make sure that we’re getting out in front of that and we’ve got our ducks in a row to throw our hat in the ring on some other opportunities.”