SALISBURY — To go towards Salisbury-Rowan Utilities’ Yadkin River water supply resiliency project, the Salisbury City Council decided to agree to a contract with Black & Veatch International in the amount of $1,358,000 to finish the designs for a new Yadkin River raw water pump station at its March 5 meeting.

The project will involve building a combined tower intake structure and pump station 2,100 feet downstream from where they are now as two separate edifices on the South Yadkin River. Utilities Director Jim Behmer said the current location “floods rather frequently.” 

Behmer also said that the new station will “provide access at a higher ground so that during a well over 100-year flood, it’s a 500-year flood we’re actually designing for, we’ll have 24/7, 365 access.”

In February 2023, the council approved an initial contract with Black & Veatch International to design the first 60 percent of the pump station for $2.9 million, bringing the total cost to $4.258 million.

To assist in the project’s overall funding, the city is in the process of obtaining FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant worth $22.5 million that is expected to be delivered in May. 

To continue the project before then, SRU has been utilizing fund balance and $2 million of a $9 million local match from Cube Hydro. Cube will fund the other $7 million once the BRIC grant is officially received. The terms of the BRIC grant state the project needs to be completed within three years and it is scheduled to be done by 2027. 

The final draft of the environmental assessment is being reviewed by FEMA and is about to go out for public comment. According to Behmer, the “next major step” will be on May 8 when the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission approves the watershed boundaries and that will put into motion the rulemaking review process. 

Some of the features to the proposed station include a 210-foot bridge that will go across the wetlands and an emergency generator. Behmer said the station will “last well over 50 to 75 years.”

When asked how many people are dependent on this station, Behmer said “53,000 and growing.”

“It’s bigger than just Salisbury, it’s a long-term project,” Mayor Pro Tem Tamara Sheffield said. “It’s good to see this next part come through.”