Asheville is taking a major step to shore up its water infrastructure, nearly two years after Hurricane Helene derailed the city’s system and left 160,000 customers without access to potable water for weeks.
With the help of FEMA’s Public Assistance program, the city is moving forward on a $25 million water pre-treatment system at the William Debruhl Water Plant in Swannanoa. Asheville is also pursuing an additional $260 million from FEMA for major upgrades at North Fork Reservoir, the largest of the city’s three water plants.
Bill Hart, the city’s Water Resources Director, said his top priority is to deepen the water system’s resilience from climate disasters, particularly flooding and landslides.
“A lot of the actions that we continue to take are as a result of Hurricane Helene,” he told BPR. “A lot of the projects we're looking at right now and a lot of work we're doing is for resilience and for recovery. We want to make sure that our future is a bright one.”
In late 2024, Helene laid bare the vulnerabilities of Asheville’s water system. Two of the water plants, North Fork and William Debruhl, didn’t have pre-treatment systems. So when floods and landslides shook up the reservoir and clouded it with sediment, Asheville was unable to filter the contaminants out of the water until turbidity levels fell from 90 nephelometric turbidity units to the low-20s and high teens. The process took months.
The recently-greenlit upgrade at William Debruhl will provide an extra layer of protection against turbidity. The plant provides about three million gallons of water per day, a fraction of the output at North Fork.
“What this does is it ensures that the William Debruhl Plant will be able to run no matter what the water quality is,” Hart said “They'll be able to treat the water and to stay in operation.”
Typically, the program restores infrastructure to its pre-disaster condition. But the agency determined that a permanent pre-treatment system is necessary to restore the plant to pre-Helene functionality, explained Clay Chandler, a spokesperson for the city’s water department.
FEMA will pay for 75% of the project costs at William Debruhl, which is currently estimated to be around $25 million. Construction will take around two years and is expected to start as early as next spring.
Asheville applying for $260 million in North Fork upgrades
The city is finalizing two additional applications, estimated at $260 million, to FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
North Fork, which provides water for about 70% of the city, needs two major upgrades: a $125 million pre-treatment system and a $135 million alternate bypass line, which would supplement the existing bypass that washed out during Helene. The bypass serves as a backup for the city’s main transmission line, which delivers water from the water plant to the city.
The existing bypass, which was repaired over the span of two weeks after Helene, sits near the Swannanoa River, an area where infrastructure is at higher risk for future flood events. The city is hoping to create an alternate bypass out of the North Fork Reservoir that’s not in a floodplain.
Both projects are currently in the design phase and the city is sinking considerable cash into the process, with the hope that FEMA will approve the projects and reimburse the design costs. The pre-treatment design costs around $6.7 million and the alternate bypass design costs around $10.7 million.
Once the designs are 60% complete, the city can formally submit its hazard mitigation application. As with FEMA’s Public Assistance program, hazard mitigation grants will pay for 75% of the total project, meaning either the city or the state would be on the hook for the rest of the cost. Asheville has set aside $125 million for infrastructure projects out of a $225 million CDBG-DR grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Hart said he feels “very confident” that the city will receive support from FEMA for all three projects.
“Senator Budd's office and Senator Budd have been instrumental in helping us with a lot of the work we've been doing and a lot of the funding,” he said. “Our mayor has been tireless in her work to go down and get funding through both Raleigh and Washington. It has been a very good collaborative effort with a lot of work done.”
