Posted by Staff | Aug 17, 2022 | Local Government

Hillsborough Mayor Jenn Weaver spoke with 97.9 The Hill’s Andrew Stuckey on Tuesday, August 16. She discussed various town water issues, new grants for water resilience, and the Hillsborough 101 class that is now accepting registrations. This is a transcript of their conversation, edited for clarity. Listen to the full interview here.

Andrew Stuckey: We are joined, as we are every Tuesday, by Hillsborough Mayor Jenn Weaver. Jenn, how are you today?

Jenn Weaver: I am doing great, Andrew. How are you doing?

Stuckey: Excellent and glad to have you with us. I have got to jump right in with some water talk here. There was lots of water news out of Hillsborough, this past week. Let’s start with the most visible of that water news. There was a discoloration in the water that some folks were talking about at the end of last week. What was going on with that?

Weaver: Yeah, so there was some discoloration that was being caused mostly by manganese. That is what we have heard from our folks at the water plant. Those were mostly back down to normal levels by the end of the day on Friday. I want folks to know that if they are seeing any discoloration, these sudden rain events are causing more turbidity in the water. Sometimes, the plant needs a little bit more time to filter through and have the water looking the way that we are used to it. If folks do experience this in future events, you can run the water a little bit and it will flush out that discoloration. With that being said, know that the town is always working hard to keep things at the appropriate levels and that it is certainly safe to drink.

Stuckey: That’s the big takeaway. Even though it looks a little bit weird for a day, it’s not actually any kind of a health concern. It is kind of a non-issue.

Weaver: That’s right, but nobody wants to see their water looking anything but clear. We understand why people have questions.

Stuckey: I guess the new fees for water and sewer are probably what people are most interested in hearing about next because that is going to affect them most immediately.

Weaver: Actually, most of these fees are not going to affect our residential customers. There are a couple of increases in our penalties if people are caught stealing water, which unfortunately does happen from time to time. Usually, it is not individuals. It is usually a company that is selling water elsewhere. That will happen every now and then. We certainly don’t want that to happen. There are these big orange boxes attached to fire hydrants. I f people do observe folks using one of those orange boxes, we use those when people have sanctioned use of our water hydrants. We do sometimes give people permission to use that, but the fees for doing so illicitly have been raised. Also, we have these development fees. There is a range of those that I couldn’t begin to list to you, but these are fees that we collect for new developments that are going to add more demand to our utility system so that the developers are bearing the cost of that burden instead of putting it on our existing customers.

Stuckey: So, there are lots of tweaks to the system to help with growth, but not anything that’s going to affect Hillsborough citizens’ pocketbooks in the short term?

Stuckey: We got news this week that there was federal funding for a couple of pump station projects near Hillsborough. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Weaver: Yes, this is really great news! We knew that things were looking good for these grants, but we did not get the official word until Friday afternoon so that you could be on the lookout for an official press release coming from the town later this week. To cut to the chase, the town received two significant grants there. These are federal grants called BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) grants. We got one to move the river pump station, which is an existing pump station that dates back to the seventies. It needs some major updating and also needs to be moved out of the flood plain. That is a $5.8 million grant that we received. The second one was to build a water-boosting pump station that will connect our water system to OWASA (Orange Water and Sewer Authority). That will be a backup for if we are in a situation like when we needed to help out OWASA when they had a situation with their water supply a few years ago. This would allow the reverse. They could help us out in the event that we needed it. Both of these grants are going to really increase the resiliency of our water utility. We are very excited to have received these and extremely thankful to our Utilities Director, Marie Strandwitz. She has been working very hard in consultation with some experts to procure this funding.

Stuckey: Do you have any sense of what the timeline will be for those projects?

Weaver: I am not sure. Those are grants for this year, but I am not sure how quickly those will be spent or when those projects will be underway.

Stuckey: Of course. While we’re talking about water, I don’t know anything about the reservoir in Hillsborough or the backstory on that. I was wondering if you could fill me in a little bit on the story of the reservoir.

Weaver: The short story is that the town decided to expand the reservoir so that we would increase the resiliency of our town as a community so that we have a more extensive supply in times of drought. That was an important commitment that we made to the community. That was a huge ongoing project, but to do the construction project, the level of the reservoir had to be lowered to get in and do all of the work. We are still waiting for that reservoir to get back up to its normal level. We appreciate all the rain we get. It seems like we have got a decent amount this summer, but we still aren’t quite up to where the reservoir needs to be. Things are going well over there with the expansion.

Stuckey: So when did that project get completed?

Weaver: I’m not totally sure, but I want to say last spring.

Stuckey: Okay. So it was relatively recently then?

Weaver: Relatively recently, yes. Maybe last fall sometime.

Stuckey: I thought we would change gears a little bit here. You had brought up Hillsborough 101 and I do not actually know anything about this. I was wondering if you could tell us what Hillsborough 101 is.

Weaver: Hillsborough 101 is an awesome program that allows folks to learn more about what the town of Hillsborough does, why we do it, and how we do it. It explains how we conduct our operations, what the town is actually responsible for, and what some of our constraints are. This also covers what it means to serve on a volunteer board or what the town board and the mayor do. It is a basic local government class tailored to the Town of Hillsborough put on by our staff. I think we did it four times before the pandemic hit and the program has been on a break since. It’s really great to have this up and going again, and it has made a powerful difference in our community. Increasing the number of people who have a really deep understanding of how the town works makes us a stronger community overall. That is something that they can share with their neighbors. Enrollment is happening and it starts on December 22nd. We hope folks will sign up.

Stuckey: Is it an in-person class?

Weaver: Yes. This is an in-person class

Stuckey: People can sign up at hillsboroughnc.gov, I assume?

Stuckey: Hillsboroughnc.gov is that website if you’re interested in signing up for Hillsborough 101, which is back after a couple-year hiatus. Is this an annual thing then? Is this something you just do once a year?

Weaver: That is right. It’s annual, and it covers our structure. It covers planning use of public spaces, sustainability, police, fire protection, and all things budget and finance. It is really comprehensive.

Stuckey: Sounds like a great opportunity for anyone who is looking to get a little bit more involved in Hillsborough. We have got a couple of minutes left. Is there anything else that you wanted to get out there before we wrap things up?

Weaver: Just remember that there is a lot of stuff happening over here in Hillsborough. We are coming up on August’s “Last Friday,” which will be next week. We can talk about that next week, but always like to keep that on folks’ radar. There are always great things happening here in Hillsborough, and people should come check us out.

Stuckey: Thank you very much for joining us. 

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