NCLM Volume 71, Issue 1, 2021

SOUTHERN CITY QUARTER 1 2021 28 identify distressed water and sewer systems and begin finding solutions for the towns and residents who depend on them. Legislators provided $9 million to accompany the Viable Utility Fund, representing only a fraction of the amount required to address the need. Nonetheless, the structure created by the leg- islation and the distressed criteria established by the Division of Water Infrastructure, marks a promising start. Bethel, along with Eureka, Kingstown in Cleveland County and the Cliffside Sanitary District in Rutherford County, was among the first local government entities whose utility system were desig- nated as distressed. Before that designation came, the Pitt County town already had an advantage. Greenville served as its wholesale supplier of drink- ing water and treated its wastewater. And the two municipalities had already begun discussions with the Greenville Utility Commis- sion about completely merging the Bethel system into the GUC system. But Bethel also faced a substantial disadvantage. The mainte- nance issues associated with its sewer system had led to a devel- opment moratorium, the inability to add any more residential or business customers onto the system. In May of 2020, the town and the Greenville Utilities Commission signed a management agreement to allow GUC to begin assess- ing the sewer system for repairs and improvements. And after receiving a $50,000 grant in 2017 to examine the feasibility of regionalization, Bethel received $4.5 million in 2020 from various existing grant programs to begin the actual work to catch up on deferred maintenance and other tasks required for the merger to take place. That work will include point repairs of sewer lines, replacement of some water lines, changes intended to reduce water infiltration and possible moving a pump station to a less flood-prone area. The goal is to complete the merger by the start of the 2021–22 fiscal year on July 1, at which time GUC would take over the administration of utility. The UNC Environmental Finance Center will also act as a third party to review the merger and the issues associated with it. For Bethel and its residents, the result may not only be a more sustainable system moving forward, but eventually cheaper water and sewer rates. That change may not happen immediately, as the town is currently paying down some earlier, existing debt taken for system improvements, but it remains a goal of everyone involved and could help attract more residents and businesses in the future. “Hopefully what we end up with is a situation where we can take on these customers as retail customers and they will get some rate relief,” Chris Padgett of the Greenville Utility Commission told continued from page 27 Regionalization The financial struggles of water and sewer systems operated by rural towns have become one of the biggest hurdles that local officials face as they look to remake local economies in the face of manufacturing and agriculture job losses.