Questions & Answers: Lake Adger
1. Why is this agreement needed for Polk County’s water system, its citizens and Lake Adger?
Polk County wants to continue expanding the water system countywide to support good growth, jobs and protect the community’s vitality well into the future. Creating and managing a high quality, affordable water system is key to these goals.
Expanding the existing partnership allows Polk County to take full advantage of ICWD’s engineering,
maintenance and water system management expertise at the most affordable cost. Increasing the
county’s access to more water sources outside of Polk County and long-range planning to expand water
distribution are also critical needs.
The county estimates the Turner Shoals dam at Lake Adger needs $2.6 million of repairs. On-going
maintenance of the dam is also a priority. Under the new agreement ICWD would take responsibility for funding and completing these tasks.
2. How will Lake Adger be affected?
Lake Adger is not permitted for water treatment or a withdrawal intake, so water cannot be withdrawn from it for the Polk County-ICWD water system use now. Also, there are no plans to build a water treatment plant or water withdrawal intake for a treatment plant on Lake Adger.
This water system agreement also will not change current agreements with Lake Adger homeowners’ associations or those with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission that affect recreational use of Lake Adger.
Lake Adger will benefit by ICWD’s funding and managing improvements to the Turner Shoals Dam. Also, ICWD will fund and manage on-going maintenance of the dam and help the county address silt issues.
3. The County and ICWD say the lake levels will not be affected, why not?
ICWD already has adequate supplies of water to meet the combined Polk County-ICWD projected water needs for at least the next 50 years. The primary water supplies are located outside of Polk County and don’t include Lake Adger.
The Broad River Water Authority supplies 3.5 million gallons a day to ICWD. It is the primary water supplier to ICWD and it wants to continue this agreement. ICWD has a withdrawal permit for eight million gallons a day from the North Pacolet River in South Carolina. ICWD plans to build a water intake here by early 2018. Also, Polk County has a water supply of 0.6 million gallons a day from the Broad River Water Authority that is available to the water system.
If more water is needed far into the future, ICWD and Polk County consider Lake Adger the least cost-
effective and feasible option it has for a water withdrawal intake or treatment plant, due to its distance from the water distribution mains in the county.
Also, the Lake Adger watershed has a water supply classification based on 2 million gallons a day. Yet the average daily flow of water going through the Turner Shoals dam is more than 80 times that volume, at 166 million gallons a day.
Again, while it wouldn’t be used until decades from now, a withdrawal of even more than 2 million gallons a day from the high water volume going through the Turner Shoals dam would not be near enough to have any affect on lake levels.
4. Does the agreement mean Polk County will sell the right to use Lake Adger water supplies in a treatment plant that ICWD may build, even if the agreement is ended? Why?
No. The intent of the agreement is to benefit the entire Polk County-ICWD water system by building one water treatment plant in the region if it is needed, not two plants. A future water treatment plant would use water from the North Pacolet River first because ICWD has an existing 8 million gallon a day withdrawal permit. This, combined with water supplied by the Broad
River Water Authority, would be more than enough to meet the water needs projected for the region well beyond 50 years from now.
5. How can this agreement help resolve the silt problem at Lake Adger?
Under the agreement, ICWD will take responsibility for funding the repairs to Turner Shoals dam. This is more than $2 million that the County will not have to allocate from its general fund. Some members of the Polk County Board of Commissioners have expressed interest in using some of the savings to help resolve the silt problem at Lake Adger.
6. Will there be a water treatment plant on Lake Adger in the future?
There will be no plan that would withdraw water from Lake Adger for treatment at a plant on Lake Adger. Between its current agreement with the Broad River Water District and its permit to treat eight million gallons of water a day from the North Pacolet River, ICWD has the capacity it needs to adequately meet the projected water needs for the Polk-ICWD combined water system for the next 50 years.
If a water treatment plant is needed in the future, building it near the primary water source is most cost effective and technically feasible. The primary future water source for ICWD and Polk County is not Lake Adger. It’s the North Pacolet River.
The most effective option would be to expand the water capacity agreement ICWD and Polk County have with Broad River Water Authority and combine that with a treatment plant that is supplied by the North Pacolet River. If the region’s water demands grow beyond this capacity sometime after 50 years, permitting an intake on the Green River would be more cost effective than a Lake Adger intake.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Marche Pittman, Interim Polk County Manager 828-894-3301 and Jeff Walker, General Manager, Inman-Campobello Water District, 828-863-2295