Durham pivots on Jordan Lake regional water plant, opts for city-sited facility amid partner delays

Durham pivots on Jordan Lake regional water plant, opts for city-sited facility amid partner delaysThe City of Durham is revising its Western Intake Partnership project to pump raw water from Jordan Lake to a new municipal treatment plant, a move expected to yield significant operational savings on future PFAS treatment despite the loss of upfront regional cost-sharing.

Original regional partners Chatham County and OWASA have delayed their need for finished water from Jordan Lake.

Durham will now build a raw water pump station at the lake and a new municipal water treatment plant adjacent to its South Durham Water Reclamation Facility.

The new configuration will allow the city to mix high-quality wastewater effluent with raw lake water, mitigating the costs of upcoming PFAS regulations.

The project remains on schedule to begin delivering drinking water by the end of 2031.

The City of Durham, North Carolina, is significantly restructuring its approach to the Western Intake Partnership, abandoning plans for a regional water treatment plant at Jordan Lake in favor of a city-sited municipal facility. The pivot comes after regional partners—including Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) and the newly formed Tri-River Water (incorporating Sanford, Pittsboro, and Chatham County)—indicated they would not need finished water from the project in the foreseeable future. Tri-River recently completed a $200 million plant expansion, while OWASA's demand projections have extended further out. Instead of building a shared treatment plant 16 miles away at the lake, Durham will construct a raw water pump station at the Jordan Lake intake and pipe raw water directly to a new treatment plant located just south of the existing South Durham Water Reclamation Facility. During a February 19 work session, Durham Water Management staff detailed the operational and financial implications of the change. While the city will lose the anticipated upfront cost-sharing for the treatment facility, officials noted that the capital costs remain largely unchanged for Durham, and current 10-year rate models had already conservatively excluded partner buy-ins. If the partner utilities eventually require their Jordan Lake allocations, they will be required to reimburse Durham for raw water capacity at the intake. Crucially, locating the new water treatment plant adjacent to the reclamation facility offers massive long-term savings related to emerging contaminants. "In two or three years... we'll have PFAS rules on drinking water. Following that, we're going to have PFAS rules on our discharge," said Don Greeley, Director of Water Management. "There's high PFAS levels in Jordan Lake. When all of that comes to pass, we are going to be discharging a very high-quality effluent... into Jordan Lake, mix back with the high PFAS water, and then we're going to be pulling it out and having to treat it all over again." By co-locating the facilities, Durham plans to mix the high-quality effluent directly with the raw water coming from the lake before treatment. Greeley noted this strategy will yield "huge savings" by avoiding the need to repeatedly treat the lake's pervasive PFAS load. Across North Carolina, utilities are already facing steep costs to remove the chemicals; the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, for example, recently invested $43 million in a granular activated carbon filtration system. By mitigating the PFAS load upfront, Durham hopes to save hundreds of millions of dollars in future treatment upgrades. The proximity will also allow the city to consolidate solids and biosolids operations between the two plants. This is particularly beneficial because Durham currently utilizes powdered activated carbon to adsorb PFAS during water treatment—a process that generates residual solids waste requiring disposal. Furthermore, the local site will improve finished water quality by eliminating the aging that would occur in a 16-mile finished water transmission line. Despite the redesign, the project remains on schedule to begin delivering drinking water by the end of 2031. The city is currently updating its preliminary engineering reports and revising its interlocal agreements, while the procurement process for progressive design-build teams for both the intake and the treatment plant remains underway.