Asheville's aging water system scrutinized after Helene exposed system's vulnerabilities

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Asheville’s water infrastructure is under renewed scrutiny after Hurricane Helene left some residents without clean drinking water for 53 days.

Part two of News 13’s investigation reveals how aging systems, outdated technology and delayed upgrades contributed to the lengthy outage and continue to pose serious risks.

The city’s former water director, Mike Holcombe, spent years studying the system. In 2022, following a separate 11-day outage over the Christmas holiday caused by a deep freeze and widespread line breaks, Holcombe joined the city’s Independent Review Committee (IRC), which was tasked with investigating the system’s weaknesses.

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“There’s just so much of the history of the city that is wrapped up into the water system,” Holcombe said.

Asheville has faced a series of water challenges, from a weeklong outage during Tropical Storm Frances in 2004 to more than 700 boil water advisories between 2017 and 2021. But the 2022 Christmas outage marked a tipping point.

The IRC’s final report, released in 2023, flagged multiple urgent needs. A full list of those recommendations and their current progress can be found here.

City officials say some of that work is underway, but progress has been slow, and Hurricane Helene made things worse. Clay Chandler, spokesperson for the City of Asheville’s Water Resources Department, says transparency has been key.

“I’ve found that people appreciate you being honest with them,” Chandler said. “And if it’s bad, tell them it’s bad.”

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When Hurricane Helene struck, the city’s main water source, the North Fork Reservoir, became clogged with mud, shutting down filtration.

“We are very, very vulnerable to even a moderate weather event,” said Chandler. “It would take something much less severe than Helene to put our treatment systems at risk.”

That vulnerability has renewed urgency around a project city leaders now say is essential: a plate settler pre-filtration system. The technology, which helps clean sediment-laden water before final filtration, is already used in an estimated 95-99% of U.S. water systems.

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So why didn’t Asheville have it?

Mayor Esther Manheimer says cost has long been the barrier.

“It would be the single largest project the City of Asheville has ever paid for,” Manheimer said.

Estimates peg the project at $200 million, nearly as much as the city’s entire annual budget of $256 million. With a 7.5% water rate increase already slated to take effect July 1, Manheimer says federal support will be necessary.

“You can’t just raise someone’s water bill infinitely to cover the cost of these improvements,” Manheimer said. “You have to balance what folks can pay with what needs to get done. That’s tricky, really tricky.”

In addition to the pre-filtration system, the city is considering building a fourth treatment plant to add system redundancy. But both projects will take years to complete.