News

Jul 31, 2023

Water rising in Sampson

Project brings large tanks to Autryville, Spivey’s Corner areas By Michael B. Hardison [email protected] This new water tower was built west of Roseboro on N.C. 24 as part of a project funded by the

Project brings large tanks to Autryville, Spivey’s Corner areas

By Michael B. Hardison [email protected]

This new water tower was built west of Roseboro on N.C. 24 as part of a project funded by the American Recovery Act grant. It’s one of two meant to improve water supply and pressure in the Autryville and Spivey’s Corner areas.

Michael B. Hardison | Sampson Independent

Project brings large tanks to Autryville, Spivey’s Corner areas

Pictured are parts and the completed water tower west of Roseboro which has recently been built to enhance water in Autryville. Now that it’s up and running all that remains is painting, an indentical tower will be built soon for Spivey’s Corner.

Courtesy Photo

Pictured are parts and the completed water tower west of Roseboro which has recently been built to enhance water in Autryville. Now that it’s up and running all that remains is painting, an indentical tower will be built soon for Spivey’s Corner.

Courtesy Photo

Pictured are parts and the completed water tower west of Roseboro which has recently been built to enhance water in Autryville. Now that it’s up and running all that remains is painting, an indentical tower will be built soon for Spivey’s Corner.

Courtesy Photo

Improvements to water are soon to arrive in Sampson County as a two-part project that is bringing new water towers to the county.

As part of the project, two 125,000-gallon water tanks will be erected to enhance water pressure and ensure an increased water supply for customers in the Autryville and Spivey’s Corner areas.

The first of those is already near completion and was built just west of Roseboro on N.C. 24 which will see those upgrades in Autryville.

The Autryville tower was built by Sampson County Public Works, in collaboration with Caldwell Construction, which won the bid for the construction. The ability to build both came thanks to grant money the county received from the American Recovery Act.

For deeper insight into this whole process, Public Works Director Mark Turlington shared more in-depth details on the project with The Independent.

“We got some grant money and we knew we had some issues with water supply and water pressure,” he said. “In fact, we’ve got two tanks going up. We’ve got the one in Roseboro that’s going up to help pressure and water supply going to the Autryville area between Roseboro and Autryville.”

“We’re also going to put one identical to this one, another 125,000-gallon tank, at the Spivey’s Corner area,” Turlington added. “That one will be on Midway Elementary School Road and Highway 13, their intersection. We’re putting another tank just like that one there for the same purpose, to also increase the water pressure and water supply.”

Turlington also noted that new water lines that will be connected to the water tower in Autryville will be implemented as part of the project.

“We’re also putting in a 6-inch water line around the new N.C. 24 connecting to that tank to supply more water to,” he said, “but the reason we put it there is that we got some grant money and we needed to increase the pressure and water supply to that section of the county.”

Funding these towers wasn’t cheap and the entire project came in at over $4 million. Fortunately, for any concerned taxpayers, Turlington said these projects were completely funded by the grant and comes at no additional cost to their citizens.

“To do both tanks — and we’re going to have booster pumps, two tanks and two booster pumps — is costing $4.9 million,” he said. “This is also actually no local tax dollars being spent. In fact we’re an enterprise, we do not operate on tax dollars. We’re strictly enterprise and what we operate off of is what our revenue is in our water sales. So this money here was through this recovery grant which is federal funds but no local funds.”

While it’ll still be some time before the Spivey’s Corner water tower is done, the Autryville project is expected to be completed next month with only painting remaining.

“They started to work actually erecting that tank in Roseboro about four weeks ago and in fact they’re supposed to come in next weekend to paint it,” he said. “It is fully erected and ready to go. It just needs paint now and I talked to the paint contractor recently and he said he hopes to get here next week and start painting it.”

“We’re just very grateful that we were able to get the funds to put the tanks up so we can give better water service to our water customers in Sampson County.”

Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.