Water woes: Underserved communities in North Carolina struggle to upgrade infrastructure

At the North Carolina Water and Equity summit in Durham, leaders from across the state gathered to discuss how to serve the water needs of disadvantaged communities.

North Carolina has earmarked more than 3 billion dollars to upgrade water infrastructure in the state, but Shadi Eskaf, director of the DEQ Division of Water Infrastructure, says there are far more applications than grants available.

"There’s a lot of energy around making sure that there is funding available to communities that need it the most, and its something that’s been prioritized by DEQ and continues to be a high priority," Eskaf said.

"We've been waiting for this for decades," said Ed Gillim, one of the community members that helped Ivanhoe in Sampson County win a grant of more than $13 million for a public water supply system.

"I'm so glad to see this dream become a reality," Gillim said.

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At today's summit, government leaders, community groups, and researchers from across the state put their heads together in breakout sessions to find ways to meet the needs of underserved communities.

"Clean water is vital. Housing is important. You shouldn't have to chose between the two, but some are," said Chris Hawn with the NC Environmental Justice Network.

Eskaf says climate change challenges such as flooding put additional stress on already aging infrastructure and that new projects should have resiliency in mind.

"We see that feeding into infrastructure management in the long term," said Eskaf. "It’s a gradual process so we just see more and more of that need building up over time."

The Division of Water Infrastructure provides low interest loans and grants to local governments and non-profit water companies to invest in their infrastructure, which has been boosted recently thanks to $2 billion in funding allocated by the NC General Assembly from the American Rescue Plan Act and an additional billion from the federal Infrastructure and Jobs Act.

"The ARPA funding will soon be fully awarded, but that doesn't mean anybody has missed their chance," Eskaf said.

The next DEQ water infrastructure funding round is this Spring and applications are due May 1st.

Eskaf says the DEQ prioritizes applications for projects in disadvantaged communities and those that move existing infrastructure out of the flood plane.