Pender Water & Sewer (PW&S) serves as the management and administrative organization for the six Water and Sewer Districts, providing services to more than eleven thousand (11,000) residents of Pender County: Rocky Point/Topsail, Scott's Hill, Maple Hill, Central Pender, Moore's Creek, and Columbia-Union. We are committed to quality and work hard to provide outstanding customer service, community-wide environmental improvements, and proactive maintenance of County infrastructure assets in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.
Pender Water & Sewer - Water and Wastewater Facilities
PW&S Surface Water Treatment Plant (Established 2012)
This is the main source of potable water for Pender County. The plant has a finished water capacity of 4 million gallons per day (MGD) and utilizes a conventional treatment process.
- Coagulation - Rapid Mixer
- Flocculation - Flocculation Basins
- Sedimentation - Sedimentation Basins
- Filtration - Sand and Anthracite Filers followed by 4 Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) containers that help with PFAs, GenX, taste, and odor
- Disinfection
Melinda K. Knoerzer Adaptive Ecosystem Wastewater Treatment Facility (Established 2017)
This facility serves the Pender Commerce Park, which treats domestic and industrial wastewater. The wastewater plant has an existing effluent discharge of 0.5 million gallons per day (MGD) consisting of the following components:
- Primary Screen and grit structure
- Equalization Tank
- Three Aerobic Moving Bed Bioreactors (MBBRs) with coarse bubble diffusers
- Three Submerged Fixed Film Reactors (SFFRs) with fine bubble diffusers, covered with vegetation inside a 3,000 square foot 2 glass hydroponic greenhouse
- Two cloth media filters
- UV disinfection
- Outfall with submerged diffuser
- Aerobic digesters
- Sludge loading station
PW&S Wastewater Treatment Plant partners with the Lower Cape Fear River Program (LCFRP) to ensure all effluent discharged meets state and federal requirements.
Maple Hill Wastewater Treatment Facility (Established 2011)
This facility serves approximately 157 sewer customers. The Maple Hill treatment facility has a rating operation of 42,000 gallons per day (GPD) for wastewater treatment and irrigation discharge applications. The facility consists of the following components:
- Equalization Basin
- Aeration Basins
- Clarifiers
- Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection units
- Aerobic Digester
- Storage Lagoon
- Spray Irrigation Field
Drinking water in the Maple Hill Water and Sewer District has been purchased from the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority (ONWASA) since 2022.
Preparing for the Future
In April 2024, the Pender Water & Sewer water system added three operational wells and a 500,000-gallon elevated tank in the Scott's Hill / Hampstead area. These water supply additions are necessary for the future population growth in the eastern part of Pender County.
