Utilities

Pender County Utilities (PCU) serves as the management and administrative organization for the six (6) 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 Services, community-wide environmental improvements, and pro-active maintenance of County infrastructure assets in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.

Pender County Utilities Water and Wastewater Facilities

• PCU Surface Water Treatment Plant (Established 2012) – 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 & Anthracite Filers followed by 4 Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) containers that help with PFSs, 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 (3) Aerobic Moving Bed Bioreactors (MBBRs) with course bubble diffusers
    • Three (3) Submerged Fixed Film Reactors (SFFRs) with fine bubble diffusers, covered with vegetation inside a 3,000 ft² glass hydroponic greenhouse
    • Two (2) cloth media filters
    • UV disinfection
    • Outfall with submerged diffuser
    • Aerobic digesters
    • Sludge loading station

PCU’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) wastewater treatment and irrigation discharge application. 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 is purchased from the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority (ONWASA) since 2022.

Future Water Expansion

Construction is underway in the Hampstead/Scotts Hill area to add additional water sources. Three wells have been designed for this project. One well will be operational by the end of 2023, with the other two wells operational by early Spring 2024. There is also a 500,000-gallon elevated tank erected in Scotts Hill, it will be in use by the end of 2023. These new additions will aid in future population growth in the eastern part of Pender County.