H
By Keith Starner, PG
The Town of Hillsborough Celebrates
New Wastewater Treatment Plant
Summer 2014
| NCRWA.COM
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feature
illsborough, the County Seat of Orange County, has been inhabited
for at least the last 900 years. The Great Indian Trading Path crossed
the Eno River at this hilly location, which later became the Town of
Hillsborough. The Town and its relationship with Eno River has been
significant throughout history, and this continues to the present time.
Hillsborough has been a center of historical political activity since the
American Revolution and has beautiful, mature, tall trees that line the
streets. Early American architecture abounds in the structures of the
Town.
Pipeline
met with Kenny Keel and Jeff Mahagan, town employees,
in the Town Hall on Orange Street. The Town offices are located in a
restored historical dwelling a block off the main street in Hillsborough.
Hillsborough recently refurbished
and re-outfitted its old wastewater
treatment plant, not as a result of
demographic growth, but driven by
new discharge limits imposed by
the Falls Lake rules. The Falls Lake
Rules were adopted in January 2011
to restore water quality in the Lake
by reducing the amount of pollution
entering upstream. The rules are
a staged nutrient management
strategy designed to reduce nutrient
discharges to the lake from various sources, including storm water
runoff from new and existing development, wastewater treatment
plants and agriculture.
Kenny, the Town Engineer and Utilities Director, told Pipeline that the
Falls of the Neuse Reservoir watershed (Falls watershed) rule required
nitrogen and phosphorous discharge criteria to be seriously reduced.
The rule changes the poundage application that can be discharged
through point and non-point sources, and limits the monthly average
discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus.
