By Gene Galin
Pittsboro, NC – Four years after Pittsboro placed two towering carbon filters into service to strip PFAS and other contaminants from its drinking water, TriRiver Water opened the plant to residents Aug. 18 for the first installment of a monthly tour series intended to show customers how an increasingly regional-and increasingly costly-utility system works.
[Part 1 of a multi-part series]
The opening remarks by TriRiver Water Public Information Officer Cameron Clinard were brief, informal and pointed. The utility, he said, wants customers to see the facilities their monthly payments support, question the people who operate them and understand why Sanford, Pittsboro, Chatham County and Siler City have combined their water and wastewater operations.
“The idea is just to open this up,” Clinard told the group before plant administrator Cory Saulsbury began the technical portion of the tour. “We want you guys to be able to see it.”
That invitation came at a consequential time. Central North Carolina is adding residents and development, federal standards for some PFAS chemicals are approaching, and public utilities face growing costs for construction, treatment, energy, chemicals and skilled labor. TriRiver’s answer is regional cooperation: link systems, share expertise, spread some costs across a larger customer base and create backup options when drought, broken mains or other emergencies strain a local network.
The merger, however, is not a magic switch. The four service areas remain physically separate cost centers, rates have not yet reached parity, and major water and sewer connections must still be designed, financed and built. The Pittsboro tour therefore offered more than a lesson in pumps and filters. It was an early public test of whether TriRiver can explain the tradeoffs that will accompany regionalization-and whether customers can see enough of the system to judge those decisions for themselves.
A monthly look behind the fence
The Aug. 18 event marked the beginning of “Inside TriRiver,” a series planned to rotate among facilities in the utility’s large service area. TriRiver says the tours generally last one to two hours and accommodate about 10 to 20 people, depending on the location. Residents may also request group tours for neighborhood associations, churches and other organizations through the utility’s tour registration page.
Clinard credited Pittsboro Commissioner John Bonitz with suggesting that the series begin at the Haw River Water Filtration Facility. The timing carried particular significance: Pittsboro’s granular activated carbon system, commonly called GAC, reached its fourth anniversary in August.
The setting gave the utility a useful starting point. Pittsboro spent nearly $3.5 million on the advanced filtration system after years of concern about PFAS and other chemicals reaching the Haw River from upstream. The installation became operational in August 2022 and added a new barrier after the plant’s conventional treatment steps.
But Clinard’s purpose was broader than celebrating a piece of equipment. He encouraged participants to interrupt, ask questions and contact him after the event.
“We’re not here to just, you know, hand out pens,” he said. “We’re here to answer your questions.”
That approach acknowledges a basic problem for utilities: Their work is essential but usually invisible. Customers see a bill, a faucet and, occasionally, a service advisory. Most do not see raw water entering a plant, operators adjusting chemical doses, laboratories analyzing samples, crews repairing lines or carbon media being removed and regenerated after it becomes loaded with contaminants.
Opening the gates does not resolve disputes over rates, development or public health. It does give residents a closer view of the physical system behind those debates.
What TriRiver Water is-and what it is not
Clinard used much of his introduction to address what he called a common misconception: that TriRiver Water is a private company that acquired local utilities to earn a profit.
It is not. TriRiver is the public-facing name under which the City of Sanford provides regional water and wastewater services through merger agreements with local governments. Sanford and Pittsboro combined their utility operations on July 1, 2024. Chatham County and Siler City joined one year later, on July 1, 2025.
The additions expanded the customer base from about 23,000 accounts to roughly 40,000 and created a service territory that TriRiver describes as nearly the size of Rhode Island. The regional operation now encompasses four water filtration facilities, five wastewater treatment plants and more than 1,000 miles of water and sewer lines, according to the utility’s merger overview.
“It is an agreement between Sanford, Pittsboro, Chatham County and Siler City to merge their utility departments and better serve the community,” Clinard said.
The distinction matters because a public utility’s obligations, financing and accountability differ from those of a private business. Water and sewer operations are enterprise services, meaning user charges and related fees generally support the system. The money must cover daily operations as well as long-lived infrastructure-plants, pumps, tanks and buried lines that may require years of planning and hundreds of millions of dollars to build.
Regionalization is intended to improve that equation by reducing duplication and expanding the base across which some future costs can be shared. It also brings operators, engineers and customer-service functions under one organization. Yet the legal and administrative merger is only the first stage.
“All these systems are separate right now,” Clinard said. “Nothing has fully changed yet, but we’re in the process of changing those things now.”
One name, several cost centers
TriRiver’s current rate structure illustrates the unfinished work. Sanford, Pittsboro, Chatham County and Siler City still operate as separate cost centers because their systems have not been fully connected. Money collected from customers in one area supports that area rather than automatically flowing into a single regional pool.
TriRiver says the arrangement was required by the merger agreements to prevent customers in one system from unfairly subsidizing the capital work needed to bring another system into the network. Rate parity is a long-term goal, but it cannot occur until required connection projects are completed and associated debts are paid.
For the 2027 fiscal year, TriRiver lists 7% increases in both water and sewer rates for Sanford, Pittsboro, Chatham County and Siler City, although the underlying rate schedules still differ by service area. The utility’s rate information also shows the recent history of increases, underscoring Clinard’s caution that consolidation should not be interpreted as a promise that bills will fall.
“I’m not going to say that your rate will go down, because that just never happens anymore,” he said.
The aim, he added, is to keep rates from increasing as much as they might if smaller systems had to shoulder major projects alone.
That is an important but difficult promise to measure. Customers experience the actual increase on each bill; the avoided increase-what rates might have been without a merger-is hypothetical. Demonstrating savings will require TriRiver to publish project budgets, financing terms, partner contributions and clear comparisons over time.
Clinard also addressed the concern that existing customers are being made to pay for newcomers. He said new development carries connection and system development fees that help fund expansion. Monthly bills, by contrast, support operation, maintenance and upgrades.
The boundaries are not always simple. Utilities commonly combine rates, fees, grants, loans and bond proceeds to finance different portions of a capital program. TriRiver’s own recent projects show that mix. In July, for example, the utility bought about 50 acres for a possible expansion of the Big Buffalo Water Reclamation Facility and said the approximately $3.3 million purchase would be financed with system development fee revenue.
The key public question is whether growth pays an appropriate share of the capacity it consumes without leaving current customers responsible for costs created primarily by new demand. Answering it requires more than a slogan. It requires transparent accounting from project approval through debt repayment.
Reliability through connection
Money is only one argument for a regional utility. Clinard emphasized reliability, redundancy and resilience-the capacity to keep water flowing when one source, plant or pipeline is constrained.
A stand-alone system has limited choices in an emergency. If its raw-water supply falls, a major main breaks or a treatment component fails, customers may face restrictions or service interruptions. An interconnected system can potentially move water from another source or route it through another facility.
Clinard pointed to drought restrictions in the Chatham County North service area as an example. At the time of the tour, he said, the problem was not that Jordan Lake itself lacked water. Rather, the system did not have enough Jordan Lake allocation to satisfy all demand and depended in part on a Durham connection. Restrictions affecting Durham consequently reached connected customers in northern Chatham.
His longer-term scenario was straightforward: If Durham’s source is constrained while the Cape Fear River system has available capacity, future interconnections could allow TriRiver to supplement the affected area.
That possibility does not eliminate drought risk, and transfers would remain subject to capacity, allocation, treatment and regulatory limits. It does create an option that physically isolated systems do not have.
This is the practical meaning of redundancy. It is not idle duplication. It is having more than one workable path between source and customer.
The same principle applies to staffing and technical expertise. Water treatment has become more complex as utilities confront emerging contaminants, aging infrastructure, cybersecurity risks and evolving regulation. A larger organization may be better positioned to retain specialized operators, laboratories, engineers and emergency crews.
At the same time, managing a territory of roughly 40,000 accounts and more than 1,000 miles of lines creates its own coordination challenges. Scale can solve some problems while magnifying others.
The pipe along U.S. 15-501
Residents driving between Pittsboro and Sanford can already see one of the most visible pieces of regionalization: large sewer pipe being installed along U.S. 15-501.
Clinard explained that the line will connect the Pittsboro sewer system to the Big Buffalo Water Reclamation Facility in Sanford. The Pittsboro facility is permitted to treat 750,000 gallons of wastewater per day, while Big Buffalo has a permitted capacity of 12 million gallons per day, according to TriRiver’s facility overview.
Pittsboro’s existing plant occupies a constrained site near homes and businesses, making a major expansion there difficult. Connecting south to Sanford was judged a more effective way to create additional capacity.
“There’s a couple different ways we could have upgraded the plant here and expanded it, but where it’s at, it doesn’t have a big footprint,” Clinard said.
The pipeline is closely tied to Pittsboro’s growth debate. Sewer capacity can determine where and how quickly homes, businesses and institutions are built. New capacity may relieve a genuine infrastructure bottleneck, but it can also enable development that adds traffic, school enrollment and demand for other public services.
The line itself is therefore neither simply a construction project nor proof that all growth served by it will be beneficial. It is a major public asset whose capacity, financing and allocation will shape land-use choices for years.
Big Buffalo is also being positioned for further expansion. TriRiver’s preliminary plan would increase that plant from 12 million to about 18 million gallons per day. Engineering and design could begin in 2027, construction in 2029 and completion in 2033, though the utility says those early dates and plans may change.
For customers, the relevant questions include the total cost of the Pittsboro connection, the debt assigned to the Pittsboro cost center, the capacity reserved for existing users, and the fees assessed to developments that connect. Those details will determine how the physical promise of regionalization appears on future utility bills.
Four years of granular activated carbon
The tour began in Pittsboro because its most distinctive treatment system is already delivering measurable results.
PFAS-short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances-are a broad family of manufactured chemicals used in industrial processes and consumer products. Their persistence has earned them the label “forever chemicals.” Conventional drinking-water treatment was not designed to reliably remove many of them.
Granular activated carbon works through adsorption. Water passes through beds of extremely porous carbon, and contaminants adhere to the carbon’s surface. Pittsboro’s system uses two tall cylindrical vessels filled with carbon pellets.
Treated water is pushed from the clearwell through the vessels, returned to storage and then sent into the distribution network. TriRiver says the media is periodically removed and regenerated off-site as its adsorption capacity is used.
The utility’s description of the Pittsboro process says the GAC stage can remove up to 99.9% of PFAS, along with compounds that affect taste and odor.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency likewise identifies activated carbon as the most studied PFAS treatment and says its performance depends on the carbon, bed depth, flow rate, water chemistry and particular compounds present. Longer-chain chemicals such as PFOA and PFOS are generally captured more effectively than some shorter-chain PFAS.
That nuance is visible in Pittsboro’s published results. In a sample collected July 27, 2026, TriRiver reported raw-water PFOA at 14 parts per trillion and finished water at 2.6 ppt. Raw-water PFOS measured 31 ppt, while none was detected in finished water.
Other compounds showed different removal levels: PFBS declined from 6.5 ppt to 5 ppt, and PFHxS fell from 5.9 ppt to 1.2 ppt.
The monthly table also shows variation. A June sample listed finished-water PFOA at 5.4 ppt after raw water measured 38 ppt, while the July result was below the federal maximum contaminant level of 4 ppt.
A single sample is not, by itself, a regulatory compliance determination; EPA compliance is based on a running annual average calculated from required monitoring. Still, the variation illustrates why continuing tests, timely carbon replacement and public reporting matter even when a treatment system performs well.
TriRiver publishes raw- and finished-water measurements on its PFAS reports page, allowing residents to compare what enters the plant with what leaves it. That side-by-side presentation may be one of the most useful forms of transparency the utility can provide.
Federal standards raise the stakes
The regulatory landscape has changed substantially since Pittsboro’s GAC system began operating in 2022.
EPA established enforceable drinking-water limits of 4 ppt for PFOA and 4 ppt for PFOS in 2024. In May 2026, the agency said it would retain those two limits and require public water systems to comply by April 2029, while reconsidering parts of the rule covering several other PFAS.
The federal action gives utilities a firm deadline for the two most widely studied compounds and increases the importance of reliable long-term treatment data.
Pittsboro’s early investment means it already has a full-scale PFAS barrier in place. TriRiver is now extending advanced treatment across the region.
Granular activated carbon is being added as part of the roughly $390.7 million expansion of Sanford’s water filtration facility, which is designed to increase capacity from 12 million to 30 million gallons per day. Fuquay-Varina and Holly Springs are paying proportional shares in exchange for portions of the added capacity.
Two days after the Pittsboro tour, TriRiver announced plans for a GAC facility at the Siler City water plant. An engineering study funded by a $400,000 state emerging-contaminants grant recommended the technology.
TriRiver’s preliminary estimate puts the project near $20 million, with $5 million in state principal-forgiveness funding already approved. Design could begin before 2027 and construction could start in 2028, subject to changes in funding, design and permitting.
The regional picture is uneven but moving toward a common strategy: GAC operating in Pittsboro, another GAC system under construction in Sanford, planning underway in Siler City and a different activated-carbon treatment used at the Jordan Lake intake serving northeastern Chatham County.
Those investments reduce contaminants in water; they do not prevent PFAS from entering rivers. Treatment transfers PFAS from water to spent media that must be handled responsibly.
Source control, industrial discharge limits, watershed monitoring and treatment are separate parts of the same problem. Customers should expect public agencies to explain each part rather than present filtration as the end of the story.
Growth, capacity and the meaning of “efficient”
Clinard repeatedly returned to growth because it links the region’s infrastructure decisions. More customers can help distribute fixed costs, but more people and development also require more capacity. Plants, transmission lines and pump stations must often be built years before all intended customers arrive.
That timing creates financial risk. If growth is slower than projected, existing customers may carry debt longer. If it is faster, utilities may face new capacity constraints before projects are finished.
If development fees are set too low, current ratepayers can shoulder costs associated with expansion. If fees are too high, they may discourage desired housing or business investment. There is no formula that removes those policy choices.
Regional cooperation can improve efficiency when partners avoid building duplicative plants and pay proportional shares of common infrastructure. The Sanford water-plant expansion offers a concrete example: Fuquay-Varina is purchasing 6 million gallons per day of added capacity and Holly Springs 4 million, while Sanford retains 8 million of the 18-million-gallon increase.
Sanford says the partnerships reduce what each community would have paid to secure that capacity alone.
But “efficient” should be measured through outcomes: reliable service, regulatory compliance, manageable debt, prompt repairs, fair rates and clear customer support. A merger’s success cannot be assessed solely by the size of the territory or the number of accounts.
That makes public access especially important during the transition. Customers need to know which government retains decision-making authority, which cost center pays for a project, how contracts are awarded, when systems will be physically connected and what benchmarks will show that promised savings or service improvements were achieved.
From public relations to public accountability
Clinard acknowledged his own role with humor, telling the group that he is a writer, not a scientist, and turning the technical explanation over to Saulsbury.
That division of labor was appropriate. A utility’s public information officer can open the conversation, but operators and engineers must explain what the system can-and cannot-do.
The most valuable tours will be those that make room for difficult questions. How often is GAC media changed? What triggers replacement? What do finished-water results show over a full year? How much unplanned water loss occurs in each service area?
Which capital projects are behind schedule or over budget? How will TriRiver distinguish costs caused by existing deficiencies from those caused by new growth? What emergency connections exist today, and which remain conceptual?
TriRiver’s first tour established a constructive premise: Questions are welcome. Maintaining credibility will depend on whether answers remain available after participants leave the plant.
The utility has several tools for doing that. It can keep test data current, post contracts and project dashboards, publish debt and cost-center information in plain language, archive presentations and promptly correct errors in public materials.
Regular tours can then serve as an entry point to a larger record rather than a one-time presentation.
For residents, participation also carries responsibility. Water policy is technically dense, and it is easy for debate to collapse into competing slogans-growth versus no growth, clean water versus cost, regionalism versus local control.
The plant tour showed that the real choices are more complicated. Pittsboro’s GAC filters protect customers, but they cost millions to build and money to operate. A regional connection may provide backup capacity, but it must be financed. New customers may expand the revenue base, but they also consume the capacity that public investment creates.
Understanding those relationships is the first step toward holding officials accountable for them.
A clearer view of the water ahead
The Aug. 18 gathering did not settle the central questions facing TriRiver Water. Rates are rising. Physical integration is incomplete. Major capital projects are underway, and the region’s rapid growth continues to test infrastructure plans.
PFAS treatment is effective but requires vigilant operation, monitoring and replacement of filter media. Sewer connections that relieve one bottleneck may open the door to new development pressures elsewhere.
What the tour did provide was a clearer framework for those questions. TriRiver is a public regional utility created through local-government agreements, not a private takeover. Its case for consolidation rests on shared costs, professional capacity, reliability and redundancy.
Its proof will be found in water-quality data, project performance, customer service and bills-not simply in the new name printed at the top of an invoice.