Spruce Pine takes proactive approach toward town infrastructure with help with ARP funds

If you travel an hour northeast of Asheville, you will find Spruce Pine, surrounded by mountains and the North Toe River. It is the largest town in Mitchell County with about 2,200 residents. Formerly a railroad town, Spruce Pine is now known mostly as a mining hub, both for minerals and gemstones. It’s claim-to-fame is being one of the only locations in the world where ultra-pure quartz is found. This powdery sand plays a vital role in the creation of computer chips, likely including the one in your cell phone. 

“If you have a cell phone, you have a piece of Spruce Pine,” Crystal Young, Spruce Pine finance officer, said with a smile.

The town received just over $682,000 from the American Rescue Plan (ARP). This money provided an opportunity for the town to take on some water and sewer improvements that were needed yet were outside of the scope of their budget.  The biggest project was upgrading a pump station installed in 1967. This system was experiencing outdated controls, rusted pipes, and other signs of failure. If this pump station failed, Spruce Pine would be unable to provide water to over 25% of the residents and businesses they serve.

“We wanted the funds to go to where they were most needed and our biggest issue is water and sewer infrastructure and keeping up with that,” Young said. “Maintaining our system is very costly. The pump station upgrade was $177,000, so that is not something we could just pull out of our budget. We were very blessed to have those funds.”

Additional ARP funds were used to install two new pumps at Spruce Pine wells, along with matching a Golden LEAF grant the town received that will go towards replacing segments of the water line. Finally, they completed repairs to their oxidation ditch, which is the town’s only water treatment process. Without this repair, the system could have been at risk of causing a sewage bypass into the local trout stream.

Darlene Butler has been with the town for over 26 years, first as the town clerk, and now has taken on the role as the first female town manager in Spruce Pine history.  She takes the job of providing adequate water and sewer services to town residents very seriously. 

“Being able to provide clean and safe water, along with air is about as crucial as it gets … It's really all about the quality and safety of life,” Butler said. “There's always something that we need in terms of these big projects, so prioritizing them is a challenge… We feel like these were proactive things and not necessarily reactive things.”

In addition to the aging water and sewer infrastructure, the town also felt effects from the COVID-19 pandemic. Spruce Pine is the site of two state prisons, which are the largest consumers of water and sewer services in the town. During the pandemic, many of these prisoners were moved to different locations, reducing the sites’ usage of water and, in turn, reducing the revenue that Spruce Pine usually brings in from these services. For this town, the ARP funds not only made up for this loss in revenue, but enabled them to take on these projects now, rather than waiting for a failure in the future.

“We were able to do larger scale projects that we normally would not have been able to do within our budget constraints. So, $682,000 is not going to do a big project, but it is going to do projects that we could not typically afford in our normal budget,” Young said.

This project is benefiting residents not just by ensuring the quality and service of their water, but also by alleviating the need to use town funds to make these major infrastructure upgrades. When asked what a difference these ARP funds made for the town, Butler shared that without these funds, the town would have been in a much different situation.

“In terms of regular rates, I think we would have been forced to increase our rates significantly for water and sewer just to do the day-to-day operations that had to happen during COVID,” Butler said. “Any of these projects that weren't necessary for day-to-day, we just wouldn't have been able to do.”

“Water and sewer infrastructure is something that's very important to our residents,” Young said. 
“We have a system that is expanding … and a lot of new projects going on outside the city limits that our infrastructure is going be very important to, so we’re trying to plan ahead.

Spruce Pine’s preparation was evident to the North Carolina League of Municipalities when they reached out to the League looking for resources that provide ARP support to towns. ARP Field Representative Regina Mathis spoke of the town’s preparation and organization.

“I was so impressed with the things that they had done and how organized they were,” Mathis said. “They have a really good team in place. They are very organized and they have been very proactive.”

The League received their own allocation of ARP funds from the state government and has been tasked with supporting North Carolina towns as they spend these funds and work to stay in compliance with all federal regulations.

“Through this whole ARP process, I think the League has been invaluable helping us understand these shifting sands of what's required,” Butler said. “The funds have been wonderful. But they haven't necessarily been easy.”

Spruce Pine stands as an exemplar among towns of how to invest these unprecedented funds in ways that provide real benefit for residents, and in a manner that better prepares the town to face the future. By taking proactive steps to repair an aging water and sewer system, Spruce Pine is now confident they can keep their systems running smoothly and continue to provide this necessary service to their town.