WQ0032239_NOV-2020-LV-0498 Response_20200715

f Carolina Water Service
of North CarolinaT"
July 15, 2020
Tom Tharrington
Asst. Regional Supervisor
Water Quality Regional Operations Section
Wilmington Regional Office
Division of Water Resources, NCDEQ
Subject: Notice of Violation — NOV-2020-LV-0498
Regalwood WWTP — NCO032239
Onslow County
Mr. Tharrington,
We offer the following response to the Notice of Violation issued to our Regalwood WWTP for
exceeding the permitted flow during May 2020.
On May 22, 2020, we alerted the NCDEQ Regional office of the situation we were experiencing that the
Regalwood WWTP. The surrounding area experienced a tremendous amount of rain within a short
amount of time. Our operators worked tirelessly in an attempt to minimize the impact of the flooding at
the treatment plant. For transparency, our staff communicated with the Local Regional Office of all the
operational changes that were being done during this time. Please review the information and actions
that were taken during this time.
• The following table shows the amount of precipitation, in inches, that occurred surrounding the
Regalwood WWTP.
Station #
5/18/20
5/19/20
5/20/20
5/21/20
5/22/20
Total
NC-ON-19
2.67
0.21
0.6
1.45
2.8
7.73
NC-ON-58
2.86
0.22
0.5
1.19
3.36
8.13
NC-ON-113
2.75
0.10
0.64
1.15
3.36
8.00
NC-ON-134
3.47
0.42
0.64
1.92
2.1
8.55
(Information provided by Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network)
As you can see, roughly 8 inches of rain fell within a five-day period. This caused large amounts
of flooding and in turn the wastewater flow to the wastewater plant increased significantly.
As mentioned above, the flooding was widespread and included the area immediately
surrounding our treatment facility. Our operations team took the following actions to minimize
the environmental impact.
9 4944 Parkway Plaza Blvd. Suite 375 • Charlotte, North Carolina 28217 9 800-525-7990

o The driveway to the plant was flooded and could not be driven through with a vehicle.
Therefore, our operators waded on foot through the water to reach the facility to continue
to operate the plant.
o The EQ basin was utilized to hold the additional flow from the collection system to avoid
a pass -through event.
o Water and solids were removed from the digester in order to utilize it as another holding
tank for the increased flows.
We hope that after your review of this information, you see the amount of effort our operations team put
forth during this time to ensure we continued to treat the wastewater that was delivered to the plant. In
addition, we believe there has not been a significant history of non-compliance with our Regalwood
WWTP and would hope you take that into consideration.
Therefore, we request that you reconsider the Intent to Assess Civil Penalty for this event. If you would
like to receive additional information or would like to discuss this violation further, please do not
hesitate to reach out to Lane Chilton, Dana Hill, or myself at any time.
Respectfully,
4_j-qJL_
Brent Milliron
Regulatory Compliance Manager