Category Archives: How Things Work

Behind the Scenes, Employee Spotlights, General, How Things Work, News, What's Going On?

Charlotte Water is Back in the Reclaimed Water Business!!!

Charlotte Water is once again providing reclaimed water to customers in the University Area, after a 10-year hiatus.  Charlotte Water’s Mallard Creek Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF ) produces high-quality reclaimed water that is distributed to permitted users, who use the water for irrigation and cooling tower water.  The reclaimed water system was constructed and placed into service in 1997 and provided permitted users with high quality reclaimed water until 2014.  When the Mallard Creek WRRF experienced an illicit discharge of PCB’s (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) in 2014, the Reclaimed Water System was shut down to protect permitted user’s systems from potential contamination.

Following the illicit PCB discharge to the Mallard Creek WRRF, the facility underwent a lengthy decontamination process in order to ensure the facility was free of PCBs.  After the decontamination process, the Mallard Creek WRRF was due for  Improvements and Capacity Expansion, due to the growth in the University Area. As the Improvements and Capacity Expansion were nearing completion, discussions with previous and potential new reclaimed water users began, and a timeline was set for the Reclaimed Water System to be re-activated.  The goal was to have the Reclaimed Water System back in service by the Summer of 2024.

The work to get the Reclaimed Water System back in service started in the early part of 2023.  Charlotte Water’s Environmental Management Division (EMD) started discussions throughout the department to plan for restarting the Reclaimed Water System after being dormant for 10 years.The various groups within Charlotte Water that came together for this effort included; Field Operations, Engineering, Water Treatment, Maintenance, Backflow, Customer Service, IT, and Laboratory Services.  This cross-functional team, with Leadership from Billy Allen (CLTWater’s Reclaimed Water System Coordinator), successfully conducted major required activities to get the system ready for operation once again.The major activities that needed to take place, included locating all valves and air release stations, exercising valves, testing backflow preventers, rebuilding air release stations, clearing right of ways, flushing of the reclaimed water pipelines with potable water, pressure testing the system with potable water, repairing two significant leaks, final flushing with reclaimed water, and sampling of the reclaimed water to ensure reclaimed water quality standards are being met.

Once the hard work from this cross-functional team was complete, Charlotte Water was ready to place the Reclaimed Water System back into service for the first time in 10 years.  On the morning of November 7th, a team from Charlotte Water’s EMD and Maintenance Divisions, completed the Switchover from Potable Water to Reclaimed Water, at The Tradition Golf Course, which Mecklenburg County owns.  CLTWater EMD and Maintenance Division Staff accompanied Pinnacle Golf Staff (the contract golf course operator for Mecklenburg County) onto the course, to observe them restarting their irrigation system on reclaimed water and were able to confirm the successful transition back to reclaimed water, by seeing reclaimed water applied to the green on hole 16.

Currently, the only user that is actively receiving Reclaimed Water is The Tradition Golf Course, however the University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC) hopes to begin receiving and utilizing reclaimed water sometime in 2025.  UNCC constructed a  reclaimed water pipeline on their campus in 2022.  CLTWater is also looking at ways to further expand the Reclaimed Water System in the University Area, as the use of reclaimed water offsets the use of potable water for irrigation and cooling tower water, as it reduces the impact on Charlotte Water’s Inter-Basin Transfer (IBT ) Certificate.

Many Charlotte Water Staff Members contributed greatly to this monumental effort, and everyone who participated should be extremely proud of this accomplishment!  The Restarting of the Reclaimed Water System could not have happened without your hard work and dedication.  A special recognition to the efforts of Rogers Brown, Corey Butler, Larry Davis, Don Rivers, and Shuhurah Lee, who all helped immensely with this effort in the field, during the past few months!

Behind the Scenes, Construction, How Things Work, Repairs and Spills

Why are People Standing Around a Construction Site / Repair Site?

Everyone has a job to do…

To watch coworkers underground to ensure they are safe. If someone is injured they are to call 911.

To communicate with equipment operators about raising or lowering materials in or out of the trench.

To supervise or verify that the project or repair is being completed efficiently and effectively.

Training opportunities for new coworkers to see how we safely work in a trench.

To hand equipment and tools down to team members in the trench.

And sometimes they are waiting on more equipment or materials to be delivered.

Trenches are typically just enough space for the minimum number people to get the job done. The less digging, the less time to restore the trench.

Behind the Scenes, How Things Work

A Cheaper Sugar for Sweet Tooth Bugs (Substitute for Acetic Acid)

Since 2001, sugar water has been used at the McDowell plant as an acetic acid substitute.

McDowell Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is one of the most technologically advanced in removing nutrients and enhancing downstream water quality. Sustainable innovations are nothing new to operators. Since 2001, sugar water has been used at the McDowell plant as an acetic acid substitute. It’s a win-win for Charlotte Water and local businesses when both save money by reusing a waste product.

Sugar water is produced when the soft drink manufacturers have expired or out-of-date products that they have pulled from store shelves and need to dispose of it. It is also produced when the manufacturers make a bad batch of cola and/or need to wash down the processing equipment. This sugar water is used as an organic carbon food source for microorganisms (bugs) that remove phosphorous and nitrogen during the wastewater treatment process. Because McDowell’s effluent discharges into a nutrient-sensitive creek, operators use advanced treatment techniques to also remove nutrients, nitrogen, and phosphorous from water.

The sugar water is a safe, cheap alternative that significantly reduces the use of acetic acid in the treatment process, reducing resource consumption and making use of waste that would otherwise need to be disposed of. The soft drink manufacturer gives it to CLTWater for free and CLTWater pays for the shipping. The process saves ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

Learn more at

Wastewater treatment plant process

Wastewater Performance Reports

Behind the Scenes, How Things Work

Real Life Science Happening In The Charlotte Water Labs!

If you had any doubt about the quality of your water, hopefully you can put those concerns to rest after hearing what exactly goes into ensuring your water quality every single day with Charlotte Water.

Your drinking water and wastewater are rigorously tested with hundreds of samples passing through the labs in our Charlotte Environmental Services Facility daily. In fact, in 2022 it was reported that Charlotte Water performed over 170,000 tests on both unregulated and regulated substances!

Samples arrive from all the wastewater treatment facilities, drinking water treatment facilities, and sampling stations placed around the region. From the moment the sample comes through the door, the samples are checked in with careful quality control measures to be sure the samples are not contaminated and fit for further testing.

After the check-in phase, a water sample can go through a variety of tests. The lab has sections committed to testing for grease and oils, biological compounds, nutrients, and metals just to name a small few out of the hundreds of compounds they test. To get an idea of how far the lab goes to test samples, they have several mass spectrometers used regularly to test samples down to a molecular level.

The lab technicians are well-trained and passionate individuals that all have a heart for public service. I had the chance to tour the lab for several hours one afternoon and spoke to many of the techs, and all of them expressed passion for their work and take their role extremely seriously.

Did you know you can review the results of our water quality testing? The 2022 report is available to you and is made available every year for public viewing! You can check out the report here .