Some soon to get clean drinking water
Whether it is benzene in the water from leaking underground storage tanks, or nitrates leaking into the groundwater from chicken farms… either way, it is still not safe to drink.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY-- Cumberland County Commissioners are looking for money in next year’s budget to help homeowners who have toxins in their drinking water. The county says it might be able to find more than $440,000 to jump-start a fix to the problem.
Robert Carpenter is close to having clean water. His neighborhood off Rim Road has lived with benzene -- a poisonous substance -- in the well water for 28 years. He says the problem spread from one well to the next. "Over the next several years, there was maybe 14 wells that went bad,” he said.
After the city of Fayetteville learned about the drinking water problems in Carpenter's newly annexed neighborhood it moved quickly to try and fix it. Clean water is expected to start flowing to homes there within the next few weeks. But county-wide, there are many more homes with unsafe drinking water.
Cumberland County Commissioner Breeden Blackwell says they are not even sure how many there are. "We have got people in the county that can't bathe, they cannot cook food with their water. They cannot even wash their cloths,” said Blackwell.
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Whether it is benzene in the water from leaking underground storage tanks, or nitrates leaking into the groundwater from chicken farms… either way, it is still not safe to drink.
The county is exploring options for running water from other nearby counties to some of the rural areas that are miles away from Fayetteville’s water supply. It is also working with the state to come up with a map listing every home with unsafe water. The clean water task force will present its findings to the county commissioners at their next meeting on June 16. Blackwell says it will take a lot of money to fix the problem.
“This is not going to be an overnight fix at all,” he said. “It will be years away and million dollars away."
In the mean time, Carpenter would like to see clean water become top priority. "If it doesn't get clean water, you are going to die. You just can't survive without it. So that should be a priority, wherever it is in the county, or city."