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The City of Albemarle has received $17 million for water system projects from the State of North Carolina’s budget. The funds were presented at a recent Albemarle City Council meeting.

“We are so grateful to State Senator Carl Ford and N.C. House Representative Wayne Sasser. This funding is a big help to our budget. It will greatly benefit our citizens and allow us to make critical improvements to our water system infrastructure,” Albemarle Mayor Ronnie Michael said.

The state budget requires that the funds be used to support water and sewer infrastructure projects.

Funding will support two projects. The first project will be to replace an existing 24-inch raw water line with a new 30-inch water line. This water line will carry up to 12 million gallons of water per day from Badin Lake to the U.S. Highway 52 Water Treatment Plant.

The existing water line was originally installed in 1947. The new raw water main will begin at Old Whitney Pumhouse Road and end at the water treatment plant. The total cost for the project is approximately $32 million.

The second project will replace an existing 20-inch water line on the travel lane of U.S. Highway 52 between the water treatment plant and the Atrium Health Stanly hospital campus. A separate line will be installed along Snuggs Park Road, connecting at Bethany Road and extending south to Snuggs Street.

The total cost of this project is approximately $6.2 million.

“One of the goals in the City of Albemarle’s strategic plan is to invest in infrastructure needed to ensure reliable and consistent service delivery. These projects meet that goal by enhancing the resilience of our water system. We thank our elected leaders for helping us obtain crucial pieces of funding that will ultimately benefit our customers,” said Jay Voyles, Albemarle public utilities director.