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New River Water Intake Project Awaiting Final USDA Inspection

By Nathan Ham

The Town of Boone is waiting for a final inspection from the USDA for the long-awaited completion of the New River Water Intake project.

According to Boone Town Manager John Ward, that inspection should be coming up in the next week.

“We are within a week of doing the final walk through with the USDA. Once we are complete with that, then we will be able to potentially announce that at the town council meeting on (February) 19 or 21, the outcome of that inspection,” Ward said.

When the new water intake goes online, residents will not notice anything different in their water, according to Ward.

“Water can be drawn out of the Hunting Hills intake or the intake on the New River. Nobody will see any impact or difference in the water that comes out of their tap,” said Ward. “The only difference is the volume of water we have access to will be increased.”

The way that the system is engineered, the water flows from the two intakes in a “Y” shape where the water then goes into the treatment plant and out into the tanks that supply the water to the businesses and residences in the town.

At the new intake, water will be pumped from the booster pump station to the water treatment plant. The pump is able to move the water uphill and it will travel approximately 12 miles from the pump station near Deep Gap off of Highway 421 to the water treatment plant just off of Highway 421 at the South Fork of the New River.

Ward says that a computer program will delineate which intake is used to fill up the tanks and pressurize the system for the next day based on the volume of water at each intake.