Don't waste money on bottled water if you're on Two Rivers Utilities

Containers of water have flown off the shelves at area grocery stores this week due to fear of Hurricane Florence’s approaching menace.

But if you’re on the municipal water system that serves about half of Gaston County’s residents, you’re better off spending your water money on provisions such as food or batteries.

“There probably are folks who are customers of ours who are buying bottled water unnecessarily,” said Joe Albright, public utilities director for the city of Gastonia, who also oversees the entity known as Two Rivers Utilities.

Gastonia’s water plants, water lines and the like make up the bulk of the infrastructure used by Two Rivers. The utility provides water and/or wastewater services to around 100,000 people not only in Gastonia, but in surrounding cities such as Cramerton, Bessemer City, Ranlo, Stanley, Belmont, Lowell, Kings Mountain, High Shoals and Clover, South Carolina.

“We’re up to about 30,000 water connections,” said Albright. “We serve almost (every city) in the county with the exception of Cherryville and Mount Holly.”

A loss of power would compromise Gastonia’s ability to continue sending clean, treated water out to all its customers. But backup generators are in place that would kick in if the main power supply went out.

“We have generators on site at all our water treatment plants and major facilities,” said Albright. “They also double in the summer as peak generators. The benefit of that is that they operate regularly and they are all well maintained.

“It’s a pretty good resource to be able to ensure Two Rivers Utilities customers always have water/sewer service.”

Albright said he understands some people only trust what they hold in their hand. But if you get service through Two Rivers, he said access to a clean water supply in the coming days should be the least of your concerns.

“We occasionally will get phone calls from customers asking that question,” he said. “We let them know that typically isn’t necessarily and we have redundant power supplies.”

You can reach Michael Barrett at 704-869-1826 or on Twitter @GazetteMike.