Pumping station for regionalization of water service

Water and Wastewater Regionalization

How Feasibility Studies Help Government Official Make Informed Decisions

For many local governments, providing reliable water and wastewater service is becoming increasingly challenging. Aging infrastructure, future capacity needs, regulatory requirements, and the cost of operating and maintaining treatment facilities can lead communities to consider whether collaborating with a neighboring utility makes sense.

Regionalization can take many forms, from sharing infrastructure or treatment capacity to fully consolidating systems. But these decisions are rarely based on engineering alone.

For local leaders, questions about rates, ownership, future capacity, operations, and local control can make regionalization a complex community conversation.

Before deciding whether regionalization is the right approach, communities need to understand their options, the potential costs, and the long-term implications of each alternative.

North Carolina offers funding to help eligible communities evaluate potential water and wastewater system mergers, regionalization opportunities, and shared infrastructure through feasibility studies.

These studies can evaluate three areas:

Technical Integration: Mapping water lines, testing physical interconnection points, and assessing plant capacity
Governance and Consolidation Models: Examining different structures, such as direct acquisitions, joint mergers, or shared management boards
Financial Roadmap: Evaluating rate impacts, debt obligations, and eligibility for future state infrastructure or loan programs

A merger / regionalization feasibility study provides the technical and financial information communities need to compare future options and make informed decisions based on their specific circumstances.

Why Regionalization can be a Tough Sell to Communities

Water and wastewater systems represent decades of community investment. Any proposal to change how those systems are owned, operated, or funded can raise legitimate concerns.

Common questions include:

Local Control: Who will make decisions about rates, capital improvements, and future service?
Cost and Rate Impacts: Will customers in one community assume costs associated with another system?
Existing Infrastructure: Does it make financial sense to retire facilities that still have useful capacity?
Employees and Operations: How could a change affect existing utility operations and staff?
Long-Term Capacity: Does regionalization solve an immediate need, a future need, or both?

A good feasibility study puts these questions on the table early and evaluates them alongside the engineering. The engineer collects information from the communities being evaluated and provides recommendations to address these questions.

Four Ways to Prepare for the Regionalization Conversation

Success in regionalization is about the quality of the conversation that happens before a single shovel hits the dirt. To move from contention to consensus, local governments must come to the table with a data-backed roadmap.

McGill specializes in bridging the gap between engineering reality and community sentiment. We help you prepare for these difficult dialogues by focusing on four key pillars:

1. Securing Funding to Study the Options

Before making a long-term infrastructure decision, communities need to understand what is technically and financially feasible. North Carolina's Division of Water Infrastructure offers Merger / Regionalization Feasibility grants specifically to help utilities investigate those questions.

A funded feasibility study allows a community to compare alternatives before committing to a major change in ownership, operations, or infrastructure.

Learn about NCDEQ Merger/Regionalization Feasibility Grants

McGill helped the Town of Rose Hill obtain funding to consider its options for regionalization with the Town of Wallace to address future infrastructure concerns and the current demands of a major wastewater customer. an animal rendering plant that recycles organic waste. in the Town of Rose Hill.

2. Making the Tradeoffs Visible

Engineering and financial analyses are most useful when decisionmakers can understand what they mean.

For Rose Hill, the study's alternatives comparison showed how different decisions would affect treatment capacity, capital investment, ongoing operating costs, and the future role of the Town's existing wastewater treatment plant.

Maps can make those choices tangible as well. Instead of discussing regionalization in the abstract, stakeholders can see what each alternative would require.

3. Evaluating Local Agreements Alongside the Infrastructure

We help you anticipate the "what-ifs." By addressing governance structures, representation on regional boards, and employee protections early in the study phase, you can answer the community's toughest questions before they are asked. Pipes and pump stations are only part of the equation. Interlocal terms can determine whether an otherwise feasible alternative works for both communities.

Analyzing these considerations early helps local leaders understand which questions must be resolved before moving forward.

4. Providing Options Allowing Communities to Change Course

Sometimes the most valuable result of a feasibility study is discovering that the original idea should be modified.

For Rose Hill, the analysis did not support abandoning a functioning wastewater treatment plant for the sake of regionalization. Instead, it identified a path that could preserve the Town's existing treatment capacity while creating an opportunity to participate in regional infrastructure and secure future capacity from Wallace.

From Regionalization to Regional Cooperation

Merging infrastructure is a generational decision. It requires a partner who understands that the human element of the system is as important as the infrastructure in the ground. Thorough planning and early funding help shift the conversation from defending a proposed merger to making an informed case for what best serves the community and the region.

Regionalization is sometimes framed as a choice between independence and consolidation. In practice, there can be considerable room between those two options.

For example, a community may retain its treatment facility while sharing transmission infrastructure. Two utilities may negotiate future capacity instead of immediately transferring flow. A regional connection may provide flexibility for future growth or emergencies without requiring one community to give up its existing system.

The right feasibility study does not begin with the answer. It gives local leaders the engineering, financial analysis, and technical alternatives they need to find the right answer for their community.