The disruption that cut water service to an estimated 38,000 customers from four to 14 days last Christmas and beyond could happen again, if the key to the water system — the East Asheville Booster Pump Station in Haw Creek — is not restored to service as soon as possible.

What’s more, the EABPS remains deactivated — and the city apparently has no plans to reactivate it.

The aforementioned assertions were made by Mike Holcombe, the co-chair of the city-appointed water outage review committee, to the Asheville-based Council of Independent Business Owners in a 30-minute address followed by  question-and-answer session on Aug. 4 in UNC Asheville’s Sherrill Center. About 70 people attended the early-morning session.

Holcombe, an Asheville native, was co-chair of the Independent Review Committee on Water After-Action Report and is the former director of the City of Asheville Water Department. He is a graduate of Appalachian State University.

“I haven’t worked for the water system for 26-27 years,” since his retirement, “but it always will be my water system,” Holcombe quipped in his address, prompting some chuckles from the pro-business group.

“I’m here today to tell you what really happened during the water outage over Christmas and New Year’s... The Mills River water plant went ‘offline’ (reportedly, because its intake pipes froze on Dec. 24) and, for some reason, the other places weren’t able to make up for that loss.”

To learn the details of what happened, Holcombe urged everyone to read the city’s report, “Winter 2022 Asheville Water System Failure.”

“What I want to talk to you about today is the water problems... We (the review committee) worked for three months… We worked hard. Finally, we engaged an engineering firm to do some specific computer modeling to confirm what we found.” 

At that point, Holcombe noted that the Asheville water system includes three interconnected water treatment plants, including North Fork, Bee Tree and Mills River.

 â€œThe Mills River plant went out — and the other two weren’t able to make up for it.... You may recall when the reports of this first came out, the city blamed the outage on water breaks... Well, folks, I’m here to tell you water breaks, by themselves, won’t — and don’t — cause water outages...” 

At that point, Holcombe asked, rhetorically, “What occurred to keep that water from getting into the sytem? “

Answering his own question, he said, “Two things we (the independent review committee) discovered is, one, that the EABPS — located between North Fork and Bee Tree (water plants) was closed. We will talk about why it was closed soon....”

The second discovery was that “a 24-inch transmission line was closed in the River Arts District, which feeds the western portion” of the water system.

“The engineering firm said the only thing that can explain this is the 24-inch water line in the River Arts District... Well, I’m sad to say… it was not discovered until January 2023.”

However, Holcolme emphasized, “The most important thing I have to tell you is that the EABPS wasn’t working— and it is essential in a crisis because “it only operates when (the water) pressure gets beyond a certain number.

“These pumps and this (EABPS) pumphouse were designed for decades of service. These are expensive, crucial and are designed for decades of service. So this pump station is good for a number of more decades.

“The Haw Creek Junction (aka the EABPS) is historically an important part of the water system. That’s where the water splits off in all directions. The pump station operates automatically, when it’s functional. When high demand comes up, pressure goes down. What the pump station would do, it would sense the lost pressure and increase pressure.

“So the pump station was built in 1993 and functioned great through the year 2000. What we determined is when demand went up, pressure would go down. We used it several different ways in those seven years.

“Fire protection was one of those issues it helped us with.”

Further, Holcombe noted, “In 1994, the Charlotte Street Ingles (at the corner of Charlotte and Chestnut streets) burned down. The pump station” in Haw Creek played a vital role during the Ingles fire in keeping the city’s water pressure up and the system functioning

“Several years later, you’ll remember the cotton mill fire in the River Arts District. Same thing happened with the pump station —  it kicked on....

“So that (Haw Creek) pump station was key” for the functioning of the water system, especially in times of crisis, Holcombe stressed.

Years later, someone went to Henderson County and persuaded them to allow the Mill River water treatment plant to merge with the Asheville system. 

At that point, “in effect, the (Haw Creek) pump station became a standby. If you will, it became ‘insurance.’” 

Rhetorically, he asked, “When you don’t pay your insurance premiums, what happens?”

Answering, Holcombe said, “When you get in trouble, you need it (insurance) but don’t have it. That’s what happened” with the pump station in Haw Creek.

Specifically, he addded, “In 2010, the EABPS was ‘retired.’”

To that end, Holcombe noted that the review committee “found no documentation as to why the EABPS was abandoned.”

He also said that the review committee found “no report, memoranda, letter, written recommendation, email” or other document explaining the EABPS’ closure.

“When the pump station was ‘retired,’ I called it ‘abandoned.’ I have to admit this —in talking with the city staff, they said their understanding from those in charge was that the EABPS was ‘obsolete.’”

In 2019, when Hazen Engineering was hired in to update Asheville’s master plan, “Hazen presumed the EABPS was functioning....”

Notwithstanding, the review committee decided, “as a committee, that we wanted to hire them” and ask, ‘Can you run a computer model in two ways? One, run it with the valve open, and one with the valve closed. Actually, we had Hazen run four scenarios.”

The executive summary from Hazen this year, Holcombe said, reads as follows: 

“With the pump station operational, the water system improves significantly.”

Further, the retired water system operator charged, “The city has chosen not to release the actual water system scenarios.’

To that end, Holcombe said, “I asked the city attorney for a copy of the city’s scenarios” and his request was rejected.

He reiterated that “the EABPS running mode scenario had the greatest impact, both in terms of increased pressure and storage tank level improvements.”

After a pause, Holcombe asserted, “Thirty-eight thousand (customers) would not have been without water, if the EABPS had been operable.”

Instead, with a functioning EABPS, “If you’d been on a water line that broke, you would have waited a bit — but nothing like what happened.”

Again, he stressed, if the city had been “running the (Haw Creek) pump station, combined with having an open 24-inch valve in the River Arts District, none of this (holiday water crisis) would have occurred.”

At that point, he noted that “We built the EABPS before we expanded the North Fork water treatment plant. Your system is going to be limited by what you can get into the system. 

“We said, as a (review) committee, that the city needs to re-evaluate its water department engineering division... They’re primarily involved in laying water lines. There has not been a professional engineer working on the (city) water system for over 20 years. We (the review committee) could not find any single individual on the city staff who understood how the Asheville water system is supposed to work.

“We explained how the EABPS works to the (city) water department, but we continued to get pushback. It is difficult for one to admit when one does not know what they’re doing...

“Unless and until the EABPS is restored, the same type of systemwide outage could recur, so this could happen again today....”

Rhetorically, Holcombe asked, “How can you help?”

 Answering his own question, he said, “A lot of folks in this room know City Council members, the mayor… and others. You need to approach them...

“Council has been aware of this since June 13. Not one thing has happened. What would happen if there was a big fire downtown? If you’d communicate with them, I’d appreciate it,” Holcombe said to sustained applause from the meeting attendees. 

During a question-and-answer session that followed, he told an unidentified man that “our (the independent review committee’s) focus was ‘what happened in the emergency response.’”

Holcombe did not respond when the questioner added, “And yet they (the city) maintained that ‘communciations’ was the problem…” 

Regarding a question from an unidentified woman, asking if he agreed with the city’s estimate that about 38,000 customers were impacted  by the water crisis, Holcombe replied succinctly, “It was much larger, most likely.”

An unidentified man asked, “The root cause was the failure of the system” because the EABPS was not functioning. “Was that the root cause?”

“That’s absolutely the root cause,” Holcombe answered. “Keep in mind that we built it before there was a Mills River water treatment plant in the city’s water system.

“Without that (a functioning EABPS), that created the outage.”

An unidentified woman queried, “Are you saying no one is running the (Asheville) water department?”

“There is a director,” Holcombe replied, “His name is David Melton... I am saying there hasn’t been a professional engineer running the water department for over 20 years.”

In response to another unidentified woman’s question, Holcombe replied, “Buncombe County, Henderson County and Asheville all were impacted” by the city system’s Christmas water crisis.

“All I can say is pressure the (Asheville) City Council to get the EABPS online — as soon as possible!” Holcombe said to applause, as the Q&A session concluded.