Annual Water Treatment Changeover Begins Mar. 1

Beginning on Saturday, March 1, 2025, Fayetteville PWC will temporarily stop adding ammonia to its water treatment disinfection process.  The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality requires all water systems that add ammonia to their drinking water, to discontinue its use for a one-month period annually, to ensure that any biological growth that may have occurred within the distribution system is controlled.  PWC will resume adding ammonia to the water treatment disinfection process on Tuesday, April 1, 2024.

During March, some users of PWC water may notice chlorine odor as a result of this change in our treatment process.  Some users of water may also experience periods of discolored water as a result of the required distribution-system flushing that will accompany this change back to chlorine-only disinfection.  Fire hydrants on the PWC water distribution system will be opened periodically throughout the month to flush the system.

Water customers should be aware that during this time, traces of ammonia may still be in the water.  Therefore, PWC recommends that water customers, who pre-treat to remove chloramines prior to the water being used, should continue to do so.

PWC began adding ammonia to the water treatment process in March of 2003.  Using ammonia in the treatment process helps to reduce disinfection by-products such as Trihalomethane.  The one-month return to chlorine-only disinfection is not expected to cause any significant increases in disinfection by-products.  PWC has been in compliance with all disinfection by-product limits since beginning the addition of ammonia in March of 2003.

You can read more about our water quality and testing results in our Annual Water Quality Report.