Legislators in both the North Carolina House and Senate pulled from their calendars Tuesday a conference report that would give Franklin County wide-ranging latitude to purchase or seize land in three neighboring counties.
The language gives officials in the fast-growing county the power to purchase or seize land or property in Halifax, Vance or Warren counties.
Franklin County officials and Rep. Matthew Winslow, R-Franklin, claim they need the ability to acquire land in the neighboring counties to build a water plant on Kerr Lake, treat water and transport it. But opponents say that as originally written, the provision went much further, giving Franklin County officials almost unchecked power to buy land or property.
"The language is vague, far too vague. It does not limit itself to water infrastructure. It uses the term property, and that opens the door to far more than what was described on the floor. That means land, that means facilities, that means assets that communities rely on," Rep. Rodney Pierce, D-Halifax, said during a press conference Tuesday.
Keeping up with Franklin County growth
Franklin County is the second-fastest growing county in North Carolina by percentage, adding nearly 12,000 new residents between 2020 and 2024, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. That's a growth rate of more than 17% over about five years.
Franklin County officials project that the regional water distribution infrastructure at the Kerr Lake Regional Water System will reach capacity by about 2040, with its own population expected to double by around 2060.
Any future growth could be constrained by the county's ability to tap into new water sources.
"Franklin County faces a growing water supply challenge that threatens both residential growth and economic development. Our county has carefully reserved limited allocations for future homes and job-creating projects. Once those reserves are exhausted, the primary alternative is Kerr Lake. However, current arrangements with the city of Henderson have proven difficult," Rep. Matthew Winslow, R-Franklin, wrote in a statement.
To that end, the county has asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to embark on a formal study that would see a portion of Kerr Lake's capacity allocated to it. The county is asking the Corps for about 15.7 million gallons per day from the lake, Crops officials told the public during a scoping event in late March.
The potential allocation is in its early stages, with the Corps tentatively scheduled to release a draft environmental assessment in fall 2027 followed by a final report and agreement in 2028.
Henderson officials are worried that the sweeping language in Senate Bill 214 could actually give Franklin County officials the power to seize the Kerr Lake Regional Water System's water treatment plant should the new water plant falter or prove too expensive to build.
"I just think they want to take it. ... We built up the plant. The plant has been scaled up," Henderson Mayor Melissa Elliott said in an interview.
Winslow has contended that the bill does not give Franklin County the authority to seize the Kerr Lake water treatment plant.
He wrote that negotiations between Henderson and Franklin County officials have been ongoing for two decades and have proven fruitless. Winslow said Henderson has tried to restrict Franklin County's allocation and to charge the county four times as much as other customers who receive water from the compact pay.
"Passing exorbitant costs directly to our residents would be the easy choice, but it would not serve the long-term interests of our community," Winslow wrote.
Elliott, the Henderson mayor, has been part of negotiations with Franklin County for more than a decade. She said that Henderson has not sought to charge Franklin as much as four times what other customers pay.
"What they're asking for sometimes, it's just unreasonable. They want way too much, like we can start with maybe a couple million gallons, but they ask for way more and then they don't want to pay us," Elliott said.
Tuesday afternoon, the Senate introduced an updated version of the conference report, this time without the Franklin County provision or a provision that shortened the terms of some members of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board.
