Charlotte Water - Comprehensive Analysis Report

Summary

Charlotte Water is the largest public water and wastewater utility in the Carolinas, serving over 1.2 million customers across the City of Charlotte and greater Mecklenburg County, including the towns of Matthews, Mint Hill, Pineville, Huntersville, Davidson, and Cornelius. The utility, in operation since 1899, plays a vital role in the region's growth and development by supporting economic development, neighborhood development, transportation and planning, and well-managed government within the City of Charlotte's broader strategic goals. Its mission is to consistently provide the highest quality water and wastewater services to its community, with a vision to be a leading utility recognized for excellence and dedicated to its people, community, region, and environment. Charlotte Water operates as a community-owned, nonprofit utility, focused on delivering services at the lowest possible cost while expanding its system to meet growing needs and upgrading older infrastructure. Charlotte Water is integral to the daily life and economic vitality of the Mecklenburg County area, delivering water to homes and businesses and supporting over 35,000 local businesses.

1. Strategic Focus & Objectives

Charlotte Water's strategic blueprint, "The Foundation for the Future 2030," adopted in 2020 and updated for FY2026-30, emphasizes a commitment to resilience.

Core Objectives

Exceptional Customer Service: Proactively addressing customer needs, investing in training for public-facing employees, and providing self-service tools.
Community Engagement: Focusing on listening to, connecting with, and informing the communities it serves.
Reliable Infrastructure: Maintaining and improving infrastructure to meet current and future demands, with a shift towards proactive maintenance practices.
High-Performing Workforce: Building and retaining a skilled and motivated team by showcasing career paths, creating clear promotional ladders, and offering training and education to foster professional growth.
Environmental Stewardship: Protecting and improving the environment by using water more efficiently, repairing old infrastructure to prevent leaks, increasing recycled water availability, and encouraging conservation. The utility aims to reduce its carbon footprint in line with the City of Charlotte's Strategic Energy Action Plan (SEAP) goals.
Financial Stability: Integrating risk management into financial decisions to ensure sustainable growth, reinvestment, and affordability. Key measures include maintaining AAA credit ratings, achieving zero annual regulatory violations, reducing Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs), lowering customer complaints, and keeping the vacancy rate at or below 9%.

Specialization Areas

Charlotte Water specializes in comprehensive water and wastewater management. A significant initiative is the "One Water" approach, launched in 2018, which integrates the management of drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater to achieve long-term resilience and reliability. This approach involves breaking down silos and treating all water as one interconnected resource, enhancing customer experience, developing stronger community partnerships, and creating efficiencies. This led to the transition of the Storm Water Services department to the Charlotte Water organizational chart. The utility has undertaken 144 projects integrating flood management, water quality improvement, and ecological restoration under the One Water framework.

Target Markets

Charlotte Water primarily serves over 1.2 million customers across the City of Charlotte and greater Mecklenburg County. This includes the towns of Matthews, Mint Hill, Pineville, Huntersville, Davidson, and Cornelius.

2. Financial Overview

As a municipal utility, Charlotte Water's funding primarily comes from its operating budget and capital investment plans. The utility maintains Aaa/AAA bond ratings with Moody's and Standard & Poor's.

Funding History

FY2025 Operating Budget: Including debt service and PAYGO transfers, the operating budget for FY2025 is $651,237,539.
Capital Investment Plans:
Water Capital Investment Plan: $116,422,163.
Wastewater Capital Investment Plan: $316,117,930.
Operational Support Capital Investment Plan: $15,040,560.
Economic Impact: In FY 2023, Charlotte Water's operations and maintenance, and capital spending of $685 million created 7,100 jobs, with an expected 7,800 jobs supported over the next five years. This spending generated $10.1 billion in economic output, contributing $33.5 billion to Mecklenburg in water-dependent industries.

3. Product Pipeline

Charlotte Water is undertaking significant infrastructure projects to address increasing demand and aging systems.

Key Products/Services

Stowe Water Resource Recovery Facility (Stowe WRRF)
Description: A new wastewater treatment facility designed to expand wastewater treatment capacity and serve communities in northwestern Mecklenburg County and parts of Gaston County.
Development Stage: Under construction, with groundbreaking in June 2023, and approximately 66% completion as of FY 2025.
Target Market/Condition: Addressing increasing wastewater demands due to population growth in northwestern Mecklenburg County and eastern Gaston County. It will replace two aging municipal wastewater treatment plants in Belmont and Mount Holly.
Expected Timeline: Phase 1 is expected to be online in 2026 and fully completed in Q1 or Q2 2027.
Key Features and Benefits: Initial capacity of 15 million gallons per day (MGD), eventually expanding to 25 MGD. It will utilize a modern densified activated sludge (DAS) biological nutrient removal (BNR) process to decrease nutrient discharges (nitrogen and phosphorus) into the Catawba River, employing turbo blower technologies for efficiency.
Advanced Water Meter Reading System (AMI)
Description: A seven-year project to replace 270,000 of 310,000 meters in the Charlotte metro area with advanced meter infrastructure.
Development Stage: Ongoing.
Target Market/Condition: Aimed at improving customer service, preparing for droughts and usage surges, and expediting leak detection and repairs.
Key Features and Benefits: Allows greater access to consolidated data for better customer service and operational efficiency.
Interbasin Transfer (IBT) Modification
Description: Charlotte Water is seeking modifications to its 2002 Interbasin Transfer certificate.
Development Stage: A Notice of Intent for a modification request was filed with the NC Environmental Management Commission in February 2024. Public scoping meetings and stakeholder engagement are ongoing.
Target Market/Condition: To accommodate future population growth, as the current IBT, which allows transferring up to 33 million gallons per day (MGD) from the Catawba River basin to the Rocky River basin, is projected to support demand through approximately 2030.
Key Features and Benefits: Ensures a reliable water supply for the community's future water needs. It involves increasing the maximum amount of water that can be moved from the Catawba basin to the Yadkin basin.

4. Technology & Innovation

Charlotte Water leverages various technologies and innovative approaches to enhance its operations and service delivery.

Technology Stack

ArcGIS Utility Network: Charlotte Water became the first large municipal water and wastewater utility in the United States to be fully in production with ArcGIS Utility Network, transitioning from a geometric network to a services-based architecture. This provides increased functionality, granular data options, accurate representations of real-world assets, branch versioning for historical analysis, improved data security, and empowers mobile users with field updates. This establishes the foundation for a digital twin of its physical asset infrastructure.
Data-Informed Asset Management: The utility is embracing data-informed asset management to shift maintenance practices from reactive to proactive, improving the reliability of its infrastructure.
Densified Activated Sludge (DAS) Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR): Implemented at the new Stowe WRRF, this process intensifies wastewater treatment to more effectively clean and purify wastewater, significantly decreasing nutrient discharges into the Catawba River.
Resource Recovery: Charlotte Water engages in recovering resources from its wastewater treatment plants.
Water Reuse in Brewing Operations: Charlotte Water has demonstrated water reuse in an innovative partnership, such as the Renew Brew project, an award-winning sustainable beer pilot made with recycled water.

5. Leadership & Management

Executive Team

Angela Charles: Director at Charlotte Water. She has a background in the storm drain section since 1988 and moved to Charlotte Water in 1990, which shaped her perspective on the "One Water" initiative. She holds a Master of Public Administration from UNC Charlotte and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University. She leads a staff of approximately 1,200 employees and is responsible for regional water and wastewater treatment, collection, distribution, utilities planning, and the stormwater system. She has received numerous water industry awards, including the WEF Collections Systems Award, the Warren G. Fuller Award, and the Arthur Sidney Bedell Award.
Mike Davis, PE: Director of Storm Water Services. He emphasizes the "One Water" approach in bringing together water professionals.
Shannon Martel: GIS Manager at Charlotte Water. She leads a team of nine experts responsible for various GIS applications, managing aspects from CCTV to automatic vehicle location, and played a key role in the transition to ArcGIS Utility Network.
Carl Wilson: Chief Engineer of Capital Projects and Operations Support at Charlotte Water. He plays a crucial role in Charlotte Water's strategic operations, overseeing capital improvement projects and the engineering group. Wilson has been involved with NC One Water for almost 10 years, serving in various roles and on its Board of Trustees, and received the NC One Water Board of Trustees Award.

Recent Leadership Changes

David Czerr previously served as Interim Director during the initial strategic planning process of "Foundation for the Future."

6. Talent and Growth Indicators

Hiring Trends and Workforce

Charlotte Water employs over 1,100 people, with some sources mentioning approximately 1,200 including stormwater management. The current number of authorized positions is 1,126. The organization highlights a need for diverse skills across the organization and effective knowledge transfer due to anticipated retirements. It also seeks to adapt recruiting efforts to attract a wider net of potential employees, reflecting the diversity of Mecklenburg County.

Company Growth Trajectory Indicators

Strategic goals include:
Improving Employee Retention: Focus on showcasing diverse career paths, creating clear promotional ladders, and connecting staff with training and education.
Reducing Vacancy Rate: Aims to keep the vacancy rate at or below 9%.
Workforce Development: Investing in water professionals and fostering connections across various areas of expertise. The utility is committed to attracting motivated and skilled public servants, equipping them with resources, and inspiring long-term careers.

7. Social Media Presence and Engagement

Digital Footprint

Charlotte Water actively utilizes social media for public outreach and communication. The utility partners with marketing firms, such as Yellow Duck Marketing, for strategic municipal utility communications, including social media. Social media is used to inform the public about projects, address inquiries, and enhance community engagement. For example, during construction projects, a tailored public outreach strategy, including digital-based communication tools, has led to decreased complaints and increased engagement in public meetings.

8. Recognition and Awards

Industry Recognition

National Association of Clean Water Agency (NACWA) Peak Performance Awards: Charlotte Water has received various NACWA Peak Performance Awards, with multiple plants receiving platinum awards and others gold or silver.
Utility of the Future Today: Recognized by the Water Environment Federation (WEF), the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF), and the Water Reuse Association as a Utility of the Future. Charlotte Water has received this recognition multiple times.
Renew Brew Project: The sustainable beer pilot project made with recycled water, developed in partnership with Town Brewing Company, received a Communicator Award of Excellence.
Aaa/AAA Bond Ratings: Maintains Aaa/AAA bond ratings with Moody's and Standard & Poor's.
NC AWOP Award: Franklin, Vest, and Lee S. Dukes Water Treatment Plants have received the NC Area Wide Optimization Award (AWOP).
Joseph Stowe: The Stowe Regional Water Resource Recovery Facility is named for the late Joseph Stowe, a former director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utility Department, recognized for his impact on the community and utility staff.

9. Competitive Analysis

Major Competitors

As a municipal utility, Charlotte Water primarily competes with other public water and wastewater utilities within the broader Carolinas region for best practices, talent, and efficient resource management rather than direct market share in a commercial sense. Identified entities in the broader water utility sector include:
City of Salisbury
City of Jacksonville NC (Government)
Cumberland County NC

Charlotte Water is the largest public water and wastewater utility in the Carolinas.

10. Market Analysis

Market Overview

The water supply and irrigation systems industry in North Carolina is expected to grow. Key drivers include population growth, private investment in non-residential and residential construction, local and state government investment, and the number of households. Charlotte is experiencing significant growth, with 792 new water and sewer service connections per month and a shift towards infill and redevelopment projects, increasing demand on water infrastructure. The municipal water market is driven by rising demand in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, and the infrastructure sector's growth. The "One Water" approach addresses 21st-century challenges such as climate change, aging infrastructure, water scarcity, and the need for more sustainable and cost-effective solutions.

11. Strategic Partnerships

Union County Public Works: Charlotte Water entered a temporary ownership transfer partnership with Union County Public Works, taking over operations and management of their water system for three years. This collaboration focused on improving Union County's infrastructure, providing employee training, developing maintenance, safety, and training programs, and strengthening both workforces to improve compliance with federal regulations.
Town Brewing Company (and Xylem, Lenny Boy Brewing): An innovative partnership with Town Brewing Company and Xylem demonstrated water reuse in brewing operations, resulting in the award-winning "Renew Brew" sustainable beer pilot project. Lenny Boy Brewing has also joined as a partner.
Axim Geospatial (formerly NV5): Charlotte Water partnered with Axim Geospatial (and NV5) for its successful transition to ArcGIS Utility Network. This collaboration involved evaluating Charlotte Water's GIS program, data, and technical readiness, developing an implementation plan, and providing training and support for staff.
* Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services, Housing and Neighborhood Services, and Local Non-profits (DreamKey Partners, Crisis Assistance Ministries, Commonwealth Charlotte): These partnerships enabled Charlotte Water to match thousands of customers with financial aid assistance for outstanding water bills.

12. Operational Insights

Charlotte Water manages an extensive infrastructure, including 4,664 miles of water mains and 4,638 miles of wastewater mains, over 18,797 hydrants, 17 water storage and pumping stations, 76 wastewater lift stations, 3 drinking water treatment plants (Franklin, Vest, and Dukes), and 5 wastewater treatment plants (Sugar Creek, Irwin Creek, McAlpine Creek, Mallard Creek, and McDowell Creek). The utility pumps an average of 124.55 million gallons of drinking water daily and treats an average of 87.6 million gallons of wastewater daily.

A critical operational advantage is its advanced GIS system with ArcGIS Utility Network, which provides a high-fidelity data model for accurate asset representation, increased functionality, and improved data security. This system is foundational for a digital twin of its physical asset infrastructure, positioning the utility for dramatically improved workflows. The "One Water" initiative is also an operational differentiator, fostering an integrated approach to water resource management and