For all of my North Carolina Mobile Home park owners out there with parks on city utilities. Anyone ever run into the law stating that if you submeter, you must then test the water because you are providing water to residents?
We are looking to submeter a park and have been told this by the utility commission.
It sounds like this would be for well water. @PhillipMerrill is the resident Expert on water and sewer but I’ve never heard of Testing on city water after submetering. Though I’m sure crazier things have happened
I live in NC and have heard that before, though I found it hard to believe. What i do know is that if you resell water (submeter) that is purchased from the city/county, you need to register with the utility commission(?) as a utility company first, or the fines can be stiff. This is something I need to do actually and if you’d like to private message me we could share notes on how to handle this.
By selling water you enter a whole new arena in many states. It is some what common to have basic testing requirements after the parks master meter. Coliform bacteria, lead and copper being the most common.
You would be classified as a public utility under North Carolina general statue 62: 3 as you are distributing water for compensation.
https://www.ncleg.net/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/bychapter/chapter_62.html
(23) a. “Public utility” means a person, whether organized under the laws of this State or under the laws of any other state or country, now or hereafter owning or operating in this State equipment or facilities for:
Diverting, developing, pumping, impounding, **distributing** or furnishing water to or for the public for compensation, or operating a public sewerage system for compensation; provided, however, that the term "public utility" shall not include any person or company whose sole operation consists of selling water to less than 15 residential customers, except that any person or company which constructs a water system in a subdivision with plans for 15 or more lots and which holds itself out by contracts or other means at the time of said construction to serve an area containing more than 15 residential building lots shall be a public utility at the time of such planning or holding out to serve such 15 or more building lots, without regard to the number of actual customers connected;
As a public utility you are subject to to the following regulations
Rule R7-12. QUALITY OF WATER.
(a) Every water utility shall comply with the rules of the North Carolina Department of
Environment and Natural Resources and the rules of other state and local governmental
agencies governing purity of water, testing of water, operation of filter plant, and such
other lawful rules as those agencies prescribe.
(b) All water being supplied by water utilities subject to the jurisdiction of the North
Carolina Utilities Commission is required, as a minimum, to meet the standards of water
quality as set forth in the United States Safe Drinking Water Act enacted in 1974 and as
amended in 1986; provided, that upon application in writing to the Commission and
approval of the Commission in writing, a water utility may have a specified deviation or
tolerance from the mineral content requirements of said United States Safe Drinking
Water Act enacted in 1974 and as amended in 1986, based upon regional water
characteristics or conditions and upon the economic feasibility of providing treatment to
the water or of locating alternate sources of water.
Hope that helps
thanks everyone, we actually spoke with someone that has parks in the state and that said that it common and you do have to jump thru some initial hoops in order to get approved like this. You can only charge a set rate based on what you agreed to with the state. Weird law, but i guess cost of doing business to get some water/sewer bill back