Stormwater overhaul plan eyes future flood fixes for Waynesville
In the months before Hurricane Helene, the Town of Waynesville initiated a comprehensive stormwater master planning process. Now that the project is about at the halfway point, consultants checked in with Town Council to give a progress update on some capital projects that could help mitigate damage during the region’s next extreme weather event.
The town was awarded a $400,000 Local Assistance for Stormwater Infrastructure Investments grant through the American Rescue Plan Act in March 2023. There is no local matching requirement, so no local taxpayer money will be spent on the three-year project. Administered by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, the grant’s deliverable is an update to the town’s existing stormwater master plan from 2008 by the end of 2026.
“The updated plan will include an assent inventory assessment, a broad study to identify stormwater issues and improvements on town properties, an evaluation of areas where the sewer system is infiltrating the town’s stormwater system and other long-term planning initiatives. It will also identify potential capital improvement projects and offer specific recommendations,” Assistant Development Services Director Olga Grooman told Council Members on Feb. 11.
More specifically, the updated plan will align with the town’s comprehensive land use plan and focus “both on water quality and quantity issues and identify sensitive areas of the town with crucial needs for stormwater infrastructure improvements and risk mitigation,” according to the preliminary project scope submitted by the town.
The project kicked off in November 2023, and the town engaged the multidisciplinary construction engineering consultancy WithersRavenel to perform the work, which began in earnest in 2024.
Starting that January, officials conducted extensive fieldwork and data collection to assess the town’s stormwater infrastructure, which included an inventory of assets, evaluations of potential mitigation sites and inspections of drainage systems, culverts and streams to determine their capacity to handle increasing precipitation.
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Field testing identified necessary stormwater improvements and repairs, while a data gap analysis provided insight into existing vulnerabilities. The assessment also covered environmentally sensitive areas, town properties and stormwater control measures to analyze current conditions and resilience.
In September, the focus shifted to reporting and drafting a comprehensive stormwater master plan. Engineers and planners evaluated mitigation sites, mapped stormwater systems and developed conceptual capital projects.
Findings from that phase of the project led to the designation of areas of concern where pipes or structures were reaching capacity during a 10-year flood and roadway crossings with culverts or bridges were overtopping during a 50-year flood.
“So from that we identified over I think it was 42 areas throughout the town where we’re seeing that level of service not being met,” Haley Valdez, an engineer with WithersRavenel.
Of the 42, Valdez said they identified eight areas that might be good spots for future projects.
Three, including town’s public works building on Legion Drive, are in the area of Shelton Street.
Three more are in Hazelwood, including near the town’s finance office, on Hazelwood Avenue and on Kentucky Avenue.
The final two sites are in or very near Frog Level; however, Richland Creek isn’t one of them.
“In Frog Level, there is a lot of low-lying areas where we’re seeing big impacts from the stream itself, and that is a bigger undertaking and potentially has limited opportunities as far as a concept project for this,” Valdez said.
Instead, project areas include flood-prone spots near the intersection of Charles Street and Branner Avenue as well as Haywood and Depot streets, where inefficiencies and lack of capacity hamper stormwater control.
Hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, cost estimates and engineering designs were incorporated to guide future improvements, and the final plan will outline long-term maintenance strategies, infrastructure replacements and flood hazard mitigation, integrating both green infrastructure and engineered solutions.
In June of this year, the public input phase of the project will begin. An initial presentation of the draft plan will be made to Town Council, before stakeholder meetings and a public workshop are scheduled. The plan should be largely complete by the end of the year, and will be presented to Council early in 2026, with adoption expected probably by summer.
