💧 The water-plant lawsuit is back on.
Brunswick County has refiled its lawsuit against Oscar Renda Contracting and the project’s two sureties — Zurich American Insurance and Federal Insurance Company — over the long-delayed Northwest Water Treatment Plant expansion and its reverse-osmosis system, the project meant to strip PFAS compounds out of the county’s Cape Fear River drinking water.
The county voluntarily dismissed its original suit in 2025 (without prejudice, so it could refile) and put the new one on the books in August 2026 — one day before the one-year deadline, to preserve its claims while construction finishes.
The complaint repeats the county’s allegations: missed project milestones, botched concrete work in a filter underdrain system, a pipe collapse before the system even entered service, inadequate staffing, and sureties that failed to step up under the performance bond after defaults were declared.
Meanwhile the project keeps moving with a new crew. The sureties have had a management group overseeing the work since September 2025, and the county’s August project update lists a new rapid-mix structure, upgraded clarifiers, eight dual-media filters, and a backwash equalization tank as complete. Expanded treatment capacity was expected this past August; the reverse-osmosis system is expected online by the end of 2026. The county says the original $167.3 million construction cost hasn’t changed — and there are no planned water-rate increases tied to the delays.
So the lawyers fight it out while the plant gets finished. We’ll keep watching. 🏭
Photo: Kokosing (illustrative).
Source: Wilmington StarNews.
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