Orthodontist in Pineville NC

Residents of a neighborhood near the North Carolina state line say they have serious concerns about the town of Pineville’s plan to build an electric substation nearby that they only heard about through a news release.

Pineville is working to buy about an acre at the intersection of Miller Road and Greenway Drive for a new electric substation to accommodate growth in the area and “serve as a back-up source to an existing substation,” the town said in a Dec. 5 news release. The town picked the site because it was the “most economical and least obtrusive to the community,” and the substation would be enclosed by a brick wall with plants around the outside, according to the news release.

That statement was the first time Gui Batista, who lives in the nearby McCullough neighborhood, heard about the plan.

“This was sprung on us,” he said.

In the days since, the McCullough community organized a petition that now has hundreds of signatures calling on the town to find a new site for the project and started reaching out to local officials for answers.

Residents say they’re concerned the project would drag down property values and negatively impact health, safety and local businesses, “altering the character of our community irreversibly.”

“Our peaceful residential area could be transformed into an industrial zone overnight, disrupting our lives and altering the character of our community irreversibly,” states the petition, which had 628 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.

David Lucore, Pineville’s electric services manager and a systems manager for ElectriCities of North Carolina, told the Charlotte Observer the town looked at eight different sites for the project over the last 12 to 18 months.

Of those eight sites, two were “closer to a commercial area than a residential (area)” while the other six “were fairly close” to residential areas, Lucore said.

Pineville picked the McCullough neighborhood “for public necessity and convenience to serve new electric loads in the southern area of town near the state line,” the town said in its statement announcing the site.

The site is near residential areas and Miller’s Flea Market.

“This location was not determined without an extensive investigation into all possible sites,” the town said in its news release.

I-Chin Lin said she and other neighbors were surprised to hear about the plan and didn’t understand why a news release was the town’s first notice to nearby residents.

“We never heard of it … so we are wondering how come suddenly they are telling us about this?” she said. “From the press release, it’s like this is the best decision that they can make. This is the best option for them. But we were never told, and we were never asked about our opinion.”

Pineville Electric, which provides electric services in the town, is a public provider that’s part of ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc., which provides services to member organizations. Public power providers differ from utility companies such as Duke Energy because they are part of local governments and often part of membership organizations such as ElectriCities.

Lin said she’s concerned the substation could cause her property value to drop. Homes in the neighborhood “tend to range from around $390,000 to about $765,000,” according to Charlotte-based Terra Vista Realty. Some residents are also concerned about the potential health impacts of the substation, she added.

Those concerns were echoed in the petition started by residents, which claims the project “jeopardizes our neighborhood’s property value and potentially our health due to potential electromagnetic field exposure.”

Experts say there’s not a clear-cut connection between exposure to electromagnetic fields and health issues.

“The possible link between electromagnetic fields and cancer has been a subject of controversy for several decades,” the American Cancer Society says, because “it’s not clear exactly how electromagnetic fields, a form of low-energy, non-ionizing radiation, could increase cancer risk.”

The Environmental Protection Agency notes that, while the World Health Organization “classifies extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans,” “scientific studies have not consistently shown whether exposure to any source of EMF increases cancer risk.”

Resident Katie DeFrancisci said the health concerns are top of mind for her and many others with families in the area.

“That’s the most scary thing for all of us, especially because this is a newer neighborhood and everyone has young kids,” she said.

Lucore said he wasn’t aware of any studies “that show any adverse effects from EMF or anything else from an electrical substation” and that high-voltage transmission lines already in the area “provide them a lot more EMF exposure than a substation.”

Batista, whose home would be among the closest in the neighborhood to the substation, says he has another safety concern: the possibility of an attack on the substation after an incident in North Carolina that drew nationwide attention.

In December 2022, about 45,000 homes and businesses in Moore County lost power for days after an attack on an electrical substation. Following that incident, state legislators increased the punishment for intentionally damaging or attempting to damage energy facilities, making such attacks a high-grade felony and allowing people who are injured or whose property is damaged by a utility attack to sue for monetary damages.

“Having something in our backyard that someone might try to fire a gunshot at, and that being a couple 100 feet from my backyard, where my 3-year-old twins and my 7-year-old play, is certainly something I’m concerned about,” Batista said.

DeFrancisci said she and other residents are also concerned the substation could jeopardize a long-standing local business, Miller’s Flea Market, by forcing the family that owns it to sell their land.

In their petition, residents said Pineville’s proposal “disrespects the legacy of the Miller family.”

“We understand that substations are necessary for power distribution but we believe there must be alternative locations that would not negatively impact residential areas or infringe upon local landmarks like Miller’s Flea Market,” the petition states.

A call from an Observer reporter to the flea market went unanswered, and the business did not immediately respond to a direct message on its social media.

Lucore, Pineville’s electric services manager, said the owner of the land in question “did not want to negotiate” initially but that “attorneys got involved on both sides” and the two have been negotiating for about four months. The town is not considering using eminent domain to get the land, he said.

Pineville’s town council needs to approve the substation site and buy the land before employees can obtain permits, get civil and environmental inspections and start construction work, Lucore said.

“The actual raising of anything out of the ground would probably be six months from the time the parcel is purchased or acquired,” he said, adding that construction could take two years.

The Pineville Town Council will hold a public hearing on Jan. 4 about the project.

Lin said she and her neighbors plan to be there to raise concerns.

“We believe there are more options,” she said. “It’s just that they think that this is the cheapest option for them.”

DeFrancisci said she and others plan on “contacting everybody we can” to share their concerns.

“They just need to find a different spot so it’s not so close to people’s homes with children. It’s just not safe,” she said.

Batista said he hopes Pineville leaders will pay attention to their own constituents and McCollough residents like him who, by a matter of a few hundred feet, live in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

“I understand that something needs to be done and that a substation needs to be stood up given the growth in the Charlotte area and Pineville specifically,” he said. “But I do wish that they had given a little more attention to the residences. I can’t help but feel that, you know, we kind of got the short end of the stick.”

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This story was originally published December 8, 2023, 10:48 AM.

Mary Ramsey is the local government accountability reporter for The Charlotte Observer. A native of the Carolinas, she studied journalism at the University of South Carolina and has also worked in Phoenix, Arizona and Louisville, Kentucky.

Patients in the area were moved and all elective surgeries scheduled for Thursday are canceled, Atrium Health said.

PINEVILLE, N.C. — Multiple surgeries were canceled and patients were relocated due to a plumbing leak at Atrium Health Pineville early Thursday, Atrium Health announced.

Atrium Health said the leak happened on the fourth floor of the hospital. Patients in the affected area were moved to different parts of the hospital as a precaution and all elective surgeries on Thursday have been canceled. Some patients were moved to different Atrium Health facilities, the company said.

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"We have taken great care to ensure that all patients were moved to areas where they can continue to receive the same level of medical care and treatment," Atrium Health said in a statement.

Atrium Health said maintenance crews quickly identified and fixed the leak with efforts focused on restoring hospital operations. Additional precautions were taken to avoid placing any patients in the areas impacted by the leak.

Later in the day Thursday, Atrium Health shared patients were being relocated back to rooms, and that surgeries scheduled for Friday will continue.

"It was a long day for our teammates, but we want to thank them for the work they did today to ensure our patients were comfortable and received the level of medical care and treatment as would normally be expected. We apologize to our patients and their guests who were inconvenienced by this matter as we worked to return to business as usual," the hospital said in a statement.

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Residents of a Charlotte-area neighborhood continued to raise questions and concerns about a potential electric substation in their backyards at a community meeting Thursday night.

Officials in Pineville say it’s a necessary project to keep the lights on as the community grows. But residents of the McCollough neighborhood — which stretches from the town across the state line into Fort Mill, South Carolina — are worried about the impacts on their property values, safety and health.

And on Thursday, some asked why the town hadn’t considered future infrastructure needs more when deciding on past development deals.

“All we’re asking you all to do with this project is take a step back, do the due diligence and explore a myriad of options so that we can find the best suitable location,” one attendee said.

McCollough residents raised concerns about the project when they first heard about it in early December.

Pineville is working to buy about an acre at the intersection of Miller Road and Greenway Drive for a new electric substation to accommodate growth in the area and “serve as a back-up source to an existing substation,” the town said in a Dec. 5 news release. The town picked the site because it was the “most economical and least obtrusive to the community,” and the substation would be enclosed by a brick wall with plants around the outside, according to the news release.

The town initially thought they’d have till 2026 or 2027 to get another substation online, officials said at Thursday’s meeting, but accelerated growth moved up that timeline. Pineville’s population grew from 7,479 to 10,602 from 2010 to 2020, according to Census data. The town’s 2022 population estimate, the most recent Census data available, puts Pineville at 10,886 residents.

The project would need to be completed by the end of 2025 to avoid issues, David Lucore, Pineville’s electric services manager and a systems manager for ElectriCities of North Carolina, said.

Pineville Electric, which provides electric services in the town, is a public provider that’s part of ElectriCities, which provides services to member organizations. Public power providers differ from utility companies such as Duke Energy because they are part of local governments and often part of membership organizations such as ElectriCities.

The town picked the site out of 10 locations that were examined, town manager Ryan Spitzer and Lucore told the crowd Thursday.

Complications with the other sites included proximity to floodplains and wetlands and distance from usable transmission lines.

“There’s not a whole lot of options,” Lucore said.

Town staff will present more details to the Town Council at its Jan. 22 work session, and a public hearing will be held at the Town Council meeting on Feb. 13. It’s likely the council won’t vote on the issue until their March meeting, according to Spitzer.

It’s estimated the project will cost more than $5 million, and it would be paid for by electric revenues rather than tax dollars.

Although Spitzer and Lucore outlined why town staff are currently leaning toward the site neighbors don’t want, both stressed that “no decisions have been made.”

“We heard your questions,” Spitzer told the crowd of more than 100 Thursday night.

One top concern: the potential impact of electromagnetic fields emanating from the substation on residents’ health. Lucore, citing studies shared by the World Health Organization, said he’s found no conclusive evidence of such a threat from the levels that could be found at the site.

Experts say there’s not a clear-cut connection between exposure to electromagnetic fields and health issues.

“The possible link between electromagnetic fields and cancer has been a subject of controversy for several decades,” the American Cancer Society says, because “it’s not clear exactly how electromagnetic fields, a form of low-energy, non-ionizing radiation, could increase cancer risk.”

The Environmental Protection Agency notes that, while the World Health Organization “classifies extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans,” “scientific studies have not consistently shown whether exposure to any source of EMF increases cancer risk.”

Some residents also shared concerns about safety in the wake of an attack on another North Carolina substation that drew attention nationwide. In December 2022, about 45,000 homes and businesses in Moore County lost power for days after an attack on an electrical substation.

Lucore pledged that if the project moves forward it will be better protected than most substations in the country.

“We’re going to put in as much security as we’re capable of putting in,” he said.

Realtor Sean McGovern also spoke at Thursday’s meeting about the potential impact of the project of property values. Homes in the neighborhood “tend to range from around $390,000 to about $765,000,” according to Charlotte-based Terra Vista Realty.

McGovern, who said he’s also a McCollough resident and has his own issues with the plan, acknowledged that there’s “potential for decrease in value” but that the long-term impacts on real estate are “tough to say.”

McCollough resident Jen Kennedy, who was chosen to speak on behalf of the neighborhood at Thursday’s meeting, said she and her neighbors appreciated town officials putting the event together.

“You shared a lot this evening, and we do feel that we have a better understanding,” she said.

But, she added, “we do still believe that we are just started scratching the surface of understanding this process … we still have unanswered questions.”

“We believe that it is the responsibility of the town, and especially our elected officials, to provide us with all the information and allow our voice to be heard first and foremost before a decision of this magnitude is made,” she said.

Multiple residents at the meeting questioned why more consideration hasn’t been given to one of the other 10 sites that was examined.

That site is near the controversial site but further from the subdivision. It would cost about $1 million more than the currently chosen site, Lucore said, an expense that could be passed on to consumers through higher rates. But some at the meeting said they’d be willing to take on a slightly higher electric bill to pay that higher cost.

Both parcels in question are owned by the same family, who own and run Miller’s Flea Market on the land.

Spitzer indicated that the Miller family, through their attorney, have been resistant to sell either plot. But members of the family in attendance Thursday and their representatives spoke up to say they’d be more open to selling the other land than the controversial site.

They’re concerned about the impact of the project on their business, including a loss of more than 100 parking spaces, they said.

If the Millers continue their opposition to a sale, “there are other options the town has,” Spitzer said.

That comment drew ire from the crowd, including concern about the potential use of eminent domain. Multiple attendees continued to question why town leaders didn’t think ahead more about future infrastructure needs when considering developments and why the community wasn’t informed about the substation earlier.

Some accused Spitzer of trying to take “the easy route” on the project.

“If I was taking the easy route on this, we wouldn’t be having this meeting,” Spitzer said.

This story was originally published January 4, 2024, 11:10 PM.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct a quote from David Lucore, Pineville’s electric services manager. Lucore said a newly proposed substation would be better protected than most substations in the country.

Corrected Jan 6, 2024

Mary Ramsey is the local government accountability reporter for The Charlotte Observer. A native of the Carolinas, she studied journalism at the University of South Carolina and has also worked in Phoenix, Arizona and Louisville, Kentucky.

Pineville Communications said the third and fourth floors of Atrium Health Pineville took on water.

PINEVILLE, N.C. (WBTV) - “The water, the flood, it was chaos. It was crazy, it was so much.”

Derick Calwell was at Atrium Hospital in Pineville early Thursday morning when the water came rushing in after a pipe burst.

“Pipes bust, elevators full of water. It was crazy,” he said.

Calwell added he was at the hospital with his girlfriend who was going through dialysis early Thursday morning when floor after floor became impacted.

“It was on the first floor to every floor. We were on the fifth floor and there was water up there,” he explained.

Crews responded to Atrium Health Pineville after a pipe burst at the hospital overnight, flooding a floor, officials confirmed. The situation unfolded around 1:30 a.m., and firefighters could be seen going inside with water suction equipment.

Atrium officials said some patients had to be moved, which radio communication between firefighters and dispatchers previously indicated.

“Patients were moved to other parts of the hospital and some patients on lower floors were also relocated as a precaution,” an Atrium spokesperson said. “We have taken great care to ensure that all patients were moved to areas where they can continue to receive the same level of medical care and treatment.”

The spokesperson added that “a few” patients in critical care were moved to other Atrium Health facilities, and said that all elective surgeries scheduled at the hospital on Thursday have been canceled.

By 5 p.m. Thursday, Atrium Health Pineville officials said staff had begun moving affected patients back to rooms. Surgeries on Friday, Feb. 23, will continue as scheduled.

Pineville Communications said the flooding impacted mainly the fourth floor but there was also some water on the third floor.

Radio traffic between dispatchers and firefighters captured sounds of the incident as it happened.

“Pineville Fire responding for a water problem,” a dispatcher said. “A pipe burst at CMC Pineville Hospital...we got a call from the hospital. They advised that a pipe burst on the fourth floor. It’s flooding the hospital and there are electrical hazards present.”

“They’re already moving patients,” a firefighter said over the radio. “We got about an inch of water on this fourth floor...I think we’re going to quickly lose the third floor.”

Atrium has been contacted for more on the extent of damage and information on any patients moved.

Related: Atrium Health, CMS partnering for initiative to train students in healthcare

Copyright 2024 WBTV. All rights reserved.

PINEVILLE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The owner of a Pineville flea market said he has begun to explore what legal action is available to him after town leaders voted to seize part of his land to make an electrical substation the town reportedly desperately needs.

The substation will be placed on a one-acre portion of land in the corner of Miller’s Flea Market, just feet from the McCullough neighborhood.

In 2023, ElectriCities revealed that the current electric grid would become overloaded by 2025, which could lead to power outages.

It explored 10 different locations, which included two plots of land that belong to Steve Miller: Miller’s Flea Market and, a piece of rural land directly across the street from it, along Miller Road.

The proposal was met with heated disdain from people nearby over concerns of health, property value, and overall quality of life.

In January, Miller told Queen City News he was against the proposal and had “no intention of selling,” his family’s land.

On Monday night, however, city council members took a vote to move forward with the substation’s construction.

It ended in a 2-2 tie between city council members which had to be broken by Mayor David Phillips, in favor of the decision.

“I was shocked, they didn’t listen to anyone,” Miller said in a phone conversation Tuesday afternoon.

In January, Miller said he was open to discussing options for selling the land across the street for the substation, but those talks never fully developed.

In a statement to Queen City News, ElectriCities said, “The town’s attorney reached out to the property owner’s attorney multiple times to discuss the alternate site. The property owner’s attorney did not provide the town with a proposed sale price until a few days prior to the vote was scheduled and wanted additional time to discuss it with the property owner.”

Most of the city council members were not immediately available for a comment on the vote, Tuesday afternoon.

However, Council Member Chris McDonough explained that he voted yes because he felt it would benefit the future of the city.

Miller has a 30-day window to change city council members’ minds or to find a legal way through.

ElectriCities representatives said their next steps are to find materials and labor contracts to begin construction, which will be completed by the end of 2025.