Long ago, local streams were the water supply for a budding Charlotte, and early settlers drew their water from streams and private wells. In 1900, a 5-million gallon-a-day filtration plant and pumping station was built on Irwin Creek to supply water to the growing city. Less than 3 years later, the city built another pumping station, the Catawba River Pump.

Over time, the Catawba River Pump Station failed to meet demand, and city officials resorted to shipping water by train into the city. After the city struggled through an extreme drought in 1911, city officials began pumping water from Mountain Island Lake as well as Lake Norman, both on the Catawba River. The municipality built a 60-million-gallon reservoir in 1917 to help bolster the water supply and keep up with the growing population. A man-made reservoir, Mountain Island Lake, was constructed to provide drinking water for Charlotte and the surrounding Mecklenburg County.

Today, Charlotte Water serves over 950,000 customers in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and represents the largest water service utility in the Carolinas. The city continues to monitor Charlotte drinking water, and according to the a recent report, Charlotte water quality meets all state and federal requirements.

However, Charlotte routinely experiences droughts and low water levels. Limited water supplies can affect water taste and smell because of a concentration of total dissolved solids (TDS), chlorine, and nitrates in the drinking water as water levels decline.

In 2020, North Carolina experienced one of the biggest refined petroleum spills in the United States since 2000. North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality issued a Notice of Violation, warning that cancer-causing chemicals, like benzene, contaminated groundwater near the site, just north of Charlotte.