ELIZABETHTOWN-The Bladen County Commissioners received important updates on Trillium’s recent consolidation and the stormwater research for the local townships was presented during their meeting last Monday. Trillium has been conducting behavioral health reform in Bladen County and the surrounding counties for the past year; they recently consolidated with EastPointe and Sandhills Center to absorb 18 more counties. Both EastePointe and Sandhills will fall under the umbrella of Trillium, with 11 more members added to the existing board for 22 new seats at the bosses table. The primary users of Trillium are for people who are on Medicaid and suffer from serious mental health issues.
Their services also include helping people with substance abuse problems, intellectual/developmental disabilities, and traumatic brain injuries. Patients under Trillium’s tailored plans will be able to accommodate the parallels between mental and physical health due to several new changes under NCDHH Secretary Kody Kinsley. Under the oversight of Secretary Kinsley, these tailored plan initiatives that were previously delayed will now begin again this July 1st, 2024.
The new changes in the consolidation has chopped up the counties into regions to better reach their existing patients. Bladen has been grouped in the southern region alongside neighbors Columbus, Robeson, Brunswick, Hoke, Lee, New Hanover and Scotland counties. Trillium’s staff has grown from 500-600 employees to 1,600 as their reach has expanded with the consolidation of companies. They plan to continue their services online and in-person at The Healing Place of New Hanover County in Wilmington. Trillium has done several mental health summits throughout the southern region and plans to bring more health summits to Bladen.
Trillium would like to expand their services to helping with mental and behavioral health in children, adults and former inmates that are reentering society after incarceration.The first 45 days of Trillium’s consolidation has been updating contracts with over 1,000 providers. The Board of Commissioners also received the stormwater research results that was conducted by a team of experienced engineers.
This research is backed with Federal funds from a grant awarded to the county from the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency. The municipalities of Bladenboro, Clarkton, Elizabethtown, Dublin, Tar Heel and White Lake had flooding hotspots analyzed to map out solutions for the next big storm. They were guided by community leaders, as well as used old reports and statistics from previous major storm events as reference for their new reports.
The common theme found in their research is many communities sit on flatland and are in low-lying areas that are susceptible for high-flooding. The research team didn’t have any FEMA Mapping at their disposal when entering the town of Clarkton so they had to make one from scratch. The research team discovered through the new mapping that there is no practical solution to solve Clarkton’s flooding issue without having to spend millions in new piping and levees.
They suggested to the board that property acquisition and relocating people from high-flood areas would be the most realistic solution. The township of Dublin was also flagged for out-of-date piping and will also need an update to their system starting from downstream up. The research team spent most of their time in Bladenboro because the town is the meeting place for several flooding points.
The main concern for the research team and community leaders is downtown Bladenboro due to the high-concentration of businesses in the area. They tested scenarios with diverting the flood water away from the downtown area and they also analyzed the cost to solve the problem. Most of the stormwater in White Lake drains back into the lake surrounding the town and the most concern for flooding is located on private property. The owners of the private land in White Lake will have to figure their own solutions without the assistance of the County or the state.
Aerial photos and historical photos were used as reference when surveying the land of Tar Heel. The research team suggested updated piping and covert for the redirection of the stormwater. The high-flooding issues in Elizabethtown are mostly concentrated in the downtown area with its close proximity to the Cape Fear river. The research team did a study of the estimated surface flood stage to gauge the height of the flood water in each area and did a cost analysis of possible damages.
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