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Vol. I · No. 1 Gray's Creek, North Carolina Updated 21 August 2026

Gray's Creek Facts

Neighbors, in the open, holding the pen.
§ New here? Fifty square miles, two budgets, a pause and a restart. The whole story since May 2026, on one page. Get caught up →
5 August 2026 · Document received · Examined

The petition drive is back on.

On Sunday 2 August, a 21-page strategy document authored by Dr. Robert Twaddell arrived by email, addressed to the resident committee. It directs canvassers to “hit the field immediately,” sets a 2,400-signature target, and asks the committee to deliver 2,000 signatures within 30 days — three weeks after signature collection was publicly declared paused. Its key passages are quoted and every checkable claim is checked, against North Carolina statute and against the document’s own tables.

Read the document, checked → Put your name in for the committee → The on-hold record →
A packed community hall on meeting night: neighbors seated and talking at long tables with black-and-white checkered tablecloths, an American flag on the back wall
Thursday night, 16 July 2026. This image was anonymized with AI for privacy, but is based on the actual scene.

That room is why this page looks different now. Two packed meetings and thousands of visits proved something no one can take back: Gray's Creek will show up for its own future. The promised breakdown of how the petition came apart is published, in three parts: the meeting, the two months, and what we do now. Read any of them and tell us what we got wrong. This only works if it runs in both directions.

This should be a cooperative process

Several people have already stepped up. That is exactly what needs to happen next, and there is room for more. Protecting this community should be a cooperative process: neighbors working it out together, in the open, not one group presenting another finished plan from a stage. That standard sank the petition, and it will govern whatever replaces it, including anything that starts here.

We want to hand this off

Let's be plain about what this website is. We here at Gray's Creek Facts were just people: neighbors supporting the conversation and providing information. We only ever wanted to make things known. We do not want responsibility for this community's future, and we do not want control of it. That belongs to all of us.

So let's get a group together. Form a resident committee, in the open, and figure out what actually works for our small rural community. And so there is no doubt about anyone's motives: the people who created and run this site plan to step away as soon as that committee is formed. The record stays public, the list below goes to the committee, and the work goes to the community it belongs to.

Put your name in for the committee

If you are willing to help form it, serve on it, or just want to be in the room when it comes together, leave your email below. This list is separate from the site's update alerts; it exists for one purpose, and it gets handed to the committee once one exists.

Used only to organize the committee. Never published, never shared. Unsubscribe anytime.

Cross-references

  • The committee's home, ground rules, and first gathering: Committee. The first gathering is by invitation only: put your name and email in, and the invitation comes directly to you. Details are not posted publicly.
  • The three paths in front of Gray's Creek, and the 60-second survey, are at What Now.
  • Were you at a meeting? The report-back form is open, and reports build the record.
  • The original note from meeting night is preserved at /updates#2026-07-16-you-showed-up.
§ The record · The petition, as it was presented

Before anyone signed, we asked where the documents were. The record stands.

From May to July 2026, a group of neighbors asked Gray's Creek residents to sign a petition creating a new municipal government, with a target of 2,150 signatures by November 1, 2026. Through the night it went on hold, the proposed town had no published charter, no published feasibility study, no published boundary map, and one budget on Facebook that never matched the budget on the website.

We are residents and business owners inside the proposed boundary. We opposed the incorporation as presented, never the idea of local control, and every page of that review is preserved unchanged in The Record. If the effort resumes, or a new one begins, the same questions will be waiting.

The on-hold status, explained Read the breakdown → The three questions →
§ If you signed

Signatures stay with the committee while the petition is on hold. Withdrawing is unchanged, and easier now than later.

How to withdraw →
§ The case in three numbers · Preserved as published

The petition went on hold on 16 July 2026. The analysis in the sections below is kept exactly as it ran, as the record.

0
Charters published
by the petitioners
2
Conflicting budgets
in circulation
2,150
Signatures requested
by November 1, 2026
$3M
Discrepancy in claimed
sales-tax revenue
§ 01 · The Three Questions

Three questions the petitioners have not answered.

Each question can be answered with a document the petitioners say is "in preparation." If those documents exist, publish them. If they don't, finish them before the petition opens.

QUESTION 01

Where are the documents you're asking us to sign onto?

The charter, feasibility study, boundary map, and startup guide are all listed as "in preparation" on the petitioners' own Documents page. The petition deadline is November 1, 2026.

Read more →
QUESTION 02

Which budget is the real one, Facebook or the website?

Two different budgets are in public circulation. They show different revenue, different expenses, different surplus, and different positions on whether households will pay for trash service.

Read more →
QUESTION 03

Are you preventing a Village Center, or planning one?

The Village Center page says the overlay district is "a protective planning tool ” not a development plan." It then lists the planning steps to build a Village Center. Which is it?

Read more →
§ 02 · The PFAS claim

A new town cannot fix PFAS. Not legally. Not financially. Not technically.

The petitioners say Gray's Creek should incorporate in part to "champion the water project." Here is what a North Carolina municipality is actually able to do about PFAS contamination already in the ground.

What an NC municipality cannot legally do

  • Cannot regulate Chemours or any industrial discharger. NC G.S. 150B-19.3 (the Hardison Amendments) specifically prohibits local governments from adopting environmental rules more stringent than state rules.
  • Cannot set drinking water standards. Federal EPA (under the Safe Drinking Water Act) and NC DEQ have exclusive jurisdiction. A town has no standing.
  • Cannot issue or revoke industrial discharge permits. That authority sits with NC DEQ under the federal NPDES program.
  • Cannot require remediation of contaminated sites. Federal CERCLA (Superfund) and the NC Inactive Hazardous Sites program. No municipal role.
  • Cannot enforce against polluters directly. Civil enforcement runs through the NC Attorney General and EPA. There is no municipal cause of action for environmental violations.
  • Cannot mandate well filtration or bottled water for residents. That is a county health department function under NC G.S. 130A.

What an NC municipality can legally do

  • Pass non-binding resolutions and write letters. Cumberland County already does this.
  • Use zoning to block new industrial uses going forward. Cumberland County zoning already covers this and does nothing for legacy contamination.
  • Join multi-district litigation as a plaintiff. Property owners and Cumberland County are already plaintiffs in MDL 2873; a new town adds no legal weight that is not already represented.
  • Run its own water utility, if it builds one. Gray's Creek is not proposing one. PWC and Cumberland County handle regional water.

The money is already flowing without a town

The 2019 Chemours Consent Order with NC DEQ requires Chemours to fund whole-house filtration for affected wells, reverse osmosis for the worst cases, and ongoing testing. The 2023 3M settlement put $10.3 billion into a national water-utility fund. The 2023 DuPont/Chemours/Corteva settlement added $1.18 billion. Federal IIJA water grants and NC state appropriations have committed over $260 million in regional PFAS response. Not one dollar of this requires Gray's Creek to incorporate. Not one dollar gets there faster because a town exists. Not one well gets cleaned sooner.

Bottom line
"Championing" is a feeling. PFAS authority is a statute. There is no overlap. A new town with a $1-2M budget cannot regulate a multibillion-dollar chemical company, cannot set water standards, cannot enforce against a polluter, and cannot remediate contamination. Every authority that matters operates at a level above municipal.
§ 03 · The boundary

Fifty square miles. They call this a small town.

The petitioners describe the proposed Town of Gray's Creek as a small community asserting local control. Their own published boundary covers roughly fifty square miles. That is the geographic footprint of the City of Wilmington, which holds one hundred fifteen thousand people on it. It is approaching the size of Cary. It is roughly eight times the footprint of Hope Mills, and eight times the footprint of Spring Lake. These are the towns the petitioners cite as evidence that "small towns work."

Hope Mills works because it is small and tight. Spring Lake works because it is small and tight. Successful North Carolina municipalities concentrate residents inside compact footprints so that roads, water lines, fire response, and street maintenance reach everyone at reasonable cost per resident. That is the entire reason municipal government scales economically.

The proposed Gray's Creek boundary does the opposite. It draws a fifty-square-mile polygon across mostly rural Cumberland County and calls it a town. Below is what that looks like next to every existing municipality in the county.

At scale, on the same page

Each square below is drawn proportionally to the town's actual area in square miles. The big red one is the proposed Gray's Creek boundary. The small green ones are the towns the petitioners use as their template.

Proposed Gray's Creek
~50 sq mi

Eastover
17.4 sq mi

Hope Mills
6.5 sq mi

Spring Lake
6.5 sq mi

Stedman
1.6

Wade
1.6

Falcon
0.7

Godwin
0.5

How many Hope Mills fit inside the proposed boundary?

Eight. Each green tile below represents one Hope Mills, drawn at the same scale as the proposed Gray's Creek boundary outlined in red.

HopeMills HopeMills HopeMills HopeMills HopeMills HopeMills HopeMills HopeMills PROPOSED GRAYS CREEK · ~50 SQ MI

Red outline: proposed Gray's Creek. Green tiles: Hope Mills, repeated eight times to fill the boundary.

For reference, the official county map

Cumberland County existing municipalities: Fayetteville, Hope Mills, Spring Lake, Eastover, Wade, Godwin, Falcon

Existing Cumberland County municipalities. Source: NC OneMap / Cumberland County GIS.

Area and density, side by side

MunicipalityArea (sq mi)PopulationDensity (per sq mi)
Proposed Gray's Creek ~50 ~20,000 ~400
Hope Mills6.5~17,000~2,600
Spring Lake6.5~11,000~1,700
Eastover17.4~3,600~210
Stedman1.6~1,000~620
Wade1.6~500~310
Falcon0.7~260~370
Godwin0.5~120~240
Wilmington (for scale)52.6~115,000~2,200
Cary (for scale)60.2~180,000~3,000

Sources: Census 2020, NC OSBM, petitioners' grayscreeknc.com. Population estimates rounded.

Proposed Gray's Creek boundary, pink polygon, shown next to adjacent municipal footprints

Proposed boundary in pink. Adjacent shaded municipal footprints for scale.

Bottom line
Hope Mills works because it is tight. Spring Lake works because it is tight. Eight times the footprint and one-sixth the density is a different operating model than either of those towns. The road miles, service area, and infrastructure burden that come with that scale would be spread across a tax base too sparse to carry the same service profile.

Read the full geography analysis →

§ 04 · What we are not saying

We are not against local control.

Local zoning authority can be valuable. The question is not whether to have a town. The question is whether to have this town, with these documents, on this timeline.

PRINCIPLE

Read before you sign. Always.

A petition signature is a public record. It will be cited at the General Assembly. You can withdraw a signature, but it is harder than not signing in the first place.

PRINCIPLE

Demand the documents first.

The charter, feasibility study, boundary map, and zoning draft should be public before any signature is collected. If those documents exist, publish them.

PRINCIPLE

Help decide what comes next.

Both meetings have been held. The direction now gets chosen by residents, in the open. See the three paths and take the survey.

§ 05 · What now

The petition asked you to sign a finished plan. The next step is written by the community.

Both meetings have been held, and the question they raised is bigger than one petition: how does Gray's Creek get a real say over its own future, and who decides? Three serious paths are on the table, incorporation done right, county planning tools, and the status quo with organized watchfulness. We do not rank them. Residents choose.

See the three paths → Take the 60-second survey →
§ 06 · Stay informed · Be counted

Add your name to the record.

If you are a property owner or registered voter inside the proposed boundary, leave your information. You choose whether your name and address are listed publicly, and on which side. Email is required so we can notify you when something material in the petition changes. Nothing else is required.

Total signups
—
Opposed
—
In support
—
Undecided
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Your position
Public listing (optional)

By default, nothing you submit is published. Check a box below to add your name (and optionally address) to a public list of residents on your side of the question. We do not publish until we have verified you live or own property inside the proposed boundary.

Media contact (optional)

Local journalists are starting to cover the proposed incorporation. If you are willing to be quoted, we maintain an opt-in list of residents who have agreed to speak with verified news outlets. We share your contact information only with media we have confirmed by phone or by direct editorial-staff email at the outlet. Verified outlets in scope include the Fayetteville Observer, CityView NC, WRAL, WTVD, Spectrum News, NC Newsroom, and similar publications with editorial oversight. We do not share your information with the petitioners, political committees, or marketing lists.

No campaign list. No solicitations. Used only to notify you when the petitioners publish a document, or when something material changes.

Download handout (PDF) Budget comparison (PDF)