News

The City of Rocky Mount has been hit with a notice of violation and a potential $25,000 civil penalty by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

The NOV stems from a site inspection at one of Rocky Mount’s water treatment plants where DEQ staff witnessed foams, solids and highly turbid water being discharged into the Tar River from a plant outfall.

The site inspection happened because an anonymous tipster — fishing at the Tar River Reservoir — noticed the issue and called it in to Sound Rivers.

“It definitely just shows the importance of people keeping an eye out and letting us know when something doesn’t look right,” said Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman. “And this was good work on DEQ’s part because they responded immediately and have now resolved an issue that may or not have been spotted if we hadn’t gotten that call.”

On May 8 — the day after Katey received the anonymous tip — DEQ was on the site, and instructed plant management to cease operations immediately, after testing showed the discharge flowing into the Tar River had levels of turbidity and total suspended solids far exceeding effluent permit limits. The discharge’s turbidity was at 800 NTU, where the limit is 50 NTU, and total suspended solids are allowable up to 45 mg/liter, but measured 1,200 mg/liter in the discharge tested that day.

“Their permit specifically says no foams or solids are allowed but in trace amounts, and you can definitely see foam and solids in the pictures,” Katey said. “But I think the biggest takeaway from the NOV, is it says instruction to cease plant operations was received by phone call and followed up in an email on May 8, but they continued to discharge until the afternoon of May 9.”

The water treatment plant has not been in operation since May 9.

According to the City’s response, the issue was a failure of equipment used to remove sludge from one of two settling basins on the site, so all discharge was being pumped into the remaining basin.

“Doubling the volume of water, more turbidity from the pumping and less time to settle in the basin added up to sludge being discharged into the river,” Katey said.

Whether a civil penalty will be assessed has yet to be determined. According to DEQ staff, the decision is weighted by overall compliance record and how egregious the violation is.

“It seems like their not ceasing to discharge when they were told to may play into that, but we’ll see,” Katey said.

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