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Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman and water-quality intern Tierney Reardon launched an investigation this week to determine why one Swim Guide site has continuously failed to meet recreational water-quality standards this summer.

Since Swim Guide started Memorial Day weekend, Havens Gardens in Washington has been given a failing grade five out of nine weeks. A Swim Guide fail means elevated levels of fecal bacteria in the water, which can come with increased risk of gastrointestinal illness and skin infections for pets and humans alike.

“Tierney and I went out on Runyon Creek in kayaks so that we could take some bacteria samples, as well as YSI-meter readings from five different sites, to see if we can figure out where these increased levels of bacteria are coming from,” Katey said.

While Sound Rivers takes Havens Gardens water samples from the kayak launch on Runyon Creek, the North Carolina Department of Quality’s Division of Water Resources takes biweekly samples from the Havens Gardens pier on the Pamlico River for its Recreational Water Quality program. At that location, levels of fecal bacteria have been well within recreational water-quality standards this summer, up until this week.*

Katey said she believed the source of Runyon Creek bacteria may be found up the creek. The samples she and Tierney collected confirmed that when results came back Thursday: of the five sample sites — the kayak launch, out in the Pamlico, at Maple Branch where it joins the creek, at another small inlet on the west side of the creek, and one upstream — only one showed elevated levels of fecal bacteria.

“Upstream where the small inlet comes in, it was real stinky there — not typically swampy stinky — it could be sewage stinky,” Katey said. “It might be the reason Havens Gardens has been failing.”

Katey will continue to narrow down the source of the pollution.

*NCDEQ issued Swim Advisories for Havens Gardens and the railroad trestle in Washington on Thursday, after samples taken by DWR on Tuesday and Wednesday found elevated levels of fecal bacteria. However, the Sound Rivers sample taken on the Pamlico on Wednesday near the same location met state standards (60 MPN, where standard is 104 MPN).