News

Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman was in Rocky Mount this week, taking water samples at the site of a recent 1.7-million-gallon sewage spill.

Her goal was to provide a baseline of bacteria levels at the site before this week’s heavy rains from Tropical Storm Debby.

“The purpose of sampling before the rain upstream and downstream of Rocky Mount’s frequent spill site is to get a better idea of what the bacteria levels in the Tar River at this location before a heavy rainfall and another potential spill,” Katey said. “Based on past spills, we predict that with more than 2 inches of rain, this manhole on Riverside Drive will overflow.”

She sampled and tested water on the Tar River, upstream and downstream of the site. Both samples met recreational water-quality standards before the rain.

“If there’s another spill, I’ll go back to Rocky Mount and take bacteria samples at the same sites to compare the bacteria levels pre- and post-spill. Theoretically, the upstream site will still pass — but likely be higher than pre-storm levels because of runoff — and the downstream site will likely fail due the introduction of large amounts of untreated sewage into the river.” 

Two weeks ago, Riverside Drive had back-to-back sewage spills. On July 24, 42,000 gallons of sewage spilled from a manhole at that location. The following day, the spill started up again, this time dumping a total of 1,746,000 gallons of sewage over a three-day period.

Over the past six years, Rocky Mount has had 70 sewage spills, with the largest number of them happening at Riverside Drive. As the Riverside Drive manhole is framed by stormwater drains on either side of the street, the more than 4 million gallons of sewage spilled at the site has flowed through the stormwater drains into the Tar River, right next to a park.

Katey will be following up with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to get a better understanding of when civil penalties are given out (Rocky Mount has only had four penalties issued, for a total of $6,198) and the decision-making process used to put a local government under a Special Order of Consent, requiring the pollution-causing issues to be fixed under a strict deadline.

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