News

A Rocky Mount water treatment plant was asked to cease its discharge last week, after a tip led North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality staff to murky water flowing from an outfall.

“Last Wednesday, I got a call at the office from an anonymous caller who said he was fishing at the Tar River Reservoir, and just downstream of the dam, he noticed some really rusty colored discharge coming out of a pipe,” said Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman.

Katey promptly identified where the site was by studying the permitting map.

“I saw that it was likely where the water treatment plant is located,” she said.

Katey sent the photos and a video the anonymous caller had sent to a few staff members at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and got a quick response.

“That was later in the afternoon on Wednesday, and the next morning got an email back from Jesse Barnes, an environmental specialist with DEQ, saying he was going to go and check it out,” she said. “The same afternoon, I got another email saying he observed quite turbid effluent coming out of the outfall, grabbed some samples for total suspended solids and turbidity and said the facility has been asked to cease their discharge.”

Katey, who worked at a water treatment plant for a semester in college, said the water appeared to be the same color as sludge — what could be a sign that the water is not being properly treated before it’s being discharge.

“I’ve never seen water discharge look like that before, so it’s great that he asked them to cease the discharge,” Katey said. “But since it’s a water treatment plant, they can’t cease it indefinitely. That water has to go somewhere.”

She said she was glad to see such a quick and effective response from NCDEQ.

“I’m also looking forward to hearing about those lab results,” she said.

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