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Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop and Water Quality Specialist Taylor Register were up to their knees in swamp mud on Wednesday, seeking answers to the elusive source of Slocum Creek pollution.

“Last month, we knocked on doors in the Wolf Pit Branch neighborhood, handing out flyers about the Slocum Creek pollution problem, and we had two people consent to us using their property to access the creek behind their houses,” Taylor said. “Early this morning, Sam and I were able to finally get out there, but we found out there was much more water than we previously thought. We had thought it was a more of a wetland system, but there’s a full running creek that’s surrounded by lots of deep mud.”

The outing was the latest in Sound Rivers’ attempt to narrow down the source of pollution in the popular recreational creek, Havelock’s only tributary and access to the Neuse River. Over the past two years, the Riverkeeping team has consulted with city officials, which resulted in the city determining it was not the culprit, based on extensive smoke and CCTV testing of their sewer system. The team then headed out multiple times via kayak, paddling up the creek to take water samples upstream and downstream of each Slocum Creek tributary. In winter of 2023, results finally revealed an answer: bacteria from human waste is entering Slocum Creek from Wolf Pit Branch. Samantha and Taylor then teamed up with the Craven County Health Department to get educational resources to homeowners in the Wolf Pit Branch area, a low-income neighborhood relying on septic systems. Later, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality did its own sampling in the Wolf Pit Branch area, the results of which backed up conclusions drawn by the Riverkeeping team.

As a result of last month’s outing to knock on doors in the area, Samantha and Taylor were given backyard access to Wolf Pit Branch. Wednesday was their first attempt to collect water samples much farther upstream than has previously been accessible.

“Went out with high hopes, but it was a swampy nightmare. We tried to walk out to the creek and sunk knee-deep in mud,” Taylor laughed. “It was definitely interesting. It was fun, but not what we were expecting.”

Samantha and Taylor were able to collect samples from three locations, and those results returned Thursday with bacteria counts eight time higher than at the Slocum Creek Swim Guide site, which also continues to fail to meet water-quality standards.

“Looking at our results from yesterday’s attempt at sampling, we’re seeing the same thing we have for months now: the bacteria levels upstream in Wolf Pit Branch are significantly higher than in the main stem of the creek,” Taylor said. “Since this first round of sampling was so limited due to us sinking in the swamp, we weren’t really expecting to find any groundbreaking news from these results, rather just confirm all of our previous months of data. We’re really looking forward to getting back out there on kayaks so we can take several samples all up and down that main channel of Wolf Pit, and hopefully then we can get a clearer idea of exactly where this pollution is coming from.” 

Though the swampy area was smelly, Taylor said they didn’t see anything that raised red flags on this trip.

“It definitely smelled pretty rough back there, but it smelled more like decaying organic material rather than bacteria from sewage, and we didn’t see any drainage issues or pipes,” Taylor said. “But we were kind of limited in where we could get to, so hopefully, by getting out there in kayaks, we might be able to see something then.”

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Click on the video below to see Wolf Pit Branch in the area Samantha and Taylor were sampling. Click on the full screen icon in the bottom right to view on laptop or desktop.