News

Reports of murky water in a normally pristine creek sent Sound Rivers’ staff into the field this week to investigate.

Water Quality Specialist Taylor Seijo, Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman and Volunteer Coordinator Emily Fritz spent Tuesday attempting to trace the source of sediment pollution downstream of multiple developments along N.C. Highway 70 in James City.

“Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources’ staff went out to the developments and conducted site visits, but unfortunately did not find any sediment and erosion control violations or reasons as to why the creek has been intermittently turbid,” Taylor said. “But there’s still sediment getting into Brice’s Creek somehow — and a lot of it from what we’ve seen — so the Riverkeeping team has moved into investigation mode for this issue.”

The team first pinpointed areas along the creek where sediment could be entering from the development site.

“Our current thinking is that this might be a dewatering discharge issue, where the construction site will pump out water from their stormwater basins before the sediment has time to settle,” Taylor said.

The next goal was to get on the water to see if there were any pipes or other signs pointing to dewatering discharge as the source. With little public access to the waterway in this area, the team decided to paddle two miles upstream to see what they could find.

“Emily, Katey and I went out with our kayaks and high hopes that this would be a quick trip to figure out what was going on,” Taylor said. “However, that was not the case. Shortly after we got out there, we realized the water was incredibly shallow, and that particular tributary of the creek is more of a braided wetland situation. So that left us with having to drag our kayaks through a very narrow channel with just a couple inches of water and tons of cypress knees to trip on.”

After many hours of bug bites and blisters, they were not remotely close to the part of the creek they had pinned. They decided to regroup and make a new plan. The next steps include scheduling some aerial surveillance to see what they can learn from above, driving around the project area and inspecting it from all sides, and sampling downstream on the main channel of Brices Creek to see if the other sediment reports Sound Rivers has received are related or a separate issue.

“Sometimes we get lucky with our investigations, and we’re able to figure it out after just one day of field work, but unfortunately most of the time that’s not the case,” Taylor said. “Field conditions aren’t always as we expect, a lot of issues are triggered by weather events, and we want to make sure we have as much information and proof as possible before we start making any strong conclusions. So, we’re continuing to look into this issue, and will provide more updates as soon as we get it figured out. As always, we greatly appreciate our community members who keep an eye out on their waterways and alert us to issues like this one.” 

Like the work your Riverkeeping team is doing to hunt down pollution and put a stop to it? We love it! Donate today to support their work!