News

A third round of water sampling points to Turkey Creek’s recovery from a massive sewage spill in Raleigh.

“Of the E. coli site testing (of Turkey and Crabtree creeks), no sites failed,” water-quality intern Caroline DeGroodt said about the latest round of testing.

Caroline and fellow intern Corey Reaves were charged with weekly follow-up sampling after the first round of samples — taken two days after the spill — showed “off the chart” levels of bacteria near the spill site and half a mile downstream.

The spill occurred on May 13, was reported to North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality on May 14, but the source of the spill was a failed sewage line built to circumvent construction of the expansion of Raleigh-Durham Airport. On instructions from the City of Raleigh, the contractor pumped more than 1 million gallons of raw sewage into trucks to be disposed of in a sewer manhole. However, the crew mistook a stormwater manhole for a sewer manhole and 1.1 million gallons of sewage flowed directly into Turkey Creek, just south of Glenwood Avenue.

Raleigh Water crews flushed out the creek by hose in the days afterward. A second round of sampling the following week showed lower levels of bacteria, though they still exceeded state a federal water-quality standards.

The City of Raleigh issued a notice of violation to the responsible contractor and weighing a fine to cover the cost of the cleanup.

Like the work Sound Rivers is doing to make sure your waterways are clean? We do! Donate today to support Sound Rivers!