When the spill was reported to the N.C. Division of Water Quality on Aug. 4, the city originally stated that it only totaled 385,000 gallons. In a revised report sent to the state last week, the figure increased to 15.93 million gallons, because the spill may have been occurring for weeks.
Kelly Craver, Thomasville city manager, said that a manhole collapsed near Baptist Children’s Home in Thomasville, possibly due to heavy rain as early as July 13. This caused an overflow of untreated wastewater into North Hamby Creek, which is part of the Yadkin/Pee Dee River Basin. From there, it would empty into Abbott’s Creek and then High Rock Lake.
“Because it was in a remote area, it wasn’t discovered,” Craver said. “It wasn’t one of those things where it was on a city street. It was the outfall line. It was really sort of out in the middle of nowhere.”
Craver said that the city followed procedure in reporting the wastewater released from the time the spill was discovered on Aug. 3 to the time it was repaired on Aug. 4.
“In typical situations where you have a leak in the system, that’s a fairly accurate estimation of the amount of the spill,” Craver said.
He said that the delay in finding the problem was caused by a lack of communication. An employee at the Hamby Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant told the Yadkin Riverkeeper, Dean Naujoks, that the city was under-reporting a spill. Naujoks contacted the Environmental Protection Agency on Aug. 27, which began a criminal investigation into the matter.
When EPA officials looked at the data from the wastewater treatment plant, they saw that the flow to the plant was lower than normal for about two weeks. They asked the city to submit an amended report based on the new data.
Morgan Huffman, Thomasville Director of Public Services, said that if plant employees did notice unusually low numbers at that time, their concerns didn’t make it very far up the chain of command. He said that he regrets that the problem wasn’t addressed internally.
Based on the initial report, the city paid a fine of $1,616 to the state. Craver said that he expects that fine to go up after the revised estimate. He said he rode along Abbott’s Creek and High Rock Lake last week on a personal watercraft and saw no signs of environmental damage.
Naujoks said that this was the largest spill he had heard of in North Carolina, and he mentioned that it’s even larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska.
“Raw sewage has pathogens, viruses and bacteria,” Naujoks said. “This went on for 20 days, and people in High Rock Lake were essentially swimming in sewage.”
The riverkeeper said that sewer infrastructure is overlooked in favor of funding roads or schools, but the public health and environmental risks make it very important. Huffman echoed this point.
“A lot of our infrastructure has been out of sight and out of mind for a long time, and now it’s making itself known,” Huffman said. “Despite current economic times, a large investment is going to need to be made in infrastructure, not just in Thomasville, but everywhere.”
Staff Writer Karissa Minn can be reached at 888-3576 or newsdesk@tvilletimes.com.
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