 |
Nearly 850,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the Catawba River Friday. DAVIE HINSHAW DHINSHAW@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM
Nearly 850,000 gallons of raw sewage —
more than enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool — spilled into the
Catawba River near Old Dowd Road on Friday.
The spill
happened near the Paw Creek Lift Station as a construction crew was working
there, according to Cam Coley, a spokesman for Charlotte Water. It was the
largest spill of untreated wastewater in Charlotte in more than a year.
The spill
was downstream of Mountain Island Lake, the source of Charlotte’s drinking
water, and Coley said he did not expect it would affect drinking water.
But
Mecklenburg County’s Land Use and Environmental Services Agency will conduct
water quality tests to determine whether to issue no-swim advisories in any of
the nearby water, Coley said.
Charlotte
Water is also notifying downstream water utilities as well as the South
Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Coley said.
The spill
was caused by a “pipe alignment issue” during the construction project at the
lift station, Charlotte Water said in a news release.
Crews
were able to prevent an additional 99,000 gallons from reaching the river by
pumping it and hauling it to another part of the wastewater system for
treatment, Charlotte Water said.
While
Friday’s sewage spill was large, it was by no means the most massive to occur
in Charlotte. More than 2 million gallons spilled from a broken wastewater pipe
near the Stewart Creek Greenway in February 2020. Another spill in 2018 released
more than 15 million gallons into Long Creek.
Coley
said Charlotte Water pumps 91 million gallons of wastewater each day, and that
spills of this magnitude are rare.
“This is
still a very large spill and we take it very seriously,” Coley said.
