By Shelley Smith
ssmith@salisburypost.com
This week’s heavy rains caused nearly 160,000 gallons of wastewater to spill into local streams and creeks, Salisbury-Rowan Utilities officials said. All the discharges happened Wednesday.
Most of the water had been treated and Salisbury-Rowan Utilities Director Jim Beamer said the spills became so diluted in swollen waterways they caused little, if any, impact on streams and the Yadkin River.
“The average flow of water in the Yadkin River is 2 billion gallons of water or less,” Beamer said Friday. “There were more than 13 billion gallons of water flowing after the past week’s rainfall.”
Utility crews “do this all the time, identifying any problems and repairing them,” Beamer said. “It was a sight to see yesterday (Thursday). With 5 inches of rain, it’s hard to contain all of the water.”
All that rain, the utility officials reported, caused a spill of approximately 38,799 gallons of untreated wastewater from its Southside pump station on Kluttz Road in Rockwell. The discharge lasted a little longer than three hours, flowing into a tributary of Dutch Second Creek.
Untreated wastewater also overflowed from two manholes in Salisbury into a tributary of Grants Creek. About 3,000 gallons escaped the manhole at 400 Mahaley Ave., and around 2,000 gallons overflowed from the one at 1408 E. Colonial Drive.
About 114,200 gallons of “primary treated” wastewater spilled from the Salisbury-Rowan Utilities wastewater treatment plant on Heiligtown Road in East Spencer into Town Creek. That is water that has been through the first phase of treatment. The spill lasted about 31/2 hours. That area got nearly 31/2 inches of rain over 24 hours.
Beamer said utility crews test sewer lines daily by sending smoke through them or using a small video camera to check for openings where water might get through. During this week’s heavy rains, caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida, crews worked 48 hours trying to keep rainwater out of the wastewater system.
He said utility workers ran tests before and after the flooding.
“We made sure there were no adverse effects,” he said. “If there was any impact, it was minimal.”
Beamer noted the department monitors the pH levels on a regular basis and does what it can to make no impact on the environment.
“What we put back into the Yadkin River is cleaner than what we take out,” he said.
The notice from Salisbury-Rowan Utilities was required by North Carolina law.