Fish kills cause concern

Since Hurricane Irene, Riverkeepers and residents have noticed a distinct odor coming from the Neuse and Trent rivers.

Larry Baldwin, Lower Neuse Riverkeeper, said the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation has been monitoring the water quality of the Neuse and Trent rivers and there are concerns about the condition and safety of the two river systems. 

“Our monitoring is showing very low levels of dissolved oxygen in the waters from the upper Trent River above Pollocksville to the Neuse River,” Baldwin said. “In the Neuse River it is primarily in the area around New Bern downstream below James City and to Black Beacon Point. Further monitoring will continue over the next few weeks.”

Baldwin and volunteers were on the river Tuesday doing more sampling.

“It is pretty widespread at this point,” he said. “… We are getting a lot of reports in the Greensprings/James City area from what looks like a line of oil coming up on property and beaches. It is more than oil, I believe.”

Baldwin said to his knowledge no one from the state has been monitoring the rivers, but he planned to contact them

Richard Skinner, who lives upriver from the railroad bridge spanning from New Bern to Bridgeton, said he began noticing fish and crabs dying about two days before the hurricane.

“I’ve lived on the river for 59 years and seen many fish kills,” Skinner said. “This one is different. This thing started a day and a half or two days before the hurricane. What was so odd about it was the crabs were trying to get out of the water. They were trying to get on the shore and in the yards. The next day they started dying.”

Usually during a fish kill there are thousands of menhaden washed up on the surface near the shores, Skinner said. This time it is striped bass, white fish and catfish, he said.

“Something happened before this storm,” he said. “Now the crabs are dying. I know the storm probably helped. I don’t doubt that one bit. But there was something in that water before this storm.”

Peggie Vaughan, who lives next to the Neuse River in Bridgeton, said since the hurricane her family has stayed off the water, not using their jet skis or their boat.

“We don’t even want to touch the water,” she said. “Over the weekend we saw people on the river on jet skis. It is amazing someone would even think about doing that.”

Vaughan said her family can’t sit out on their porch at night because of the odor that even burns their eyes.

“On Saturday or Sunday, when the storm went through, there was a horrible sewer smell,” Vaughan said. “I heard somebody say when the storm came through the sewer plant near Glenburnie (Drive) overflowed and possibly went into the river.”

Jordan Hughes, city engineer, said there were several sanitary sewer overflows caused by the tremendous amount of rainfall and widespread power outages during the hurricane. But the wastewater treatment plant on Glenburnie Drive did not have any overflows, he said.

The treatment plant stayed operational during the storm by using three stand-by generators. During the peak of the storm, the plant was processing about 15 million gallons per day of wastewater flow. On an average day the plant processes 3 million to 4 million gallons per day, Hughes said.

However, flooding caused several portions of the sewer collection system to be completely inundated, Hughes said. City workers continually rotated 20 mobile stand-by generators around the clock to keep the majority of pump stations operational, he said.

Unfortunately, there was spillage that reached surface waters, Hughes said. They included 6,000 gallons at the pump station at South Front Street; 2,400 gallons at Laura Lane; 25,488 gallons at Canterbury Road; 600 gallons at Pine Tree Drive; 600 gallons at East Front Street; 500 gallons at Neuse Harbor; 2,400 gallons at Nechastol Road and 12,000 gallons at Batts Hill Road, he said. 

All of those spills were handled, recovered and reported to the N.C. Division of Water Quality, Hughes said.

“While these are all considered sanitary sewer spills, the majority of what was “spilled” is actually storm water runoff that enters the sanitary sewer collection when streets and manholes are flooded,” he said. 

The Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation has the equipment to monitor for fecal matter and coliform in the water but has not yet been able to test for those components because the laboratories have not been open since the hurricane, Baldwin said.

In addition to low levels of dissolved oxygen, salinity levels are also very low, which would be expected with the large amount of rainwater that entered the river during the hurricane, Baldwin said.

Turbidity levels — a measure of how well light can penetrate the water — also have indicated a lot of particulate matter in the water column. The pH levels — a measure of how acidic or basic the waters are — are fluctuating between high and low levels, also indicating a large influx of pollutants, he said.

An investigation also will continue to discover the sources of the pollutants entering the river, which could include all types of influences. Since the Neuse River basin has been in a drought for many months, the application of pollutants has not been washed into the rivers over time, but instead have built up in the soils, Baldwin said.

“With the large amount of rain we received from Hurricane Irene, (there has been) a huge amount of storm water entering the river system, carrying large amounts and high concentrations of pollutants,” he said.

Crab fishermen have reported that the crab populations also have suffered. Dead fish of all species have been noted by the NRF and volunteers, as well as concerned citizens throughout the area, Baldwin said.

“People of this area need to know what the concerns are,” Baldwin said. “Being a non-government agency, we can’t make a statement that the water is too dangerous to be in. It is my recommendation that people avoid the water at this point. Obviously, something is going on there. The water stinks, and it leaves a film on you when you are in it.”

If people do come in contact with the river water, Baldwin suggests taking a shower as quick as possible.

“The fact is we are seeing dead fish in the river and that is not a good sign,” he said.

Eddie Fitzgerald can be reached at 252-635-5675 or at efitzgerald@freedomenc.com