Thousands of gallons of sewage spill near protected waters in Onslow County
ONSLOW COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) - Thousands of gallons of sewage have ended up in a protected creek on our coast.
ONWASA said they learned of the spill around 10:00 a.m. this morning at the Halls Creek pumping station on Hammocks Beach Road.
The utility estimates that 16,500 gallons of untreated sewage got into a tributary of Halls Creek due to an electrical malfunction.
Halls Creek is listed by the state as “high quality waters” due to commercial shellfishing. It flows into Queens Creek which then goes into the Intracoastal Waterway about a mile away.
ONWASA said temporary emergency equipment was set up to get the pump station back online. They determined a controller shorted out the pump station’s entire electrical panel.
The utility said it has begun cleanup operations and has notified the North Carolina Division of Water Quality.
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