Flooding, Hurricane Debby & Wetlands
Hurricane Debby caused major flooding in the Haw and continues to cause flooding in the eastern part of the state beyond when we saw the Haw crest last Thursday. These kinds of flood events will likely be more frequent with climate change. As the ocean heats up, more water is being sucked into these storm systems.
Flood water is dangerous, and not just because of the force and volume of water!
During Hurricane Debby, there were five sanitary sewer overflows, four of which were in Greensboro and one in Durham. See this link for the GIS monitoring of these overflows. 1,500 gallons of untreated wastewater entered Greensboro's North Buffalo Creek and another 8,400 gallons of sewage from other overflows went into the Cape Fear River basin.
When stormwater systems are inundated with water, they can cause back ups in the sewer systems which leads to overflows. Additionally, pump stations are often located near streams because it is the lowest point, where gravity requires the water in the pipes to be pumped uphill. These pump stations can flood and release massive amounts of untreated wastewater.
In major flooding events like this, our team keeps a close eye on our trash traps. Log jams that break free upstream can rush downriver and slam into our traps, causing serious damage. Luckily, only one of our trash traps was impacted by the log jam and there was no damage. Madison and Emily worked to clear the log jam in Pittsboro today! The rest of our traps rode out the storm as they are designed to!
Current sediment control measures are generally intended to handle storm events that occur once every 10 to 15 years. However, with larger and more frequent storms resulting from climate change, these measures are overwhelmed, leading to overflows and ineffectiveness in containing sediment. We saw -and continue to see- incredibly muddy streams in the watershed. Our state and local governments should be requiring developers to plan for these larger storm events as they become more frequent.
In areas where wetlands have been preserved and protected, the water receded quickly from roads and creeks and floodplains, and has been held to slowly infiltrate into the soil by the wetland. In areas where wetlands have been paved over the flood water remained in the streets for days. Our Water Quality Program Manager, Kaitlyn, saw this very problem in her neighborhood with Hurricane Debby.
Wetlands are our most effective and essential tool for flood control, and they provide countless other benefits. Our wetlands are no longer protected in North Carolina.
Join Emily on a wetland hike on August 24, 2024. You'll learn more about how we can claw back protections for these amazing and integral places. Link to register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSePFv0Q4BNSHoRWAFL6uLr-jL3SH7PNi1OKz-Pl76lxdn7JtQ/viewform