Dependable Erection

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

New Year's Eve at the beaver lodge





While i was up at the lodge behind KMart/Compare Foods on Avondale Drive taking these pictures, i caught a pretty good whiff of a smell that i recall strongly from my childhood, but that i don't notice much any more.

When i was a kid, my dad's work took him into all kinds of grocery stores, usually in the hours before they were open to the public. I'd go to work with him on occasion, entering the A&P from the back and walking through the frigid rooms with their pink, white, and grey sides of beef hanging from hooks, bright purple USDA stamps declaring that they had, in fact, been inspected by someone. There's a very particular smell that beef fat takes on after it's been trimmed from the carcass and discarded.

And that's what i smelled yesterday behind the Compare Foods. It took me a few minutes to track down the source.


this grey tinged water bubbling up from a sewer manhole behind the store, running a couple of gallons a minute into the beaver pond, seemed to be the culprit. Fortunately, when i went around to the front of the store to do my grocery shopping, i ran into a guy driving a Durham Water & Sewer maintenance truck, and told him about what i had found around back. Unfortunately, when i went back to the leak after doing my shopping, the guys from Neighborhood Improvement Services who were back there picking up old pallets told me that no one from Stormwater had come by. So i phoned it in to Durham One-Call. I'm going to head back there shortly to check if anyone from the city has stopped by.

In the meantime, it was also nice to see that the parking lot in front of KMart was getting put to good use.

Kevin reports that some leases have been signed for about half of the available space at KMart. I'm not sanguine that either the owners or the new tenants appreciate the natural beauty and significance of the area around that shopping center, but business is certainly preferable to vacancy, at this point.

UPDATE: Greasy water continues to bubble up behind the Compare Foods and into the beaver pond as of 5 pm New Year's Day.

My layman's guess is that we're looking at 2-3 gallons per minute.

I just spoke with someone at Water and Sewer who said that a crew did go out yesterday after i reported to One Call, and confirmed my suspicion that a grease trap is blocking the line and causing overflow, but that it's on private property and there's nothing else the city can do at this time except notify the owners that there's a problem.

Does that seem sufficient to anyone else? The water is definitely heading straight into the beaver pond.


UPDATE II: From the ECWA list:
As far as I know, that the beaver pond is public waters, and not privately owned, so you are right that makes a sewage spill a Clean Water Act violation. The NC Division of Water Quality is the place to report it. If the City has neglected to follow up on your report (they should have auto-dialers and emergency response even on a holiday), that should be even further reason for penalizing.

Here’s the number from DWQ’s website “to report an environmental emergency” (this counts!) 1-800-858-0368.

I would also recommend a follow up call to the Raleigh Regional Office, 919/791-4200, where they handle enforcement in Triangle area counties. Here’s a map: http://www.enr.state.nc.us/html/regionaloffices.html

They may have another emergency number, or just ask that the message be relayed to the Water Quality staff assigned to Durham County. Definitely ask that they call you back, so you’ll know that someone’s taking action! I’ll be glad to work with you later to follow up and see what action was actually taken.


That's from someone at Clean Water for NC.

I've called the state DWQ number and made sure they're aware of this. To be honest, "my work here is done." I (nor any other citizen who deals with local issues like these) should have to make it a part-time job to follow up with various agencies making sure that stuff likes this gets taken care of. That's why we pay our public servants salaries.

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6 Comments:

  • There seem to be an awful lot of environmental, health, safety and zoning violations that the city just can't seem to do anything about.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:34 PM  

  • That's why i blog, i guess.

    By Blogger Barry, at 5:57 PM  

  • Nice to see that Mayor Billy is on top of things. Oh yeah, it's probably somebody else's problem.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:53 PM  

  • Seriously. How many city staffers do we have and what the hell do they spend their time doing?

    By Blogger Natalie, at 3:54 PM  

  • Durham Stormwater Services has an ongoing enforcement case against Compare Foods on this discharge. Jonathan Baker is the lead investigator and can provide more details, if necessary. He and other staff members have visited the site several times, have talked to managers, and have sent Notices of Violation (NOV) to both the property owner and the tenant (Compare Foods.) The tenant’s attorney requested an explanatory meeting on the NOV held December 21, and attended by Senior Assistant City Attorney Emanuel McGirt. Their attorney brought engineering plans from when the location was a Winn-Dixie that they intended to us to demonstrate that other businesses may be causing the problem. The plans show that only Compare Foods discharges to the grease trap (first two manholes) and furthermore the plans do not show that any other business discharges to the third manhole immediately downstream from the grease trap.

    Initially the sewage was coming from the first manhole, indicating that the grease trap was clogged; now the sewage is coming from the third manhole. It may be that the tenant has cleaned out the grease trap, and is assuming the property owner is responsible for the manhole. Fine amounts are mounting while the finger-pointing plays out. The maximum fine for first time violations is $2,000. However, each day of a continuing violation is a separate offense. The fines will be far in excess of the cost of a plumber to remove a grease blockage.

    On the stormwater side, we are pursuing enforcement to get the discharge eliminated.

    So the answer is that it takes several City staffers to deal with recalcitrant individuals, and we are required to follow due process. The City maintenance folks are correct that they have done all that THEY can do, but other staffers are prosecuting this case.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:58 PM  

  • Thank you, Mr. Voorhees. If my photos can be used as evidence, let me know and i'll be happy to share them with the city.

    By Blogger Barry, at 7:36 PM  

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