NEWS RELEASE
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NEWS RELEASE
SEVERE WEATHER LEADS TO SMALL SEWER SPILL CARY, NC – Friday night’s storms caused power outages and about four inches of rain, swelling creeks and leading to a wastewater pump station overflow in southeastern Cary. About 1,500 gallons of untreated wastewater escaped from the Hollybrook pump station at 4908 Hollybrook Drive, running into a rain swollen unnamed tributary of Middle Creek. No fish kill was observed.Repair crews were called to the scene around 1:30 AM and again at 3:30 AM Saturday by an automated dialer, which alerts public works crews to pump station problems via telephone. By the time crews arrived around 20 minutes after each call, power had been restored and the station was operating normally again, but in the second instance, enough wastewater had backed up to overwhelm the pumps once power was restored. Because of the fast-moving, high volume of water in the swollen stream, the untreated wastewater was heavily diluted making stream cleanup unnecessary. To decrease such incidents, the Town of Cary has for the last several years appropriated tens of thousands of dollars to eventually equip all of its 29 pump stations with some level of backup power. The Clean Water Act requires a news release be issued by public works operators whenever a wastewater spill of 1,000 gallons or greater reaches surface waters. ###
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