Charleston Waterkeeper Executive Director Andrew Wunderley says this year’s analysis of bacterial contamination in Charleston County’s rivers and streams feels all too common.
“It’s a little bit like deja vu for us,” he recently told the Charleston City Paper. “We know what the problem is. The question now is whether we can muster the political and community will to try and actually fix it.”
Charleston Waterkeeper has been testing the levels of harmful bacteria in Lowcountry waters each summer for more than a decade. And while levels generally don’t fluctuate much, stormwater and coastal flooding can cause levels of bacteria to spike and linger way above state standards.
When skies are clear and stormwater runoff eventually leaves from local rivers and creeks, bacteria levels in most waterways hover between 10 and 100 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters (cfu/mL) of water, well within safe standards for swimming. But tests done on a half dozen waterways in the area consistently deliver high levels of harmful bacteria.
For example, Filbin Creek, located near a decades-old and now-closed paper mill in North Charleston, consistently delivers readings for Charleston Waterkeeper’s Swim Alert project that are more than twice over the state’s water quality standard of 104 bacterial cfu/100 mL. But in the wake of the recent storms, it spiked to more than 150 times over the standard — for the fifth year in a row.
Other problem areas with spiked levels of unsafe bacteria include Ellis Creek on James Island and three locations along Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant. After more than 9 inches of rain at the end of August, three other areas showed elevated levels, including parts of Ashley River near Northbridge Park, a section of Hobcaw Creek in Mount Pleasant and another James Island Creek.
Visit charlestonwaterkeeper.org for a detailed breakdown of the 20 tested sites. Numbers are updated weekly through October.
‘Just gross’
Waves of rain bands last month from Hurricane Erin brought severe flooding across the Lowcountry, even though the storm never made landfall. When coastal plains are inundated with water, it carries enterococcus (or fecal) bacteria from the ground into local rivers, creeks and channels. If people jump in for a quick dip, they may encounter so much bacteria that they get gastrointestinal illness, eye and ear infections, skin rashes and more.
“Stormwater is just gross,” Cheryl Carmack, a water quality specialist for Charleston Waterkeeper, said in last year’s report. “It’s so disgusting, and often when we have these big storms, sewers overflow as well, and we see issues with that.”
It can take weeks for levels to come back down after a heavy storm like Hurricane Erin, as the flow of water brings the bacteria from further inland toward the coast.
Some progress made, more to be done
Charleston Waterkeeper has spent the last decade raising awareness of the issue in an effort to keep people out of the contaminated water. And things have gotten a lot better, Wunderley said.
“You see it happening less and less, and you see more people warning others about it now, too,” he said. “But we always need more eyeballs on it, and now, we need more investment in stormwater infrastructure.”
Wunderley said the city of Charleston has been a big leader when it comes to stormwater awareness and infrastructure, but the problem is far from isolated to the peninsula.
“We do a lot of talking about stormwater quantity — keeping the water out and installing bigger drains — but we don’t talk enough about stormwater quality,” he said. “The bottom line is, it’s not very good.
“When we have big flood events, that’s an ecological disaster for our waterways,” Wunderley added. “It’s not just about flooding on the peninsula. It happens all over, and it’s especially concerning in communities that are still relying on septic tanks.”
Septic tanks cause big issues
Septic tanks are havens for these harmful bacteria colonies. When septic drain fields and floodwaters mix, you end up with huge amounts of contaminated waterways.
“It quickly becomes a public issue,” Wunderley said. “What we have going on right now is incredible growth pressure at a time when our climate is changing, and these flood events are becoming more common and more severe. At the same time, the state of South Carolina is permitting septic tanks being installed in sensitive coastal areas. … The state has really failed to lead on this issue.”
Wunderley said there needs to be a robust set of regulations to prevent septic tanks from being permitted in dense clusters, such as the proposed White Tract project that would install more than 100 septic tanks in about the same number of acres in Awendaw.
“We should have a collective water plan for the whole coastal plain in the state,” he said. “In the Lowcountry, you always have one foot on land and one in the water. We live in a way that’s so connected to and dependent upon the surrounding estuary. That’s true in Charleston, but it’s also true throughout the coastal counties.”
Stay informed via web, app
Charleston Waterkeeper offers two big ways for residents to check the levels of bacteria in their nearby creeks before heading out for a swim or fishing trip.
The group’s Swim Alert page online keeps detailed records of bacteria levels in 20 different waterways across the Lowcountry. From the Ashley River to unnamed creeks on the sea islands, Waterkeeper has its hands in the water. Residents can find results dating back to May online to see how weather patterns have affected bacteria levels.
Charleston Waterkeeper also partners with Swim Guide, a mobile app that several Waterkeeper organizations across the country use to share their data for public use. The group shares the data they collect as well as beach data from the state’s Department of Environmental Services.
“You can stand on Folly Beach, pull up the app and see what the most recent water quality data is,” Wunderley said. “It’s a neat, handy thing. It gives you the data in a really simplified way.”
Water quality failure percentage
The chart below details how often the sites Charleston Waterkeeper test for dangerous bacteria are deemed unsafe.
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