Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 30, 1990 TAG: 9004020179
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Long
But there are other days, usually after a heavy rain, when the creek turns rusty red and the bottom is hidden from view.
"This'll clear up," Bob Conrad said last week, looking out at the murky water around his boat landing near Newbern. "All this red will settle down."
Conrad Bros. Marina is about five miles downstream from where state officials say industrial waste is polluting the creek with heavy metals.
"I don't think it's a detriment to anyone," Conrad said. "I've been swimming and diving in here for the last 30 years, and I'm still healthful."
Still, he'd like to see the creek cleaned up.
So far, officials say the only real populations affected by the metals have been aquatic insects that lived along the creek, which flows into Claytor Lake.
"The concentrations [of metals] in the sediments are high enough to present a real possibility of high concentrations in the fish of Claytor Lake," Larry Willis, a state biologist, wrote in a report for the water control board last November. "I recommend fish sampling as soon as possible to determine the potential for human health risk."
Chip Foster, an environmental manager for the state Water Control Board, said Tuesday that fish testing would begin Tuesday.
"It will take a few weeks to get the results back," he said.
In the meantime, children have been riding dirt bikes along the creek and through the old Allied Chemical dump site behind Pulaski Mall, said Pat McCoy, who lives on the banks of the Peak Creek section of Claytor Lake. Officials have said most of the metal seems to be entering the creek from waste piles on the plant property.
"Kids play along the creek and they play in the dump site," McCoy said.
Jeff Johnson, 14, said he likes to walk along property near the creek where the clay cap that covers the waste has eroded, leaving behind wine-colored crevices - some more than 5 feet deep.
"It looks like the Grand Canyon," he said Tuesday. "My shoes are probably still purple from walking through it."
Johnson and Chris Knotter, 15, often walk along the banks of the creek, skipping rocks and looking at the water.
Closer to the lake, Peter Ward, who is part-owner of Rock House Marina near Newbern, said fishermen talk about red color before they take out their boats.
"It's getting worse as the publicity goes on," he said.
Conrad said he also worries that the publicity will keep people from fishing on the lake.
"I hope people don't hear about this and start going to Smith Mountain Lake," Conrad said.
Richard Johnson, superintendent of Claytor Lake State Park, also is concerned.
"We are worried about the adverse publicity," he said. "We're worried about the rumors that seem to be proliferating. Until there's more monitoring and testing, we don't know what impact this will have."
Johnson said that if a health problem does develop, people will be notified.
"I hope people don't jump to conclusions," he said.
Last year 325,000 people visited the park and its 20,000-acre lake.
"People in Pulaski call this the flower of the county," McCoy said. "Look what they're letting happen to it."
Officials with the Water Control Board say industrial waste has leached into the creek on and off since the mid-1970s. That's when Conrad first noticed the red in the water and called the board.
"This is like any other stream around industry," Conrad said. "It gets polluted. I'd be glad for them to clean it up. It'd be nice if they'd do something, but it's been going on so long . . . "
The metals that have settled on the creek's bottom include iron, lead, selenium, copper and zinc.
"It's upsetting, to say the least," said Richard Stanford, spokesman for Triangle Bassmasters of the New River Valley. "They say the metals are in sediment, which is in the bottom - but fish feed off the bottom."
Ward said the area near his boat landing usually is full of fish.
"We feed them by hand," he said. But there haven't been as many lately.
Willis' report shows a low number of organisms at the bridge at Virginia 99, indicating a toxicity problem. Last May he found no life at all.
The problems in the creek have been going on too long for some residents who live near it's banks.
"On a bad day when the sun's coming up, it looks like someone's been cleaning a whale," said McCoy, who has lived near the creek for three years. "I'm perturbed that it's [the pollution] been there so long and nothing is being done. Some days I look out there and it's completely red. But that's just the way it looks - I'm concerned about what's in it."
When the water level is down, McCoy said, the red color can be seen on rocks along the shoreline.
"This is no small problem," McCoy said. "I wouldn't eat anything that came out of this lake."
Willis said last week that the Water Control Board has asked Pulaski's Downtown East Inc., the corporation that now owns the old Allied Chemical property in town, to clean up the waste piles that seem to be creating the problem in the creek.
But Willis' report also mentions a lawsuit filed in 1980 by Downtown East against the Pulaski Mall to determine who is responsible for runoff into the creek.
The suit has dragged on for 10 years and is scheduled to continue in Pulaski County Circuit Court this morning.
Foster of the Water Control Board said a cap of clay apparently had been placed over the waste and the runoff into the creek was temporarily halted.
"We're trying to figure out why it resurfaced," he said.
Foster said that even if Downtown East stops the runoff, or diverts it, the metals are in the creek's sediment and won't go away.
Willis said he hopes that once the problem is stopped the pollution will be buried by uncontaminated sediment. But the process could take years.
by CNB