Effective immediately, the Halifax County Health Department is lifting the recreational water advisories, related to the South Hill warehouse fire, for the sections of the Roanoke River and Lake Gaston within five miles of the North Carolina and Virginia border.
The decision is based on guidance from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
The decision to lift these advisories mirrors the lifting of recreational advisories in Virginia by the Virginia Department of Health.
The Virginia Department of Health said it considered several factors prior to lifting these advisories to protect public safety, to include field observations from environmental field staff, weather conditions and surface water sampling to monitor concentrations of contaminants.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency have been testing these creeks and rivers since the event to assist in the evaluation of the impacts of these chemicals on public health. “Based on the above factors, recreational use and fish consumption activities may resume,” the department said.
Virginia authorities said the advisories were issued out of an abundance of caution due to a release of chemicals from an industrial fire in South Hill on July 6.
Runoff from water used to extinguish the fire created a plume which traversed along the nearby Dockery and Mountain creeks. Chemicals stored at the facility included fuel, fertilizers, herbicides and many others.
The site has since been fully contained, eliminating chemicals from the incident entering the environment.”
A Virginia DEQ team collected real-time water quality readings at six sites on Mountain, Dockery, and Miles creeks, as well as the Roanoke River/Lake Gaston.
Observations showed no foam, sheen, odor, or aquatic life mortalities. Contractors collected real-time water quality readings and water samples at eight locations along Dockery, Mountain, Miles Creeks, and the Meherrin River.
Meanwhile, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources conducted surface water sampling at multiple locations in North Carolina on the Meherrin River and Lake Gaston in advance of any potential downstream impacts in order to get baseline water quality information, and conducted additional sampling on Lake Gaston on Wednesday.
DWR staff also analyzed data from Virginia DEQ in the southern-most points by the North Carolina border, finding no indication of state standard exceedances.
