Banks Channel waters often contaminated

Wrightsville Beach | Leila Garriss, of Wilmington, knows firsthand what can happen when someone swims in water with high levels of bacteria. Last summer, her son Cole came down with a fever and gastrointestinal problems after taking a dip in Wrightsville Beach's Banks Channel south of the Blockade Runner Beach Resort Hotel.

It took doctors several days and many tests to discover the cause of the infection - a bacteria normally found in duck feces. Cole eventually had to undergo a kidney ultrasound and a urinary tract analysis. "A 3-year-old shouldn't have to go through something like that," Garriss said.

The stretch of Banks Channel south of Causeway Drive is popular with boaters, kayakers and families looking for a safe paddling area away from the ocean's waves and currents.

But the stretch of waterway is also familiar for something else.

Like clockwork, a swimming advisory seems to be issued for the channel every time there's a substantial rainfall.

State health officials on Wednesday issued the first advisory of the summer after a heavy summertime storm soaked the resort town Monday night.

The warning against water-contact activities - including swimming - within 200 feet of the sign was posted at the Hanover Seaside Club near Iula Street. It was lifted Thursday afternoon after water samples came back within safe limits.

Last year, a swimming advisory for the water around the beach club was in effect for 63 days between May 1 and Sept. 30, including during the busy Fourth of July holiday.

The beach area across from the Blockade Runner, where the swim leg of the annual Wilmington YMCA Triathlon starts, had an advisory up for 35 days during the same period. The triathlon takes place Sept. 29.

Both areas are near pipes that drain stormwater runoff, which can pick up feces and other pollutants on lawns and roads, right onto the small beaches that line the backside of Wrightsville Beach's main island.

Looking for solution

Yet state and town officials agree there aren't any easy or obvious solutions to the problem.

"It's not from a lack of money because we've looked into all kinds of solutions for it," said Wrightsville Beach Mayor Robert O'Quinn. "But we haven't found anything practical yet."

Part of the problem is geography, or more precisely the lack of space because Waynick Boulevard runs right along the channel's shoreline.

For outfall pipes along the beaches on Pleasure Island, officials have been able to install filtration systems in the dunes to treat the runoff before it reaches the public beach and ocean. But there simply isn't that type of space available along Banks Channel, and small, box-like filtration systems that could fit in the drains have yet to be proven effective.

Wrightsville Beach Town Manager Bob Simpson said officials have taken several steps to try to address the situation, including sending cameras looking for problems into the pipe that drains a large parking lot opposite the Hanover Seaside Club.

"We've looked at it and looked at it, and we just don't know," he said. "It just seems to happen after we've had a good rain."

J.D. Potts, head of the state's Recreational Water Quality Program, said the extent of the water quality problem also isn't clear.

"What we know right now is that it's a near-shore problem, where people are entering the water," he said. "We've still got to determine how far out into the channel it potentially goes."

But one likely cause of the water quality problems isn't around as much anymore - possibly another reason, along with the lack of rain, that there haven't been as many advisories this year.

"There used to be a lot of ducks around here. You practically swam with them," said Hanover Seaside Club manager Mollene Smith. "But now you don't see them at all."

More signs needed?

Garriss said that while a permanent fix would be the best solution, a good temporary fix would be to make the public more aware of the problem.

Instead of relying on a few signs, which sometimes can be hard to spot amid the clutter of boats and piers along Banks Channel, she said, officials should be more proactive in getting the word out about the potential health hazard that lurks in the water.

That could include more high-profile signs, such as on the drawbridge into town, or better outreach efforts.

But with a toddler and now an infant, Garriss said she's not going to tempt fate again.

"It might be easier for us to take them to the sound than the ocean," she said. "But it's not worth it."

Gareth McGrath: 343-2384

gareth.mcgrath@starnewsonline.com