Water is essential to life on the Outer Banks. Whether living here or visiting, many people consume local shellfish and drink from the public’s water system. Additionally, they swim, surf and fish on the wide array of beaches. For a community that depends so heavily on water, how much do Outer Banks locals and visitors really know about what is in it?

Drinking Water

Glenn Endreson, a local well-drilling contractor, works with the Dare County Environmental Health Department to install drinking water wells and lawn irrigation wells that provide residential and rental houses, as well as public buildings, with fresh water.

When testing wells for potential pollution, Endreson tests for iron, pH, chlorides, coliform and fecal bacteria, the same tests the Dare County Environmental Health Department uses daily to test their public water, Endreson said.

“In order to install the wells, I have to first get a permit for the site. The well being installed must be a certain distance from any septic setbacks, and a minimum of 50 feet from any source of pollution,” Endreson said. “The water is then tested for fecal waste, then coliform bacteria. If the well contains the bacteria, we chlorinate it to kill the bacteria, which is why all drinking water contains a small percent of chlorine. In storms, if we have flooding and septic waste come up, wells must be re-tested.”

Coliform bacteria is a non-illness causing type of bacteria that acts as a potential marker for other dangerous types of bacteria.

Dare County Environmental Health follows state regulations when installing wells, which aids in limiting effects from bacteria and pollution, but if wells become polluted they must be drilled deeper or moved to a different location.

Another factor that affects the safety of public drinking water is potential runoff or sources of pollution draining into public rivers. On Feb. 2, a Duke Energy Coal pipe sprung a leak at the bottom of a pond in Eden, N.C., spewing loads of coal ash into the Dan River. The Dan River is a source of drinking water, and connects to other rivers such as the Roanoke River. A toxic sludge was created that flowed into the connecting rivers until Duke Energy permanently plugged the pipes. Duke Energy is currently working to eliminate remaining ash deposits in the Dan River, but testing indicates that public water is now safe.

In line with Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the town water departments regulate five different categories of substances that may be in public drinking water: microbial contaminants, such as bacteria and viruses that may come from sewage treatment plants, agriculture, septic systems or wildlife; inorganic contaminants, such as salts and metals that could occur naturally or be collected in runoff; pesticides and herbicides; organic chemicals from septic systems, gas stations and stormwater runoff; and radioactive chemicals, which could occur naturally or from oil and gas production, mining and drilling. According to the annual water quality reports for the Town of Nags Head for the last 10 years, levels exceeding the maximum contaminant level of any of these substances have not been recorded since 2004 and 2005, when high arsenic levels were reported.

Recreational Water

Ocean water may contain a variety of substances, including possibly harmful microorganisms that flow into the ocean from storm drains or stormwater runoff, according to the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR).

The NCDENR’s Division of Marine Fisheries, through its Recreational Water Quality Program, monitors 240 sites across North Carolina, including beaches, sounds and estuarine rivers, for the presence of harmful bacteria. They test each site every week from April to September, and at least once a month in the winter, for the indicator enterococci, a non-illness-causing bacterial type whose presence could indicate that other harmful, fecal bacteria, either from human waste or that of animals, according to J.D. Potts, manager of the program.

If the tests find levels of enterococci over a certain limit, an advisory sign will be posted warning people not to swim in the waters. While high enterococci levels are no guarantee that swimming could cause illness, the risk is higher, especially for the very young, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems. However, incidents where the limit is exceeded do not occur often, and even less so at ocean beaches.

“It’s really not that often,” Potts said. “For the 240 sites the program monitors, last year only about 10 advisories were posted. Some years we’ve had as high as 40, but in the last couple years we haven’t had that many.”

Runoff can also pose environmental problems for bodies of water through a process called eutrophication. Michael Piehler, an associate professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and founder of the Coastal Studies Institute’s Estuarine Ecology and Human Health Program, explains that too much nitrogen from fertilizer can lead to explosive growth of algae.

“One of the things that people are worried about in coastal areas is the fact that there end up being too (many)nutrients in the water. This is often from agriculture, but it can also be fertilizer in people’s lawns, or in other places, like golf courses and things like that, that fertilize a lot,” Piehler said. “This is a significant problem in the Chesapeake Bay and the Neuse River. “

If too much nitrogen builds up in the water, too much algal growth occurs, according to Piehler. The algae can block sunlight and nutrients from reaching the ecosystem below the water, harming fish and shellfish populations, and more.

“There’s this process called denitrification, the active removal of nitrate, which is a biologically available form of nitrogen, into nitrogen gas,” Piehler said.

One project of the Estuarine Ecology and Human Health Program is studying and enacting denitrification in estuarine habitats, such as salt marshes, oyster reefs and areas of aquatic vegetation, including measuring how much potential for the process to take place still exists in a given environment.

“We’ve lost a lot of oysters, we’ve lost a lot of salt marshes, so we want to know on a big scale how much of that capacity of nitrogen still exists,” Piehler said.

The Phytoplankton Research Team at FFHS, known as the Phyto Finders, was started nine years ago by science teacher Katie Neller. She and her students monitor phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that live in watery environments, both salty and fresh. Phytoplankton, which can be bacteria, protists or single-celled plants, can grow explosively when conditions are right, an event known as a bloom. As the primary producers of the aquatic food web, phytoplankton feed many organisms, but can also cause death or disease by producing powerful biotoxins. These can spread to harmful blooms, according to NASA Earth Observatory. The Phyto Finders collect data at Jennette’s Pier and the Duck Research Pier, then send their samples to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to receive results of possible blooms in local waters. The team focuses on a certain type of phytoplankton, pseudo-nitzschia, which emits domoic acid, a toxin that in large quantities can be harmful to shellfish.

“Our group monitors the bloom events,” Neller said. “It has brought attention to the possible problems associated with harmful algal blooms on our economy and the health of our marine mammals and fisheries programs.”

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