Oiled ducks, turtles rescued after diesel spill into Little Sugar Creek

As crews and volunteers continue to clean Little Sugar Creek and rescue diesel fuel-coated wildlife, Mecklenburg County expects to monitor the contaminated area for at least a month, a county official said.

Spokesman Mark Boone said private contractors had cleaned up 75 percent of the spill as of Friday afternoon. But Boone said oil had passed the cleanup’s southern-most barrier – about 4 miles south of the spill – and a thin sheen had reached Pineville.

“It’s coming in, and it will be a little more pronounced overnight,” Boone said.

Depending on how thorough the cleanup is, the spill could affect water quality, grasses and wildlife. County officials said residents should keep their pets out of the creek and alert rescue group members if they see injured or sick animals.

Volunteers with Carolina Waterfowl Rescue rescued 20 mallards and 10 turtles as of Friday. They found eight or 10 dead ducks and up to six dead turtles, said Jennifer Gordon, executive director of the group, an Indian Trail-based nonprofit. Most of the dead animals were pulled from the creek near Pearl Street Park, just south of uptown by the Metropolitan.

The birds that the rescue team is treating could remain in the hospital for weeks, Gordon said.

She said as many as 50 birds are affected, including a blue heron volunteers have not been able to catch. But the problem may not end there. Volunteers have found half-eaten birds, which means predators such as foxes, coyotes and raptors may also become ill.

“Waterfowl are at the bottom of the food chain,” Gordon said. “We may find this is a chain reaction.”

The rescue and recovery effort came after 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel washed from a tank at the NASCAR Plaza building down a storm drain and into the creek Tuesday night.

A potent smell still hung over the area and stretched south of Freedom Park in Dilworth.

“That’s one of the most popular spots in all of downtown,” Boone said. “People love to walk there. This is the heart of Charlotte.”

The rescued ducks received medical evaluations and a charcoal-based fluid to flush out any fuel they may have ingested, Gordon said. The organization said it has rescued wildlife from four chemical spills this year.

Volunteers washed the turtles and sent them to a turtle rehabilitation specialist, said Kara Lopp, spokeswoman for Carolina Waterfowl Rescue.

Jayson Lipsey, chief operating officer of Parkway Properties, which owns the building at Stonewall and Caldwell streets, said the company learned that the emergency generator was leaking diesel fuel at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Lipsey said workers immediately shut off the pump’s generator and called SWS Environmental Services, which began cleaning the fuel on the roof around 9:30 p.m.

The next morning, as workers were trying to determine how far the spill reached, the Charlotte Fire Department contacted Parkway Properties.

Joggers had complained of a smell near the creek, and a park ranger who spotted the oil sheen called the Fire Department, said Division Chief Daracus Newman.

Fire department officials stretched booms across the creek hoping to contain the fuel and tracked the spill’s source to the NASCAR Plaza.

Since then, SWS Environmental Services has used machinery to suction oil from the creek’s waters.

Boone said, however, that future storms could wash residual fuel from the banks back into the stream, where it’s more noticeable.

Meanwhile, officials are investigating what “enforcement actions might occur,” Kristen O’Reilly, water quality specialist with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services, said during a news conference Wednesday.

Any penalties would be levied against Parkway Properties and could include fines of up to $5,000 per day, said Craig Miller, also with stormwater services. Officials stressed that NASCAR is not liable for the spill.

The fact that a ranger and joggers – and not Parkway Properties – notified first responders could play a role in the penalty process, Boone said.

Lipsey said Parkway Properties was investigating the spill’s reach, but the Fire Department “just figured it out before we did.”

Wednesday’s spill highlights a large problem, said Peter Raabe, conservation director for American Rivers, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

Stormwater in cities all across the U.S. receives little filtration before washing into waterways, he said. And with it goes toxic chemicals.

Charlotte, Raabe said, has one of the state’s better stormwater departments, “but there’s a lot more we can learn.”

Jonathan McFadden contributed.

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 8:47 AM with the headline "Oiled ducks, turtles rescued after diesel spill into Little Sugar Creek."