A developer will enhance its sediment control measures and pay to conserve more than 60 acres of land in southeast Durham as part of a settlement with an environmental watchdog organization.
In September 2023, Sound Rivers sued Mungo Homes alleging that its construction of the 216-acre Sweetbrier development in southeast Durham was causing sediment pollution in Lick Creek. The Sweetbrier development borders a pair of tributaries to the creek, which had turned an orange color that some residents likened to tomato soup as it wound its way to Falls Lake.
Sound Rivers pointed to water samples taken by Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop, alleging that the rusty color was being caused by sediment pollution running off of large-scale developments.
In the case of Sweetbrier, Krop took samples in Martin Branch on the development's southern edge, each time recording a sediment level higher than North Carolina's standard of 50 nephelometric turbidity units. Durham County sedimentation and erosion control officials also identified more than 300 occasions where Sweetbrier was failing to adhere to the sediment-control measures outlined in its permit.
"The larger issue of Lick Creek's harm is beyond one developer. There are other bad actors out there, and we hope that the outcome of this settlement is a warning to all that those sorts of activities that result in water quality pollution are unacceptable and we hope it's a helpful as a lesson in what best practices look like and how to be a good steward in Southeast Durham," Krop told the NC Newsroom.
As part of the agreement, Mungo will need to spread sod and vegetation across its construction site. It also defined where it would place sediment ponds in future phases of development and how it would control the sediment running into them.
Those steps would be meant to keep sediment from running off of the site into nearby Martin Branch and Hurricane Creek, both of which run into Lick Creek before eventually reaching Falls Lake.
After the settlement was reached, Jamie Whitlock, a Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney, said in a statement, "We cannot allow North Carolina's streams and waterways or Falls Lake to become dumping grounds for developers. The reasons that make Durham desirable and North Carolina a place where we all want to live must be protected even as development booms."
Controlling sediment is important, Krop said, because of the consequences of failing to do so. When a stream or waterway becomes impaired, it can destroy habitats by killing off plants that grow in the water and, consequently, insects and fish. High levels of sediment have also been linked with bacteria and heavy metals.
"Sediment pollution is a really big deal, and it's the number one pollutant by volume in the state of North Carolina," Krop said.
North Carolina regulators have considered part of Lick Creek impaired since 1998 and the whole creek impaired since 2004 due to a lack of bottom-dwelling organisms known as benthos that are commonly associated with a healthy waterway.
Mungo will also pay $270,000 to the Triangle Land Conservancy to help purchase a 62-acre parcel that includes a tributary to Lick Creek. That parcel, off of Southview Road, sits next to other land that is already preserved.
Conserving land is an important piece of the settlement, Krop said, because mass grading forest land and replacing it with rooftops and driveways is causing widespread sediment pollution in the Lick Creek watershed.
In recent years, Durham officials have approved thousands of new homes around Lick Creek as the region's housing crunch pushes development into once-rural areas.
"The best thing that we can do to protect it is to protect existing forest land. That forest land is holding the soil together, it's filtering rainwater before it enters the creek and it's making sure that sediment is not totally polluting and harming aquatic ecosystems in Lick Creek," Krop said.
