DALLAS – The city of Dallas gave the all-clear to recreational operations at White Rock Lake Monday afternoon after water quality tests confirmed a million-gallon raw sewage spill was contained in White Rock Creek about 10 miles north of the lake.
North Texas Municipal Water District spokesperson Denise Hickey said cleanup was expected to be complete either late Monday or early Tuesday.
“We cleaned up all the debris on Friday,” Hickey said, referring to paper, feminine hygiene products and other things that are flushed but don’t disintegrate. Then crews worked at the site of the spill all weekend removing the sewage from the creek.
Wednesday afternoon, a construction worker hit a NTMWD sewer line in Plano, about a mile from where White Rock Creek intersects with the President George Bush Turnpike. The line leaked for about 12 hours before it was capped early Thursday morning and before the repair was made, 1,069,000 gallons of raw sewage seeped into the creek, which flows into White Rock Lake.
The city of Dallas ordered all recreational activities related to water to come to a halt Thursday afternoon, out of concern that the sewage would flow into the lake.
While boating and related activities were expected to resume Monday evening, the popular Dog Park Launch, where dogs can jump in the lake to cool off, will reopen on Tuesday.
Hickey crews from the North Texas Municipal Water District spent the weekend pumping the sewage out of White Rock Creek through large hoses and into a city of Dallas manhole cover, which deposited it into Dallas’ sewer system.
Based on water quality tests, the spill was contained to an area near where the leak occurred - basically between the Bush Turnpike and Frankford Road, Hickey said.
“It’s been a swift recovery and cleanup,” she said. “You always want to weigh on the cautious side when dealing with water quality issues.”
Hickey said the NTMWD will work with its attorneys to try to recoup some of the costs of the cleanup. It’s possible the contractor who hit the line could be held financially responsible.
Initial reports indicated that 250,000 gallons of sewage were spilled. Later Thursday, that number quadrupled.
White Rock Lake has a volume of about 9,004 acre-feet, according to Texas Water Development Board information gathered in 2003. That would equate to just over 2.9 billion gallons of water. A million-gallon spill would account for 0.03 percent of the lake's volume.
Still, the bacteria that would result from that size spill would've been problematic for living organisms in the lake.
WFAA.com Staff contributed to this report.