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Still looking upstream, the two large circles you barely can see in this picture are the exits from the storm drains under Crestwood. The storm sewer system here serves most of Bellevue, and puts out LOTS of water. It also puts out sewage that leaks from the old sanitary sewers in Bellevue.
The City calls the pipe on the left the "Crestwood" pipe and the other the "Pope" pipe. Here are the recent fecal coliform data the City has obtained from the discharges from these pipes:
Date Pope Crestwood 1/7/98 3750 9300 1/29/98 640 1365 2/4/98 618 0 3/4/98 700 0 4/1/98 1250 0 5/6/98 840 30 6/5/98 620 783 7/1/98 845 155 8/5/98 615 510 9/2/98 8100 8150 10/1/98 15950 2040 11/4/98 22800 7800 12/2/98 11000 21000 Here are the data back to July, '95 in graphical form:
See elsewhere for the caveats to this graph and the raw data. It looks like the the sewer relining (remember all those "Insituform" trucks in the streets) brought some improvement in '96, but things are failing again.
In any event, the Virginia water quality standard for fecal coliform in waters used for primary contact recreation is 1000. (Well, actually it's more complicated than that, but the 1000 number stands as an instantaneous max. See the Regulation for the whole picture, which is worse than what we've said above.) Princeton Creek is much worse off than that, and deteriorating if these data mean anything. Remember these numbers next time your child or your pet goes to frolic in the creek or the lake in Bryan Park.
Downstream, the creek is not a pretty sight.
Last updated 02/24/02
Please send questions or comments to John Butcher