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12 <br />INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMORANDUM <br />TO: Marvin Collins, Planning Director <br />Mary Scarbo. Planner III <br />Jim Hinkley, Environmental Planner <br />FROM: Paul Thames, County Engine <br />DATE: January 10, 1992 <br />SUBJECT: NC Environmental Management Commission public <br />notice of intent to issue NPDES permits in <br />Hillsborough and University Lake watershed <br />Pursuant to our discussion of the above referenced NPDES <br />permits on 1/9/92, I spoke with Tim Donnelly of the NC <br />Division of Environmental Management (DEM) to get additional <br />information on this issue. Insofar as the discharge <br />containing petroleum byproducts from Hurley's service station <br />in Hillsborough. I learned that DEM considers the proposed <br />discharge to be the best solution to a bad problem. Over a <br />year ago. Hurley's was found to have a serious leak in a fuel <br />storage tank which. over the period of a month or more, was <br />determined to have discharged over a thousand gallons of <br />virgin petroleum product into and below the surface of the <br />ground. The fuel leaked into the groundwater in the area <br />east of the service station and into an intermittent stream <br />which eventually discharges into Cates Creek just upstream of <br />confluence of Cates Creek with the.Eno River. The proposed <br />discharge is'the treated end product of a groundwater <br />mitigation process. In this mitigation process. the <br />contaminated groundwater is pumped out of the ground and into <br />tractor - trailer mounted treatment system containing charcoal <br />filtration and air stripping processes which serve to remove <br />the vast majority of petroleum byproducts from the water. <br />The treated water is then discharged to the stream in a <br />process which is anticipated to take several years. There <br />are two other potential alternatives to the proposed stream <br />discharge. One alternative is to discharge the treated water <br />into Hillsborough's waste treatment plant. DEM actually <br />preferred this method, but Hillsborough has indicated that it <br />currently has pretreatment problems at its waste plant and <br />would prefer to avoid any additional problems which might be <br />caused by accepting petroleum contaminated water. A second <br />alternative would be to store the treated water in drums and <br />periodically take the water to either Durham or OWASA for <br />s <br />