COLUMBIA, S.C. — Despite the heat in the Midlands, cooling off in the river might not be a good idea this weekend. Water quality advisories are still in place for some rivers in our area.
“If the rivers aren't clean, no one’s coming,” Michael Mayo said.
Mayo is the owner of Palmetto Outdoor, they provide tubing and kayaking services for visitors who take a dip in the Midlands’ rivers. He says the water quality advisories for the rivers have impacted business
“Up until 11:30 this morning, we had suspended our operations. If the advisory would have come back holding the levels being higher than DHEC suggests then at that point we would have suspended operations into the weekend. This does have a tremendous impact on not only our business, but also our staff and then the tourism industry that thrives off of this,” he said.
According to Bill Stangler, the Congaree Riverkeeper, this is all due to the high levels of rainfall we've seen in the area. He says after storms came through the Midlands on Tuesday, the river was tested and on Wednesday morning the bacteria levels were so high they issued the advisory, telling people it wasn’t safe to swim. The water was tested again Thursday.
“Those results just came in a little bit ago and about half of those came back good and half of those came back bad. What that means for this weekend right now, is that the advisories being lifted for the Saluda, those samples came back good. Unfortunately, the Broad River and the Congaree River came back with higher bacteria levels and so those advisories will stay in place at least until next week,” Stangler said.
The riverkeeper says swimmers should keep an eye on the weather before planning to visit the river.
“The general trend that we see with bacteria levels, especially after rain events, is 24 to 48 hours after a significant rain event. That's when we see that spike in bacteria so always pay attention to the weather,” he said.
According to the Stangler, children, people with compromised immune systems and anyone with an open wound is at a higher risk when visiting polluted waters.
"The river is always moving and changing and so that's one of the reasons that we see these things take just maybe a day or two to flush out. That is assuming that it hasn't rained again,” he said.
To stay up to date with swimming advisories you can visit howsmyscriver.org.