North Carolina is notorious for its unpredictable weather. A Sunday morning will start sunny, but by 2 p.m. there’s a torrential downpour. An afternoon deluge may wash away plans with family or a night out with friends, but it also washes animal feces, minerals, trash and more into nearby creeks.
“Our storm drains go directly to our creeks here,” Andy Szabet, coordinator of the non-profit Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful, said. “People think of the creeks like a magic genie that is out of sight, out of mind.”
The United States has the potential to generate 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater annually, which is equivalent to 53.1 billion gallons per day. When water cannot penetrate the ground due to impervious surfaces such as driveways and paved streets, large volumes of water flow across land as “stormwater run-off.”
Stormwater runoff is the leading cause of water pollution in North Carolina. It can increase channel width which reduces bank stability, alters ecosystem functioning and delivers toxic pollutants into the water supply, among other risks. Despite efforts to combat the run-off, residents often unknowingly contribute to this issue.
“If you’re putting paint or oil in the storm drain at your house, you’re impacting the creek and the watershed downstream from you,” Szabet said. “Eventually, all of our water goes either to Salem Lake or the Yadkin River.”
The lack of education surrounding water quality, especially in smaller localities like Forsyth County, is an issue the state and non-profit organizations are attempting to combat.
What causes storm-water run-off
Land development in North Carolina contributes directly to higher stormwater runoff. Not only does it create waste, but it also replaces natural land with more impervious surfaces.
Wendi Hartup is the stormwater manager for the town of Kernersville, N.C., and a large part of her job is to implement their state-delegated Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit. There’s a minimum set of standards for water quality, and they achieve these through education and monitoring. Development sites are usually where she starts.
“We have many stormwater rules for when a development occurs now,” Hartup said. “Typically that means [that] if a high-density subdivision comes in, they’re required to have some type of stormwater structure. We have to help inspect that to make sure they’re in compliance with all the rules for the state.”
North Carolina has over 400 active and upcoming construction projects, making their potential runoff a priority. However, outside these developments, Hartup also has to look at resident practices within the town — which comes with its own challenges.
Attorneys have made it clear that the municipality cannot help residents with run-off problems because engineers are the only ones qualified by the state to have a license to handle drainage issues.
“In reality, no engineers want to spend time with citizen landowners because they’re, frankly, not gonna make them any money. Plus citizens are a little more difficult to deal with,” Hartup said. “Residents tend to be more picky, change their mind and don’t have to adhere to any specific rules. It makes it harder to come up with a more efficient plan.”
Education efforts and awareness
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s (NCDEQ) Enviroscape Program is a model of a watershed that can show a city at a high level with a residential area, a business area, a natural area, a farm and a creek.
Szabet was previously the Senior Community Educator of Stormwater Management for Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful, where she managed stormwater run-off in Winston-Salem through education. This model allows Szabet to give a visual representation of how stormwater run-off works using real examples.
“When you love your garden, you fertilize it — so we would put Gatorade powder out in place of fertilizer. Or, we’d have a person get out of their car and a soda can falls, and they don’t pick it up,” Szabet said. “Then there’s a rainstorm at the end that brings all of these pollutants into the reservoir.”
Viewers watch the water turn brown and soapy, which visually represents the impact of spraying fertilizer on plants or not properly disposing of trash. Programs and visuals such as the enviroscape allowed Szabet to make an emotional appeal to the residents of Winston-Salem.
Hartup previously worked at the North Carolina Cooperative Extension as a natural resources extension agent, where she also worked to help educate residents — but on small-scale drainage issues. In 2014, she realized they needed something more large-scale to raise awareness of World Water Day. She spent a year with the then-community educator to create Forsyth County Creek Week.
“The original goal was to get people to care about water more. Just for them to not take it for granted — to appreciate it, get outside, then be like, ‘Man, this is so cool, I actually care about it,’” Hartup said.
The first Forsyth County Creek Week was held in 2015 with 30 activities for the 30 organizations involved. In 2024, they had over 225 activities.
Szabet has been involved through Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful to help organize events.
The events include getting younger kids out to the creeks to see the ecosystem, educational classes for adults and adoption programs for local creeks — all of which push residents to go clean their creek four times a year. Creek clean-ups happen frequently outside of Creek Week, as well.
“We did a cleanup yesterday at Rupert Bell Park which has a creek going through it, which you wouldn’t know because it’s covered in kudzu, and we found two illegal dumping sites,” Szabet said. “It was really disheartening to see.”
Preventing these dumping sites and the habit of waste continues to be difficult. Both Szabet and Hartup grew up passionate about water conservation and have pursued knowledge that makes them leave less of a footprint. Although educating the public remains a challenge, they continue to make an effort.
“I like to describe it like water lines,” Hartup said. “The more you sprinkle the whole city with your education, the more it all kind of runs together, and then people change slowly.”
Forsyth County Creek Week 2025 will be held from March 22-30. More information can be found on their website.
