Treated water from Whitewater Center means little to Lake Wylie

A plan to hyper-chlorinate and dechlorinate six-million gallons of water in the lower half of the Charlotte Whitewater Center has drawn the concern of a few, including the city of Rock Hill and Catawba Riverkeeper Sam Perkins.

The chlorination and eventual discharge of the water is in response to the recent death of a teen at the hands of a brain-eating amoeba.

Perkins says six-million gallons of water sounds like a lot.

“In the context of Lake Wylie where the retention time is months, it’s really not much.  You have more waste than that discharged from a wastewater treatment plant and other places around the river there.  So what they’re going to do is kill an amoeba that already occurs naturally anyway.”

Perkins says the water will be discharged over 500 feet of land before making its way to the back of Long Creek where it meets the Catawba River just north of I-85 in the upper portion of Lake Wylie.