Thousands of gallons of raw sewage were released into Peter's Creek last week

Nearly 80,000 gallons of raw sewage was released in Peter's Creek in Winston-Salem last week, and the public wasn't notified until days later. 

The spill occurred on Tuesday near 415 Northwest Boulevard in Winston-Salem. Gale Ketteler, with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Utilities, says 79,500 gallons of wastewater were discharged into the creek in the Yadkin-Pee Dee River Basin.

It was the county's largest spill in almost two years.

Ketteler says it happened because contractors using the county's Geographic Information System (GIS) inadvertently used the wrong main to bypass wastewater flow during a repair. 

“So when they selected the main to bypass to, it appeared on GIS as active. And unfortunately, it turned out it had been abandoned. So it was flowing directly into a creek,” she says.

Ketteler says she didn't receive notice of the accident until Friday morning, three days after the start of the spill. That's when she sent out a message alerting the public, as required by state law.