By: Kyra Farmer, DUSRC Intern, Summer 2025
Pictured: DUSRC Interns (Caroline Beggs; Connor Biswell; Kyra Farmer; Safia Zibo), Stephanie Stephens (Deep River Riverkeeper); Dr. Tony Baines (NCCU and DUSRC Research Experience & Training Coordination Core); DUSRC Staff (Megan Hoert Hughes; Chiara Klein; Jessica Straehle)
On Tuesday, July 8th. I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a field trip with the Deep River Watershed Association to learn more about some contaminated sites in the watershed. We started at the Deep River offices at UNC Greensboro. Our tour guide, Stephanie Stephens, was amazing! Stephanie is also the riverkeeper of the Deep River. She shared her knowledge about the watershed with such a positive attitude and amazing ability to explain things in ways that we could understand.
The two sites we visited have been impacted due to textile & furniture factories over the course of around 100+ years! Our first site was along Richland Creek, located near Ward Avenue and Green Street, which is in the Southwest Mill district of High Point. This was a little creek that has many PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in it due to their use in textile factories and probably other sources as well. PFAS is a legacy pollutant which means that it accumulates in soil and water and never goes away. Looking at that site now you would not think it was a contaminated site, but it is. It is right beside a fire fighting training center where they use PFAS in the foam to put out fires. They also use this foam for practice, which can contaminate the creek.
This part of High Point was known for its manufacturing, which included textile mills, factories, and furniture making businesses. African American residents have historically lived in the neighborhoods around the site even though, at the time when these factories were built, African American people could not work there. Many of the factories around the area are now abandoned although the buildings are still standing. Over the course of time, a local group of citizens known as the Southside Neighborhood Association has come together and built this organization that “embraces the neighborhood for change.” They are working together to bring life back into their community, without losing the history of past generations.
Our next site was on Riverdale Drive and is known as the Deep River Confluence. This site is the receiving end of the first site, Richland Creek. This site leads into a reservoir which is the drinking water source for parts of High Point, Greensboro, Randolph County, and all of Jamestown. It was incredibly beautiful and picturesque from afar. Once you got close, you could see all the litter and trash in it, some of which comes from nearby highways. A large Superfund site and landfill are nearby and testing has also shown that there are PFAS chemicals in the water. This site showed me how something as little as a creek can affect a larger body of water.
We had lunch and a Q&A session with Dr. Patricia Gray, Director of the Deep River Watershed Association, Mr. Steve Drew, former Director of Water Resources for Greensboro NC and formerGreensboro Interim City Manager and Board Member Mr. Ward Robinson, former Medical Director of the Guilford County Department of Public Health. Listening to them talk showed me how deep their respect and love goes out for the environment!
We then proceeded to Randleman Reservoir and toured the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority. This facility makes clean drinking water for some of the surrounding cities and counties. It was amazing to see how many steps water goes through to be able for us to drink it without worries. The water authority is trying different technologies, like Reverse Osmosis (RO), to remove PFAS from drinking water.
We need to learn how to eliminate PFAS (aka forever chemicals) to make sure our water and everything else around us is safe.
Kyra Farmer is a DUSRC summer intern in the lab of Dr. Nishad Jayasundara. She is a Senior at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) studying Earth, Environmental, and Geospatial sciences. Kyra and five other interns from NCCU and Duke were selected for research internships with DUSRC for summer 2025.
The final stop on the Deep River Tour was at the John Franklin Kime Water Treatment Plant, part of the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority.
