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White Rock Lake is officially back to normal after more than a million gallons of sewage threatened the recreation spot late last week. At 5 a.m. Tuesday, the White Rock dog park will reopen, allowing the lake’s furriest visitors to get back in the water for the first time since Thursday. Human water recreation at the park resumed late Monday.
Last week, construction workers “bored into a wastewater transmission pipeline,” according to the North Texas Municipal Water District. Sewage from the pipeline flowed more than a mile from the site where the overflow occurred, near Village Creek Drive north of the George Bush Tollway, into White Rock Creek, about 12 miles north of White Rock Lake.
Dallas shut down all recreational activities at the lake, as the water district and Trinity Watershed Management tested the water and attempted to contain the spill upstream. Their efforts were a success, the water district confirmed Monday.
Using dissolved oxygen testing, workers determined that the spilled sewage did not get south of Frankford Road in Far North Dallas.
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According to North Texas Municipal Water District spokeswoman Denise Hickey, crews worked all day and all night Saturday and Sunday pumping water out of the creek to remove the sewage. Using dissolved oxygen testing, workers determined that the spilled sewage did not get south of Frankford Road in Far North Dallas.
Dallas’ drinking water supply was never in any danger because White Rock Lake is not a water supply source for Dallas Water Utilities.
Dalton Laferney contributed reporting to this article.
