Although Washington Councilman Bobby Roberson favors removing the pumps at the lower end of Jack’s Creek, he likely won’t see that happen.

During the council’s Aug. 12 meeting, Roberson talked about his desire to see the pumps removed. Roberson contends the pumps at the lower end of Jack’s Creek serve as sort of a dam, hindering the creek’s natural flow to the Pamlico River. That hindrance causes trash to build up in the creek and along its banks, he has said before.

A memorandum from Allen Lewis, the city’s public-works director, to the mayor and council provides information as to why Roberson’s desire likely won’t be fulfilled.

By removing the pumps, the assumption is the water level in the creek would rise and fall with the tide.

“This would indeed allow the water in the creek to rise and fall along with the tide in the river. However, this would significantly reduce the storage capacity in the event of heavy rain events,” Lewis wrote in the memorandum. “With the current infrastructure in place, there is anywhere from 2′ to 4′ difference in the elevation of the water on either side of Park Drive on a daily basis. During a wind driven high tide, the difference is even greater. If water were allowed to ‘come and go’ in the creek as in the river, the water level in the creek would be 2-4′ higher on any given day thus eliminating a huge amount of storage capacity in the event of a heavy rain event.”

According to Lewis, Jack’s Creek upstream of Park Drive serves as a retention pond. Decreasing the creek’s storage capacity would be like keeping a retention pond filled with water all the time.

“During the quick, heavy downpours that we are susceptible to almost daily, this could very easily mean the difference between water in surrounding streets and during long periods of heavy rain it could easily lead to structures being flooded,” Lewis wrote in the memorandum.

Lewis also addresses the issue of the “green film” on the creek.

The city has been keeping the water level in the creek at extremely low levels because of almost daily forecasts of rain. Doing that pulls duckweed (which looks like a green film) from ditches that feed Jack’s Creek into the creek. The city is working with a contractor to control the duckweed. The herbicide the contractor sprays on the duckweed works best when the water is not moving, according to Lewis’ memorandum. Because of the extremely wet spring and summer, the herbicide has not been as effective as it could be under optimum conditions.