DURHAM - A proposed sewage pumping station on polluted Lick Creek was sent back to the drawing board Friday by Durham's Development Review Board.

Lick Creek is in far eastern Durham County and flows into Falls Lake, the largest source of drinking water in Wake County.

City-county planning director Steve Medlin said there was no date set for another hearing. The earliest the pumping station plan could come back for development review is Sept. 5.

Lick Creek does not meet water quality standards under the federal Clean Water Act.

The sewage station's planned site includes 9.25 acres in the Lick Creek floodway, according to the application filed by Horvath Associates, the project's engineers.

The N.C. Division of Water Quality says Lick Creek has "impaired biological integrity" because of stormwater runoff. The runoff problem has been aggravated by subdivision development in eastern Durham County in the past five years. The area's soils are particularly subject to erosion, according to Duke University scientists Duncan Heron and Curtis Richardson.

The Clean Water Act requires states to list impaired waters and make plans to improve them. A $539,000 restoration project is being designed for a 4,000-foot section of Lick Creek just upstream from the sewage station site, and another restoration project is in planning stages through the Upper Neuse River Basin Association and the Triangle J Council of Governments.

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