A power outage at a York County pump station sent an estimated 500,000 gallons of sewage spilling into Little Allison Creek, which feeds Lake Wylie, county officials say. The overflow began Monday evening when the Little Allison Creek Pump Station lost power, and officials say the spill has since been stopped while crews work to repair the equipment that failed.
According to Queen City News, county officials immediately contacted the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services upon discovering the issue, and staff will continue working with the agency to resolve the overflow. York County said it deeply regrets the incident and apologizes for the disruption to the area.
Utilities Crews Prioritize the Pump Station Fix
Utilities staff have prioritized a fix to the pump station that caused the overflow, per the same report. No timeline for completing those repairs has been released, and the station's account does not specify whether power to the facility has been fully restored.
The 500,000-gallon figure comes from York County officials rather than from a state regulatory filing. South Carolina's Department of Environmental Services notes that reported wastewater-overflow volumes are generally estimates assumed to represent the net amount lost to the environment, since utilities sometimes recover a portion of a spill without separately reporting that recovered volume. The state also maintains a sanitary sewer overflow tracking site that displays records going back up to three years, with older data available only through a public-records request.
How This Spill Compares to Recent Lake Wylie Incidents
This is not the first wastewater trouble to hit the Lake Wylie area in 2026. In April, a pipe failure at a lift station caused an overflow that the Charlotte Observer initially reported at nearly 70,000 gallons into the Studman Branch, though Charlotte Water later put its own estimate at 69,750 gallons reaching that same waterway, according to the Charlotte Observer.
That April spill prompted a No Swim Advisory for a Lake Wylie cove, with residents and pets told to avoid the area until further notice, Queen City News reported at the time. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water staff also collected water-quality samples to test for bacteria following that incident. A separate, smaller discharge of 300 to 400 gallons from a private sanitary sewer lift station on Performance Road in Charlotte also triggered a no-swim advisory, with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services monitoring water quality until bacteria levels were deemed suitable for human contact, according to WCNC.
No such advisory, water-quality testing, or environmental-impact assessment has been reported for this week's York County spill. County officials have confirmed only that the overflow has stopped and that crews are focused on repairing the pump station that failed.
