Safety of Chattanooga’s heavily polluted Stringer’s Branch is improving, regulators say
Stringer's Branch, which cuts through the heart of Red Bank, is one of three streams in Hamilton County with signs posted along their banks indicating that people might be endangered by swimming or wading in the water.State officials issued a water contact advisory for Stringer's Branch in 1990 because of elevated pathogen levels from chronic sewage overflows, but it could receive the all-clear from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation "in the near future."In a letter to Red Bank City Manager Randall Smith earlier this month, TDEC environmental program manager Jennifer Innes wrote that stream- monitoring data indicates the bacteria levels in Stringer's Branch have been improving over the last several years."This is likely due to improvements to sewer infrastructure in the watershed of Stringers Branch," Innes wrote.
