Dozens of people became ill after swimming or fishing, prompting state officials to declare an unprecedented health warning for the area. Rebecca Armstrong carries two of her husband's crab pots to the family cabin. Each year it seems to get worse and worse. Since November, the clamor has died down. But New Bern has become a town divided.
Some people demand immediate action from state officials.
We don't want to scare away people who have been coming down here for generations. But we want the powers that be to clean up the river.'' 'Dead fish everywhere' The Neuse's bad year started with the sound of thunderclaps. Heavy rains struck the Triangle and the farm belt in January and February. Storms returned in June, overloading sewage plants and hog lagoons and pushing pollutants in the Neuse far down the river. By June, homeowners along the Trent River, a tributary of the Neuse that flows by New Bern, were grumbling about mats of algae and aquatic weeds hugging the shoreline.