The Eno River Association has been defending the environment for nearly fifty years, but last week the nonprofit faced a new type of threat.

“When we got to work on Monday morning, we found that the four toilets in our office building were overflowing and had flooded pretty much the entire building with something that was clearly sewage,” says Robin Jacobs, executive director of the Eno River Association.

She says a Durham City sewer main backed up, flooding the Guess Road office building with untreated sewage and causing thousands of dollars worth of damage.

“They’re having to really gut the inside of the building, kind of like in a flood. The wallboard is coming out about a foot up from the floor and then everything below that is coming out and will essentially have to be rebuilt.”

You can watch a video tour of the damage here:

Initial estimates for the repairs range as high as $100,000. Jacobs says the nonprofit can expect to get some money from insurance and possibly some from the City of Durham, but not nearly enough to cover the losses.

“We’ll be paying for the rest of it with funds that we have,” says Jacobs. “Contributions are welcome and much appreciated.”

Though donations will help rebuild the office, Jacobs says much of what was lost was the organization’s history.

“We lost 45 years worth of archives, all kinds of information that people had collected over the history of the Eno River Association. That was destroyed.”

Still, the nonprofit is forging ahead with activities events including the beloved Festival on the Eno in July.

“We’ll just get through it. We are not going to let this be a setback. We’re still doing the things we do, working on land conservation,” says Jacobs.

The Eno River Association will temporarily relocate its office to Chapel Hill. Robins says the group is planning a dance party fundraiser on February 21 at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro to raise money for repairs.

If you want to help, you can find out more here.

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