We blew it. Our lead headline in Monday’s paper read, “DeBordieu sewage will go into river.”

That’s a bad, unfair headline.

Clearly, it suggests that the community’s raw sewage will flow into the Waccamaw River, and that’s just not the case.

DeBordieu applied for and has received an environmental permit to put TREATED sewage into the river.

Treated sewage and raw sewage are two different animals.

We’ve followed the permitting process for this project for several months now, and have repeatedly referred to “treated sewage” or “wastewater.”

 But in this key headline, we failed you. And we apologize.

The lead story on any given day usually gets the biggest headlines, and these are notoriously hard to write in a small space.

We have to be fair, accurate, engaging and succinct with these headlines.

That’s not easy to do. But it’s our job.

In the future, writers here will run headlines such as this one by a senior editor. Or, that failing, they will have the headline reviewed by at least one line editor and another reporter.

Our pencils have erasers on them, just as yours do. We make mistakes.

But we want to make as few as possible. That’s what we strive for.

Thank you for reading The Georgetown Times.

— Bob Piazza

Executive Editor