County officials lifted health warnings for the Patapsco River yesterday, a week after discovering a major sewer line had broken in two places.

However, Stoney Run, the isolated creek running along the sewer main in Linthicum is still off-limits because of high bacterial pollution connected to the spill, county Health Department officials said.

In an e-mail about the spill, Health Department spokesman Elin Jones wrote that testing has shown bacteria counts not that different from before the break.

"My understanding is the bacteria count from the sampling, post-spill, was not unusual from the samples regularly...