Category Archives: Water

Arsenic, Outings, and Flooding: WWALS Watershed Coalition @ VLCIA 2013-04-16

Water issues strongly affect economic development, so I talked about the new WWALS Watershed Coalition at the 16 April 2013 Board Meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.

The VDT declined to speak, so I did. After apologizing for no okra today, I commended the Authority for talking about the missing agenda items and for mentioning due diligence and flood control.

Mostly I talked about the new WWALS Watershed Coalition, www.wwals.net, incorporated in June 2012, which is about watershed issues such as flooding, water quality, and invasive species related to the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little River System. I mentioned arsenic in some local well water, which the Department of Health has finally said should be tested, three years after Janet McMahan discovered it was a problem. I invited VLCIA board and staff to two upcoming WWALS events: Continue reading →

A New Home! Year Six @ VLCIA 2013-04-16

The Industrial Authority was very forthcoming about everything about their new office purchase except who they were buying it from; this was at the 16 April 2013 Board Meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority. The seller turns out to be a household name hereabouts.

New Office –Roy Copeland

Chairman Roy Copeland talked about the at least five year process for finding “a new home” for VLCIA. 103 Roosevelt Drive He noted that before he joined the board they were considering buying a property he and his wife own. He and former Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk looked at another property near the Courthouse. VLCIA even toured the historic Lowndes County Courthouse but concluded it couldn’t be renovated for their purposes. Jerry Jennett noted the search had gone on even longer than five years. Copeland said the parameters they had set were, as far as he recalled, Continue reading →

Videos: trucks and row crops, and Earth Day again @ LCC 2013-04-22

Seven minutes, with some discussion about trucks and irrigation of row crops on a liquid waste application site. There was no special presentation, not about the Westside Archives, nor about anything else. They did mention this morning’s Earth Day event again, and added a little bit of detail.

Here’s the agenda with a few notes, and links into the video.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

A contract, an alcohol license, two bids, and a special presentation @ LCC 2013-04-22

The special presentation is about the Westside Archives. The agenda doesn’t say what that is, but Valdosta City Council and former Mayor Sonny Vickers supports it, as you can see in this video by George Boston Rhynes.

According to the VDT 15 February 2010, Vickers

received the Westside Archives Achievement Award for more than two decades of service as a city councilman to the citizens of Valdosta. Westside Archives and the Kill-Me-Quick Community sponsored this award.

At the same time, three other people got Westside Archives awards, including

Lowndes County Commissioner Joyce Evans was granted the Citizenship Award for her services to the county and its citizens.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Sinkhole on US 82 near Tifton August 2012

Water disasters of droughts and floods and sinkholes already affect us more here in south Georgia than the kinds of disasters TV news likes. In north Florida, next to a church in Albany, under a garage in Lowndes County, and next to the Shoney’s in Tifton, sinkholes are spreading: can we go beyond reacting to them and work on preventing them?

Next to a story yesterday about disaster preparedness, the Tifton Gazette posted this picture and caption:

Tift County experienced massive flooding in early August 2012. The heavy rains made the then-sinkhole located on Hwy. 82 into a massive waterfall. Tift County EMA has to be prepared for such events in our community. Photo credit: Latasha Everson/The Tifton Gazette

Here’s a 2011 YouTube video of the sinkhole that says the sinkhole had been next to the Shoney’s five years already then, two years ago. Stephanie Springer wrote for WALB 9 and 13 August 2012, Tifton sinkhole continues to grow,

Continue reading →

When contamination gets into the watershed

Fort Gillem groundwater contamination Underground may be out of sight, but it just keeps seeping farther, getting into more wells, poisoning more wetlands, and getting into the air, causing cancer and other diseases.

Katie Leslie and Shannon McCaffrey wrote for the AJC 13 April 2013, 20 years later, Fort Gillem contamination still spreading,

In the early 1990s the U.S. Army discovered hazardous chemicals dumped at Fort Gillem seeping into residential wells in neighboring Forest Park. The finding prompted the military to pass out bottled water and convert many residents to a county water system from their private wells.

But two decades and a base closure later, state officials say the Army still hasn’t done enough to clean up known and suspected carcinogens that are migrating from groundwater into surface water and, potentially, into the air residents breathe.

groundwater contamination from a waste disposal site

We might want to think about that before importing coal ash; oh, wait, we already did! Maybe at least we should not import any more of it. We already have cancer-causing arsenic in some of our wells; we don’t need more. And what about that Continue reading →

Watershed meeting organized by Army Corps of Engineers

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) didn’t know there was a large water problem hereabouts, but now they do, and they want to take a watershed-wide approach, from the headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico, including both surface water and aquifer issues, perhaps starting with redrawing FEMA’s flood maps, and maybe even including once again funding the state water council.

Thursday 11 April 2013 there was a rather large governmental meeting organized by USACE in response to the City of Valdosta’s request of 11 March 2103. Yesterday, Valdosta City Council District 5 Tim Carroll sent the appended list of attendees, augmented by a conversation with him on the phone 13 April and a blog comment by him later that same day on the original post on the WWALS blog, in which he also remarked:

Very good preliminary meeting that hopefully will yield real action on our region wide water issues. Thanks for sharing this info with WWALS.
We know little else, because no media or private citizens were invited.

  • USACE Savannah office: Jeff Morris, Georgia Silver Jackets Coordinator and Beth Williams, Hydraulic Engineer
  • USACE Jacksonville office: David Apple, Chief, Watershed and Restoration Planning Section
  • GADNR: Christopher Hill and Tom Shillock, GAEPD Floodplain Management Unit
  • GEMA: Dee Langley, Planning Program Manager and Terry Lunn, Director, Hazard Mitigation Division
  • GEMA: Gary Rice – Regional Field Coordinator
  • USGS: Brian McCallum, Supv. Hydrologist/ADir and Keith McFadden, Physical Scientist
  • FEMA Region 4: Susan Wilson, CFM, Floodplain Management and Insurance Branch Chief and Janice Mitchell, Insurance Specialist and Lender Compliance

Those state and national agencies were brought by:

Continue reading →

Valdosta receives water treatment award

Rather ironic, wouldn’t you say, what with all the problems at the other end of the water usage pipeline? This award is for treating water as it comes out of the city’s wells.

WCTV posted a City of Valdosta press release yesterday, Valdosta Receives GAWP Water Treatment Plant of the Year Award,

The City of Valdosta Water Treatment Plant has been recognized as the 2013 Water Treatment Plant of the Year by the Georgia Association of Water Professionals (GAWP).

The plant was recently evaluated by GAWP inspectors on its well field operations, chemical processes and documentation, and scored 90% or better in all areas. City staff will accept the award in the category for groundwater systems that pump over 10 million gallons daily (MGD), at the GAWP Conference in Macon, Ga., on Tuesday April 16.

“Every day,

Continue reading →

Alcohol, drugs, and broken nuke equipment

A broken cooling water pump at Fermi 2 yesterday plus 60% lost safety data today. Airflow and quality problems at Kewaunee and Three Mile Island. Drugs at Saint Lucie in Florida and alcohol at Nine Mile Point 1 in New York and at Braidwood in Illinois. And four workers injured at Callaway in Missouri. Apparently nuke employees can get terminated for off-site recreational drug use, but not for fires or broken equipment.

We’ve already seen the event about fire at Plant Vogtle. Here are more events in the NRC Current Event Notification Report for April 4, 2013 and also today, April 5, 2013,

Continue reading →

Valdosta PR about wastewater issues

The city of Valdosta responds. I have decorated this PR with a few images with links, and a few comments after it. -jsq

Mayor and Council Address Recent Wastewater Issues,

The Valdosta Mayor and City Council are committed to providing quality municipal services that meet the expectations of our citizens. In addition to providing fire and police protection and other beneficial quality of life services, the city leadership is equally committed to providing adequate water and wastewater treatment services to its citizens, maintaining a functioning sewer collection system and discharging treated water in an environmentally responsible manner.

Recently, citizens have been inundated with information about the current state of the city’s wastewater treatment plant and sewer collection system, as well as the decisions made during the recent flood event. The following information is provided to explain the recent event and to help citizens better understand these important issues and the dedicated work of their elected officials and municipal staff.

THE SITUATION

Continue reading →