Tag Archives: EPA

Valdosta and Army Corps of Engineers in Flood Risk Management Study

First public update since

May:
Valdosta has had several recent meetings with other governmental groups
and has agreed to co-fund a flooding study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

WCTV has also

picked up
Valdosta PR 23 July 2013,

City Enters Agreement with USACE for Flood Risk Management Study,



The City of Valdosta hosted a Regional Flood Preparedness meeting
with the Georgia Silver Jackets on June 25—a continuation of
discussions that began earlier in the year focused on regional
interests and on maximizing area resources.

Representatives from the cities of Moultrie, Sylvester, Tifton and
Valdosta and from the counties of Lowndes and Turner attended the
meeting to discuss current and future flood monitoring and
forecasting issues throughout the Little River and Withlacoochee
River watersheds. These two watersheds are part of the overall
Suwannee Basin that is approximately 10,000 square miles in Georgia
and Florida.

Among other information shared, Continue reading →

Plant Scherer coal ash maybe related to uranium in well water

Uranium has been found in well water near Juliette, Georgia,
but tests by several different groups of researchers differ on
whether it might be related to nearby coal ash from Plant Scherer.
The same coal ash ponds near which

some people are getting cancer from uranium in their well water.
Coal ash like
we have in Veolia landfill in Lowndes County.

S. Heather Duncan wrote for Macon.com yesterday,

New water test results shed light on Juliette contamination,

Many Juliette residents have expressed concern that a coal ash pond


at Plant Scherer, one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the
country, might be causing the problem. Georgia Power is majority
owner and operator of the plant and its 750-acre, unlined pond
filled with coal ash slurry, which can contain heavy metals such as
uranium….

Since then, water samples tested by the Environmental
Protection Agency, as well as a smaller group of samples tested by a
group of University of Georgia graduate students, showed no pattern
of contamination that could be clearly linked to groundwater flow
from the coal ash pond. The samples were taken last year, but in
some cases it took months for the samples to be analyzed….

On the
other hand,

Continue reading →

Who’s inaccurate: VDT, Valdosta, GEFA, Chamber, County?

Both Chamber of Commerce Chair Myrna Ballard and Lowndes County Manager
Joe Pritchard say the VDT is inaccurate.
The VDT took offense at Ballard’s assertion.
Which do you believe?


I believe I’d like to see the evidence, not just the VDT’s assertions.
And this junior high school cat fight the VDT insists on is not
helping fix the real problem with water and wastewater in Valdosta
and Lowndes County: the widespread and longterm damage to our watersheds
that turned a normal rain in 2009 into a 700 year flood, and caused
another flooding of the Withlacoochee Wasterwater Treatment Plant this year.
I’m all for investigative reporting, but I have not yet once seen
the VDT investigate the real underlying issues of longtime clearcutting
and building of roads subdivisions, and parking lots without adequate
consideration of water flows.

The VDT front page today has yet another story attacking the City of Valdosta,

Loan info from GEFA contradicts City:
$11 million awaits disbursement, loan amounts don’t match.
I can’t make much sense out of it, because while Jason Shaefer has
dug up a lot of interesting information, he doesn’t include dates
for much of the financial detail he attributes to GEFA.
Let’s see the VDT publish the documents they are referring to.
The city does publish its

Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports.
The VDT has a website, and could publish whatever records
it got from GEFA, which after all were produced using our tax dollars,
and are therefore public records.
Or if the documents are somewhere on

GEFA’s website, the VDT could publish links to the specific documents.
The VDT did publish

a timeline of correspondence with the City about loans,
so it could just as easily publish the GEFA documents and its
own page-by-page and chart-by-chart comparison so we could all see
for ourselves.

The VDT prepended this blurb to its timeline:

It has come to the attention of the Times that the Chamber of
Commerce has called a special meeting on Tuesday to address what COC
Pres. Myrna Ballard terms as “damage to our community’s
reputation” due to the stories that have appeared in the
newspaper. The invitation for the 9 a.m. meeting at the Chamber
office was extended to only a select group of Chamber members, no
media, and states that Mayor John Gayle and City Manager Larry
Hanson will explain the city’s financial status. The Times takes
very seriously the implication that the newspaper has written
anything that is “inaccurate,” as stated by the Chamber.
As such, the Times has chosen to show the public the information
provided to the newspaper in response to questions posed to the
City, with no editing, to allow citizens the opportunity to see for
themselves if what the Times has written is an
“inaccurate” portrayal of the city’s financial status.

What was that again?

The Times takes
very seriously the implication that the newspaper has written
anything that is “inaccurate,”
as stated by the Chamber.

How about as stated by Lowndes County Manager Joe Pritchard?
In

a letter from him to me of 29 January 2013 Pritchard stated:

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 →

Spilling Sewage Pictures by Gabe Fisher 3:30 PM 24 March 2013

Received yesterday. -jsq

Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 15:43:47 -0400


Manhole

All, just so everyone is on the same page- the sewer line is currently
spilling sewage. It just started at mu house but has been going strong
at sugar creek for awhile by the looks of it. Here are some current
pictures as of 3:30 today. It will get worse until the river crests..

Gabe

Continue reading →

More Valdosta wastewater correspondence



Some interesting questions have come up in
Gabe Fisher's continuing correspondence with the City of Valdosta
about

sewage in his back yard
and

under his house,
while

City Council Tim Carroll continues to respond,
both copying a long list of people.

From: Gabe Fisher

Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 14:23:12 -0500

All, I appreciate the update on where the city stands on moving the
sewer all together—I just wish we had been kept informed of
the plans over the last 4 years. Living with the *real* threat of
flooding is stressful enough, add in the guaranteed associated
sewage spill is more than I can handle.

I also appreciate the city workers spreading lime and working on the
sewer line behind my house today. But I have questions—What
about the sewage in my yard and under my house? Is this my
responsibility?

Thanks, Gabe

Tim Carroll responded with a couple of suggestions:

Continue reading →

Circular wastewater firing squad continues

The VDT's Sunday front page was covered with wastewater stories,
continuing the circular firing squad of the local powers that be.
Meanwhile

in Dublin, GA, they're breaking ground for solar panels
at the local high school, using a bond financing
model that we could use here, if local leaders would look up.



In addition to

some detail about the city's FEMA application
and

following up on flooded yards,
the VDT followed up on

its EPD and EPA scrutiny story
with one saying

City received help from EPD to keep EPA away.
It's good the VDT is covering these issues, but it's still leaving out
important parts of the local water story.

Apparently firing back at



Thursday's Valdosta City Council session,
perhaps especially

Robert Yost's very pointed criticisms of the VDT,
the VDT concluded its

rather rich Sunday editoral:

City leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of
this community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and
fix it.

Yet the VDT has

spent the last week blaming the city,
and has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of
its editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum
that would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.

Now, I agree with the VDT that

Continue reading →

Valdosta Neighborhood Covered In Raw Sewage —WCTV


Valdosta Flooding
As
he indicated yesterday,
Gabe Fisher got his sewage-covered neighborhood on WCTV last night.

Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV yesterday,

Valdosta Neighborhood Covered In Raw Sewage,


Chad Harrison
After days of torrential rain, the same rain that caused the rivers
to flood, the sewage pump has been overwhelmed in the Meadow Brook
Subdivison just off Gornto Road.

“You know how bad it smells in a bathroom when someone goes in and
uses a public restroom. Multiple that ten times,” said Chad
Harrison, a local resident.


Greg Gullberg
The whole area behind their houses is just covered in raw sewage.
Your boots sink down into it with every step. We’re talking
everything from human waste, to toilet paper, to hygiene products
and a whole other list of things that are just too graphic to
mention.

“Probably about 12 to 14 inches of raw sewage,” said Harrison. “It’s
just everywhere. It’s all up and down the creek. It’s all behind
everybody’s houses.”


House
There’s more in

the WCTV story,
such as that the city has included neighbors in meetings, but has not
yet changed anything.
The city’s PR about the flooding
says:

Continue reading →

Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant Fully Operational

Received today. -jsq

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Release #03-13-02

March 3, 2013


Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant Fully Operational


Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant
At approximately 1:30 p.m. today, March 3, the Withlacoochee
Wastewater Treatment Plant was brought online and returned to
normal operation, after a loss of function for only three days
compared to the nine days of complete loss of function experienced
in the flood of 2009. Today, the river receded to the point where
the temporary by-pass pumps could be connected to the existing
valves. The system was turned on, became fully operational and began
full treatment capabilities.




Lessons learned from the 2009 flood resulted in proactive measures
which include the following:

  • The installation of bypass pumps, pipes and valves to utilize in
    the event of an emergency or act of God.
  • In 2009, the berm only protected the pump station, which did not
    prevent flooding of the chemical building, the chlorine contact
    building, the filters and the belt presses. The plant's
    electrical system was destroyed in the flooded area and the filters
    and belt presses were inoperable.


  • In this event, the electric system, chlorine cylinders, de-chlorination
    system and all flooded areas were turned off to avoid the
    damage that was experienced in 2009.
  • In this event, the biological, natural occurring bacteria that
    are used in the treatment process were saved so that the system
    could treat wastewater immediately when it was turned back on. In
    2009, the natural occurring bacteria were washed out of the plant
    as a result of the continuous pumping during the event.
  • In this event, the plant was fully operational in three days.
    In 2009, the plant had a complete loss of function for nine days and
    was not fully operational for over a month.

The city's drinking water supply is in no way

Continue reading →

The WWTP is firing back up as we speak. —Tim Carroll

Tim Carroll’s response to
Gabe Fisher. -jsq

Gabe,

I know you are frustrated and pissed. My hope was with the info
below all could see the city has not just been idly sitting by. What
has been so frustrating for us is that our biggest problem is
outside of the city limits.

As discussed below, we are about 90% complete on the design for the
big force main project. Once completed it will eliminate the sewage
spills during high rain events in your neighborhood.



Just spoke with Larry Hanson and the WWTP is firing back up as we
speak. Soon you should start seeing the current spills end as the
system is brought fully back up and running.

Something I might add we could not have done so quickly had we not
taken the steps we did these past several days.

In regards to clean up —

Continue reading →