Tag Archives: Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

Packet: Proposed Annual Budget, City of Valdosta, FY 2025, for Budget Meeting 2024-05-22

In this Proposed Annual Budget for the City of Valdosta Budget Meeting Wednesday afternoon, 3-8 PM,
there are two bond series, one refinancing, the other new, both for water and sewer improvements.

Apparently the city has previously financed more than $32 million in loans
from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA),
and last year floated a bond at a lower interest rate
for about $22 million still to be paid.

Even more interesting, if I am reading it correctly, this budget proposes a new bond for
$67 million.

Maybe the Valdosta City government is getting more serious about fixing their sewer system problems.

This is all in addition to the water and sewer improvements paid for by
Special Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) line items,
by American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds,
or from other revenue; see below.


[Extracts, Proposed FY 2025 City of Valdosta Budget]

Extracts, Proposed FY 2025 City of Valdosta Budget


W&S 2020 Bond Series

  • Purpose: Refinance GEFA notes at a lower interest rate
  • Maturity Date: 2033
  • Original Principal Amount: $32,134,000; July 1, 2023, Principal Outstanding $22,264,065
  • Interest Rate: 2.29%
  • Funding Source: Water and Sewer Revenue Fund


Pending for FY 25 – estimate

W&S 2024 Bond Series

  • Purpose: Upgrades Water and Sewer
  • Maturity Date: 2054
  • Original Principal Amount: $67,000,000; July 1, 2023, Principal Outstanding $67,000,000
  • Interest Rate: 4.5%
  • Funding Source: Water and Sewer Revenue Fund

See

page 49, Debt Service, FY 2025, City of Valdosta. Continue reading →

Development Authority sells land for solar arrays

Next to ERCO Worldwide,
one of the few tenants in
VLCIA’s “eight industrial parks”,
SolAmerica is buying land for a solar farm
that will take up most of the rest of the Perimeter East Business Park.


Site Layout, East of Valdosta

Site Layout submitted by SolAmerica to VLCIA in 14 November 2017 meeting.

Jason A. Smith, VDT, 15 November 2017,

Solar arrays planned for land,

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority voted Tuesday to
approve the sale of 27.42 acres for $137,100 to be used for solar
arrays.

Continue reading →

Valdosta Solar Power on Val Tech Road

On the closed landfill across from Valdosta State Prison on Val Tech Road,
what looks like maybe a megawatt of solar panels by the City of Valdosta.


Lots of solar panels

Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, 1 September 2017

Parcel-0081A-001

Continue reading →

Valdosta to add solar power to both wastewater treatment plants 2016-10-06

Valdosta just leapfrogged the rest of the state in solar power for wastewater treatment plants.


Council Tim Carroll expanded beyond the laconic summary of Thursday’s Valdosta City Council action,
which itself expanded on a July action.
Turns out Valdosta is one of several cities across Georgia with solar power for their wastewater treatment facilities, and maybe not the largest nor the earliest, but apparently the earliest large one.
The main point is clear from all of them: solar power for wastewater plants pays for itself in only a few years and can save millions of dollars over decades.


Summary of Actions,
Regular Meeting,
Valdosta City Council,
Thursday October 6th 2016, Continue reading →

Award to Superintendent of Valdosta Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

Some good news about Valdosta wastewater.

City of Valdosta PR, 29 May 2015,

Henderson Wins TopOp Award,



Harold Henderson (left) was honored at the May 21 City Council
meeting by Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Keith
Martin for recently being selected as the Georgia Association of
Water Professionals (GAWP) TopOp for District 7, which represents
over 300 wastewater plant operators in the southwest and
south-central Georgia region. Henderson, who has worked as an
operator at the Mud Creek Plant for over 12 years, was recognized
for Continue reading →

Valdosta Wastewater presentation to Greenlaw, Save Our Suwannee, SRWMD, Hamilton Co., and WWALS 2015-03-17



Due to requests from Greenlaw in Atlanta and Save Our Suwannee in Florida,
WWALS Watershed Coalition asked the City of Valdosta for a presentation
on their wastewater situation.
Valdosta presented less than two weeks later, and brought their entire
hierarchy related to this issue, from the mayor on down.
Plus Lowndes County, which isn’t even responsible for Valdosta’s wastewater,
was represented by their Chairman and a Commissioner.

Not all questions could be answered that quickly, but many were.

The slides are on the LAKE website and the videos are on the LAKE YouTube channel; see below.
See also Valdosta’s Sanitary Sewer System Improvements web page.

At the meeting,
clockwise from Tim Carroll (introducing), were: Continue reading →

Valdosta recognized for solar power, LED lighting, wastewater improvements

City of Valdosta PR today 5 December 2014,

Valdosta Named “Smart Energy Municipality of the Year”,



The City of Valdosta was named “Smart Energy Municipality of
the Year” by the

Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) on
Dec. 4, at an awards banquet held at the Georgia Tech Wardlaw
Building in Atlanta, Ga. The event recognized successful
individuals, businesses and municipalities who have shown dynamic
leadership over the past year in Georgia’s large and growing Smart
Energy sector.

Sixty nominations were received collectively in the three
categories. In the municipality category, which includes cities,
counties and state government agencies, the City of Valdosta was one
of two finalists and the overall recipient of the award ” the
other finalist was the Georgia Department of Corrections.

“We are extremely honored Continue reading →

The SPLOST Debate –Tim Carroll

Received 27 October 2013. -jsq



I have had a number of folks contact me about the upcoming SPLOST
VII referendum and inquiring about a MOST. Trying to talk about all
of this in as few a words as I can is not easy. But to give you
some perspective—the city’s general fund budget is $32M.
$5.9M of the revenue for this fund comes from property taxes. Based
on the city tax digest a mill is worth $1.5M. The experts say
50.2% of the sales tax is paid by out of towners. In the opinion of
some folks, it is closer to 30%. Pick the experts or local guesses
….it still is a significant amount. It clearly is very beneficial
to the citizens of Valdosta and Lowndes County.

By now many have heard about a MOST or Municipal Option Sales Tax.

In the first part of this year—the city of Valdosta was faced
with Continue reading →

PR and Marketing materials, ads, and trips @ VLCIA 2013-08-20



One hopes all this PR and marketing pays off in jobs.
Remember, the Industrial Authority has kept its cushy
1 mil of property tax throughout the economic downturn.
Four new industry projects are on the agenda this time,
plus more solar power at Valdosta’s Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Much better PR than
Valdosta Fire Dept. helping put out Perma-Fix on fire.

Here’s
the agenda

in a slightly broken PDF on the VLCIA website
and extracted below.

Continue reading →

Portland’s Clean Economy of Place

Ironically,
Portland is the prime example in both

Amy Liu’s slides and
the book



The Metropolitan Revolution:
How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy
by Jennifer Bradley and Bruce Katz.

Here’s Bruce Katz in the Guardian 23 April 2012,

Urbanization and Inventing a Clean Economy of Place,



Portland, Oregon, is also internationally renowned for its
commitment to sustainable development. The Portland metropolis has
an expansive public transit system and an urban growth boundary to
control development at the urban periphery. The city boasts a

green investment fund
to provide grants for residential and commercial building projects.

Now the city is striving, like Copenhagen, to reap the economic
rewards of sustainable development through business formation, firm
expansion, job growth and private investment. In February, Portland
released its first regional export plan to double exports over five
years by building on the region’s distinctive economic and physical
attributes. A critical pillar of this strategy involves increasing
the export orientation of firms in the burgeoning clean technology
sector to serve growing markets in Asia, Latin America and
elsewhere.

Hm, a clean economy of place; there’s an idea.
Here’s one of Portland’s green investments:

12W (Indigo) Project Report, Continue reading →