Tag Archives: Water

Open Records Request – 20130426 – Waste Water

Wastewater spills open records request In addition to calling Lowndes County, I also filed this Open Records Request:

Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:56:39 -0400
To: Paige Dukes, Mike Allen, Phyllis Judge
Subject: Open Records Request – 20130426 – Waste Water

Hi,

Please find attached an open records request for the following:

1) All written reports to EPD about waste water spills for the last 3 years
2) All year long monitoring programs/results after each spill
3) published notices in legal organ of all spills for last 3 years
4) a copy of the Overflow Emergency Response Program

I would prefer electronic copies of these documents if they are available.

Thank you,

Gretchen

Gretchen Quarterman

I attached a scan of the paper Lowndes County Open Records Request form I filled out.

-gretchen

Status of (not Valdosta) Lowndes County Waste Water Spill

Mike Allen, Utilities Director, Lowndes County, Georgia After learning that Lowndes County (not Valdosta) was having a waste water spill, I called the Utilities Department and asked to speak with Director Mike Allen.

The person that answered the phone said that he was not available and perhaps she could answer my question or put me through to his voice mail. I figured that perhaps I could get some of my questions answered so I asked about the status of the current waste water spill. She said that it had been repaired as of 5am today (April 26).

I then asked if it would be possible to get a copy of the Overflow Emergency Response Program and she asked my name. When I said my name (Gretchen Quarterman) she said that I would have to talk to Paige Dukes and she would transfer me. After a long wait, she came back on the phone and said she would transfer me and I was transferred to the voice mail of Paige Dukes. I did not leave a message.

-gretchen

Major Spills: What to Do –GA DNR

Georgia: 14 River Basins Apparently whoever is responsible for a major spill into Georgia waters needs to immediately tell GA EPD DNR and the local health department and post a sign, and the sewage leak at GA 133 into the Withlacoochee River qualifies as a major spill. The City of Valdosta reported it as such, but it’s not clear it was their spill (update: it was Lowndes County’s spill). Excerpts below from GA DNR’s guidelines. -jsq

Water Quality: A Guide for Municipal Compliance by Mick Smith, Environmental Engineer.

Spills and Major Spills

Spill

  • Any discharge of raw sewage < 10,000 gallons to waters of the state

Major Spill

  • Any discharge of raw sewage > 10,000 gallons to waters of the state
  • BOD5 or TSS = 1.5 x weekly avg. permit limit
  • Any discharge resulting in a water quality violation
Continue reading →

Raw sewage into the Withlacoochee River again

Spilling Sewage Pictures by Gabe Fisher 3:30 PM 24 March 2013 Valdosta (update: it was Lowndes County’s spill) is famous in Florida again for sewage in our rivers.

Last month it was flooding at the Withlacoochee Wastwater Treatment Plant. This month it’s a broken sewer line. WTXL reported yesterday, Sewer line burst in Valdosta — Sewage spewing into river,

Nine hundred gallons of sewage is spewing onto the ground and into the Withlacoochee river, every single minute.

Here’s Valdosta’s Report of Major Spill from yesterday:

Continue reading →

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 →