{"id":12457,"date":"2015-02-28T11:48:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T16:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=12457"},"modified":"2015-02-28T11:49:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T16:49:50","slug":"sewage-spill-not-valdostas-fault-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/sewage-spill-not-valdostas-fault-this-time.html","title":{"rendered":"Sewage spill not Valdosta&#8217;s fault this time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\r\nNot every spill is the city&#8217;s fault.\r\n<p>\r\nCity of Valdosta PR, VDT, 18 February 2015,\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.valdostadailytimes.com\/news\/local_news\/sewage-spilled-into-waterway\/article_ac6d9a64-b6fe-11e4-962c-2b9c69c88c81.html\">\r\nSewage spilled into waterway<\/a>,\r\n<blockquote style=\"font-size:100%\">\r\n<p>\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/home\/headlines\/Valdosta-Responds-to-Manhole-Overflow-Caused-by-Private-Sewer-System--292245321.html\">\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" src=\"http:\/\/media.graytvinc.com\/images\/320*240\/man_hole_manhole.jpg\"><\/a>\r\nVALDOSTA &mdash; An estimated 375 gallons of sewage dumped into a\r\ntributary of Dukes Bay Canal Monday, according to city officials.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nA spokesperson for the city said the wastewater spill near Old\r\nStatenville Road and Arlington Ave. was the result of a manhole\r\noverflow at the 1100 Block of Old Statenville Road around 11 a.m.\r\nMonday.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nThe public is being cautioned<!--more-->\r\n\r\n to avoid contact with the tributary\r\nand the Environmental Protection Division and Health Department have\r\nbeen notified of the spill.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nCity officials have issued a notice of violation of the city&#8217;s Sewer\r\nUse Ordinance to a property owner, saying that the spill was the\r\nresult of a buildup of rags and grease from a poorly maintained\r\nprivate sewer system discharging into a City of Valdosta sewer main.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nAccording to a statement released by the city Tuesday morning, the\r\nincident is the second instance in the last two years in which a\r\nsewer spill at the location was caused by what the Valdosta\r\nUtilities Department called, &ldquo;the improper maintenance of this\r\ninternal private sewer system.&rdquo;\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nA spokesperson said, if another spill occurs at the location, the\r\nUtilities Department will initiate court proceedings against the\r\nproperty owner.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nCity crews reportedly cleaned the area, recovered wastewater and\r\napplied lime to disinfect the affected areas.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>\r\nWinnie Wright, WCTV, 17 February 2015,\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/home\/headlines\/Valdosta-Responds-to-Manhole-Overflow-Caused-by-Private-Sewer-System--292245321.html\">\r\nCity Of Valdosta Not To Blame For Manhole Sewage Overflow<\/a>,\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\r\nHenry Hicks, the City of Valdosta Utilities Directors says, &#8220;It was\r\na combination of grease and rags that clogged the system and caused\r\nthe overflow.&#8221;\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nThis is not the City&#8217;s first sewage overflow, but this time they say\r\na private business is to blame. Hicks says the City has an ordinance\r\nin place to discourage restaurants from pouring grease down their\r\ndrains. However, regulating private residences is much more\r\ndifficult.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nHick adds, &#8220;What we are doing is we are checking all of our records\r\nso we are getting everything together, sending a notice of\r\nviolation. We will give them a 15 day period to respond. That&#8217;s why\r\nwe&#8217;ve got to find out who the owners are. It may be multiple owners.\r\nI don&#8217;t know. But they&#8217;ve got to respond with a remedial action plan\r\non how they&#8217;re going to prevent that from happening again.&#8221;\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nIn this case, it&#8217;s up to the apartment complex management to keep\r\ntheir sewage lines cleared by educating residents, or by hiring a\r\nprivate company to clean the lines, Hicks says.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>\r\nThis incident is actually different from the more general flooding\r\nand wastewater problem,\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wwals.net\/2015\/02\/28\/withlacoochee-river-sewage-spills-suwannee-river-basin-flooding-study-and-valdostas-funded-plan-to-fix-its-problem\/\">\r\nwhich Valdosta has a funded plan to fix and is busily working towards that end<\/a>.\r\n<p>\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not every spill is the city&#8217;s fault. City of Valdosta PR, VDT, 18 February 2015, Sewage spilled into waterway, VALDOSTA &mdash; An estimated 375 gallons of sewage dumped into a tributary of Dukes Bay Canal Monday, according to city officials. A spokesperson for the city said the wastewater spill near Old Statenville Road and Arlington [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,54,133,55,177],"tags":[8701,8702,8710,12,7,8295,5386,6,8726,8742,8727,8748,8076],"class_list":["post-12457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vdt","category-water","category-wctv","tag-georgia","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-old-statenville-road","tag-park-chase","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-vdt","tag-water","tag-wctv","tag-winnie-wright"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3eV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12457"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12460,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12457\/revisions\/12460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}