\r\nWell, apparently the water is not good, because here we are again, with\r\na proposed\r\n$173,000 to fix the same plant.\r\nI have sent the county an open records request to get the two proposals\r\nand the corrective action plan by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD)\r\nand related correspondence.\r\n
\r\nAt least this time the county did not do yet another no-bid contract to the same\r\nengineering firm that did not fix it seven years ago.\r\nMaybe this contractor can finally fix this seventeen-year problem.\r\nBut that won’t fix the county’s chronic problem of assuming responsibility\r\nfor private water wells for subdivisions.\r\n
\r\nRemember Lake Alapaha when you see the three rezonings\r\n\r\non the agenda for voting Tuesday evening<\/a>\r\nlisted as having no “BUDGET IMPACT”,\r\nthe same as every rezoning before them.\r\nEvery subdivision affects the county’s budget, for water and sewer,\r\nor for roads, or for sending fire or Sheriff vehicles, or the school system’s\r\nbudget for school busses,\r\nnot to mention likely increases in flooding due to impervious surfaces.\r\nYet Lowndes County never seems to mention any of that when considering a rezoning.\r\n \r\n8.b.\r\n\r\nAlapaha Plantation Water Treatment Pilot Study<\/a>\r\n \r\nThis is the kind of extra expense Valdosta avoided\r\n\r\nby sinking its water wells at Guest Road twice as deep<\/a> after Withlacoochee River water was discovered reaching them from Shadrick Sink, on the other side of the Withlacoochee River,\r\nand the other side of what is now the Cherry Creek Mitigation Bank,\r\nrecently sold to Uvalde Land Company, which\r\n\r\nwants to deannex half of it from Valdosta<\/a>.\r\n \r\nThe Alapaha Water Treatment Plant is\r\nat\r\n\r\n6328 Lake Alapaha Boulevard, Naylor, GA<\/a>.\r\nGo\r\neast of Naylor on US 84, right into Lake Alapaha Hidden Cove subdivision<\/a>, then on the right.\r\n \r\n\r\n The\r\n\r\nagenda sheet<\/a> for voting tomorrow evening at 5:30 PM says:\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\nSUBJECT: Alapaha Plantation Water Treatment Pilot Study\r\n \r\nDATE OF MEETING: August 10, 2021 Work Session\/Regular Session\r\n \r\nBUDGET IMPACT: $173,000.00\r\n \r\nFUNDING SOURCE: (X) Annual\r\n \r\nCOUNTY ACTION REQUESTED ON: Alapaha Plantation Water Treatment Pilot Study\r\n \r\nHISTORY, FACTS AND ISSUES:\r\nThe Alapaha Water System is under a corrective action plan issued by the\r\nGeorgia EPD.\r\nTrihalomethanes and halo actic acids continue to be a problem with the finish water.\r\nStaff sent out an RFP for a nano-filtration pilot study and received two proposals. After reviewing the proposals,\r\nSafbon Water Technology was selected to provide the pilot study.\r\nThis will be a 12 month pilot study to insure nano filtration can reduce the tri\r\nhalomethanes and halo acidic acids to the desired levels.\r\nStaff recommends approval of the pilot study with Safbon Water Technology and to authorize the Chairman to sign the contract.\r\n \r\nOPTIONS: Approve the pilot study with Safbon Water Technology and authorize the Chairman to sign the contract.\r\n \r\nRECOMMENDED ACTION: Approve\r\n \r\nDEPARTMENT: Utilities DEPARTMENT HEAD: Steve Stalvey\r\n \r\nADMINISTRATIVE COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nThat Lake Alapaha Treatment Plant has been getting notices of violations from GA-EPD since at least 2004.\r\nIn July 2013,\r\nin response to a notice of violation from GA-EPD,\r\n\r\nthe Lowndes County Commission sent a letter to GA-EPD saying it would be fixed by March 2015<\/a>.\r\nIn August 2013, they let a no-bid engineering contract to the engineering firm that wrote that letter<\/a>.\r\nThey also let another no-bid contract<\/a> to the same firm in that same 2013 meeting<\/a>.\r\n \r\nIn July 2014, the same engineering firm, Lovell Engineering,\r\noffered a special reduced price of $71,000 for two sets of water treatment equipment,\r\nif the county purchased right then in another no-bid contract,\r\nfor both Lake Alapaha and Spring Creek.\r\n“Commissioner Demarcus Marshall asked if any of this equipement went out for bids. Answer: no, staff approved it.”\r\n \r\nIn August 2014, Lowndes County asked the Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA) for a variance for “building location requirements (minimum side yard setbacks).”\r\nZBOA \r\ntabled it per request from Lowndes County<\/a>.\r\nThe next month, September 2014,\r\n\r\nLowndes County withdrew the variance application<\/a>,\r\nsaying they planned to by more land nearby.\r\nThere is no record in the Lowndes County Tax Assessors map that the county\r\never did buy more land.\r\nParcel 0261 025<\/a> was deeded to the county by quit claim in 2006,\r\nand there is no other county-owned land nearby.\r\n \r\nIn February 2015, ZBOA denied a request by landowner Robert Dinkins<\/a>\r\nto not connect to county water.\r\nOn June 23, 2015,\r\nfor that same landowner,\r\n\r\nthe Lowndes County Commissioners agreed to pay\r\n$16,915<\/a>\r\nto upgrade a water line to further development he was working on.\r\nThat was more than the $15,957 the county declined to provide to study public transportation and truck routing<\/a>.\r\nIn July, 2018, Lowndes County\r\n\r\n“memorialized”<\/a> an agreement with \r\nRobert Dinkins and Carolyn Dinkins<\/a>,\r\nto\r\n\r\nupgrade that water line from two inches to six inches<\/a>.\r\nThe regulatory way for that development was apparently cleared\r\nback in February 2012, when Lowndes County\r\nremoved conservation zoning\r\nfrom Robert Dinkins’ property<\/a> at Lake Alapaha.\r\n \r\nSo far we know of $35,500 plus $16,915 plus now $173,000 = $225,415 spent\r\nto subsidize water for those hundred private houses in a private subdivision at Lake Alapaha.\r\nWhy does the Lowndes County Commission continue to spend taxpayer dollars\r\nto subsidize private developers?\r\nAs a taxpaying landowner in Lowndes County, I’d like to know.\r\n \r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n![\"Your](\"https:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2817\/9666251722_3d1e7ce9c9_z.jpg\")
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\r\nBoard’s Pleasure\r\n