\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nDue to continued heavy rains in Valdosta and surrounding areas in\r\nrecent days, moderate flooding of the Little and Withlacoochee\r\nRivers caused a hydraulic overload at the Withlacoochee Wastewater\r\nTreatment Plant. As a result of a peak hourly flow of 15.58 million\r\ngallons, the incident led to a discharge of total suspended solids\r\nin excess of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System\r\n(NPDES) permit limit.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe total suspended solids result for the effluent sample collected\r\nAugust 22, 2013 was 203 milligrams per liter. This is greater than\r\n1.5 times the weekly average of 45 milligrams per liter allowed by\r\nthe NPDES permit, which constitutes a major spill. The volume of the\r\nmajor spill into the Withlacoochee River is the total flow for\r\nAugust 22, which is 12.1 million gallons. The discharge was not raw\r\nsewage but rather a combination of large volumes of storm water and\r\nsubstantially treated wastewater, some of which did not fully\r\ncomplete the final treatment process.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe Environmental Protection Division (EPD) classifies these permit\r\nviolations as “spills,” leading most to believe it is\r\nraw sewage. However, a spill, as in this case and in the\r\noverwhelming majority of the incidences at the treatment plant, is a\r\nresult of higher-than-usual volumes of storm water entering the\r\nsewer collection system. This combination of normal sewer flow and\r\nsubstantial storm water inflow during major rain events\r\nhydraulically overwhelms and short circuits some of the wastewater\r\ntreatment process capabilities causing some solids to be washed from\r\nthe final treatment processes. The city is required by EPD permit\r\nregulations to report this as a spill, even though the water\r\ndischarged into the local waterways is not raw sewage but a\r\ncombination of mostly storm water and almost completely treated\r\nsewage.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe city continues to work closely with the design consultant and\r\ncontractor who are on site at the plant implementing seven projects\r\nover the next several months that, once in place, will help keep the\r\nWWTP in compliance with the NPDES permit until the relocation of the\r\nplant is complete. City officials are hopeful that the short-term\r\nprojects will provide the relief needed to minimize and avoid any\r\nfurther permit violations until the relocation of the WWTP is\r\naccomplished. The city is also preparing to issue a design\/build RFP\r\nfor the relocation of the plant, which is expected to cost $20\r\nmillion and be completed by November 2015.\r\n\r\nClick here<\/a> for more\r\ninformation on WWTP projects.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nWarning signs have been placed downstream, and stream sampling of\r\nthe Withlacoochee River has been initiated as required. For more\r\ninformation, contact Environmental Manager John Waite at (229)\r\n259-3592 or at jwaite@valdostacity.com.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So many I’ve lost track; somebody help me…. Valdosta City PR Friday, Public Notice for Permit Violation at WWTP, Due to continued heavy rains in Valdosta and surrounding areas in recent days, moderate flooding of the Little and Withlacoochee Rivers caused a hydraulic overload at the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant. As a result of a […]","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":[32,73,3,55],"tags":[304,292,8701,8702,12,7,8715,8731,8700,6,8727,58,295,6257],"class_list":["post-5305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pollution","category-safety","category-transparency","category-water","tag-flooding","tag-ga-epd","tag-georgia","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-pollution","tag-safety","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-water","tag-withlacoochee-river","tag-withlacoochee-wastewater-treatment-plant","tag-wwtp"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1nz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305","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=5305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5307,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305\/revisions\/5307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}