New catch basin proposed for Valdosta’s WWTP

Items 2 (new catch basin proposed for Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant, WWTP) and 3 (zero lift station spills) have not been published elsewhere. Received Thursday, December 6, 2018. -jsq

From: Tim Carroll

Hey John,

I just wanted to follow up from our conversation the other day. I had a very good conversation with [Utilities Director] Darryl Muse and [City Manager] Mark Barber Tuesday. Here are the highlights:

Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll

  1. We are still seeing way to[o] much storm water infiltration (I&I) into the sanitary sewer system. Darryl believes it is in the older parts of the city—specifically the downtown area. He is going to focus on finding where this is happening.
  2. We also discussed building another catch basin. Almost doubling our storage capacity during storm events. This will be about $1-1.5M so it is not a budget buster.
  3. We had zero spills along the lines or at lift stations. You may remember that the majority of spills in the past took place before it got to the WWTP.
  4. Tonight we will be approving the purchase of 9 generators for permanent placement and 1 mobile for our lift stations. We are also in the process of applying for a grant to purchase generators for our large force main by the YMCA. This generator is over a million bucks.
  5. We are also going to approve tonight the purchase of a SCAD[A] system to monitor every single lift station as well as both WWTP. This way we will have live data so as to better manage and respond to our waste water infrastructure.

This recent spill was disappointing of course. And yes, the city has “earned” a lot of the grief it is getting over them. But these above combined with the millions of dollars we have invested over the past several years is beginning to pay off. We are close.

We are invested and we are committed.

Thanks,

Tim Carroll
Councilman District 5
City of Valdosta
229.244.0928 w
229.671.1392 h
tcarroll@valdostacity.com

The agenda for last Thursday’s Valdosta City Council meeting is online. Darryl Muse had quite a bit to say, and they did approve items 4 and 5.

I also spoke, inviting the City of Valdosta to sign on to the the resolution asking GA-EPD to tell everyone when anyone spills. At least this time the mayor did not laugh. Video will be available soon.

The only way anybody found out about the other thirteen (13) Valdosta spills was when I got an update from GA-EPD, which showed as recently as the other day that most of those spills were still not stopped.

I appreciate Council Carroll’s communications. He is well aware of my opinion that if Valdosta wants to stop having a reputation of hiding information, it needs to stop hiding information important to the public health.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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2 thoughts on “New catch basin proposed for Valdosta’s WWTP”

  1. Gregory and Ruth Ann Phenis

    We’re members and have owned property on Withlacoochee near Lee for over 20 yrs. Spills have gone on the entire time we’ve been there. I watched Tallahassee news segment on suing Valdosta and I wonder why we are so SOFT? Why are we not speaking out louder that Valdosta has made he same empty promises for YEARS. We were to be patient until the new place was built ,which was supposed to stop spills. Now the excuse is something else. Sorry to be blunt, but BULL. And it’s the same ol’ same ol’ and we need to take legal action and stop allowing them to continue to put us off and make empty promises. They need to know we AREN’T GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE! They do not care, therefore, they need to be forced to take action and “yesterday”.

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