First time we’ve seen this: 300 gallons of raw sewage spilled from Rochelle, Georgia, in Wilcox County, at the top of the Alapaha River Basin.

Rochelle is nestled between Reynolds Creek on the west, which flows into Mill Creek after it comes across south of town. Mill Creek joins the Alapaha River some miles south.

Floridians probably don’t care, because there’s no way 300 gallons of raw sewage will travel a hundred river miles south to the state line before being diluted beyond detection.

Residents of Rochelle probably do, though. RESIDENTS GET JUSTICE FROM CITY OF ROCHELLE, GEORGIA; Victory: City agrees to fix sewer system that dumps into yards, homes, EarthJustice, 8 August 2014.

A group of citizens who have endured raw sewage bubbling up into their homes and yards from city pipes for decades reached a settlement this week with their city government in Rochelle, Ga. The old, leaky city sewer pipes will be replaced.

Maybe they thought everything was fixed, but apparently not.

It’s difficult to tell where the spill occurred from the description, “Manhole near lift station.” Rochelle has at least two pump stations, according to the The Joint Wilcox County Comprehensive Plan Wilcox County, Abbeville, Pineview, Pitts, and Rochelle 2025 (July, 2005):

The City of Rochelle has two oxidation ponds. A 10-acre pond is located off of U.S. 280 on Industrial Drive, and another three-acre pond is located on Seventh Avenue. The ponds utilize the traditional extended sludge treatment process and have a treatment capacity in average daily flow (ADF) of 1,000,000 gallons per day. In 2004, the City of Rochelle had an average daily flow of 370,000 gallons per day. The City’s sewer collection system consists of approximately 25 miles of sewer lines with six to 12 inch pipes and two lift stations that lift wastewater from lower areas to gravity lines running to the oxidation ponds. Information on the lift stations is included in Table CF-10.

TABLE DF-10
Pump Stations
City of Rochelle

PUMP STATION NO.	LOCATION	YEAR INSTALLED	PUMP DATA
1	Ginhouse Street	1987	***GPM
2	Dykes Avenue	1987	***GPM

Those aren’t very specific locations, either. Maybe we’ll see an update later.

Meanwhile, there were plenty of new spills reported, from Atlanta, Rom, Dublin, Augusta, Sandy Springs, Marietta, and the winner: Lithonia, for 233,540 gallons of raw sewage on January 3rd and 268,961 gallons on December 28th for 502,501 gallons total. That’s up in Valdosta range!

2019-01-11–GA-EPD-Sewage-Spills-Report.diff by WWALS Watershed Coalition; see https://wwals.net/issues/vww/ga-spills

BEGIN DATE	FACILITY NAME	COUNTY	CITY	OVERFLOW LOCATION	QUANTITY GALLONS	OVERFLOW TYPE	PERMIT NUMBER	WASTEWATER FACILITY TYPE	SPILL PRIMARY CAUSE	RIVER BASIN	WATERWAY IMPACTED
Posting Date	[2019-01-10]	You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Posting Date	[2019-01-11]
2019-01-10	Rochelle, City of	Wilcox	Rochelle	Manhole near lift station	300	Raw Sewage		Collection System
2019-01-09	Atlanta, City of (R.M. Clayton, Utoy Creek, and South River WRCs)	Fulton	Atlanta	61 Palisades Rd. NE – Atlanta	462	Raw Sewage	GA0039012	Collection System	Grease		Peachtree Creek
2019-01-08	Rome, City of (Rome WRF)	Floyd		Back side of Wolf Park 106 Park Avenue in Lindale	500	Raw Sewage	GA0024112	WWTP	Roots	Coosa	Booze Creek
2019-01-04	Dublin, City of (Dublin WPCP)	Laurens	Dublin	502 Church St – Dublin	1,000	Raw Sewage	GA0025569	Collection System	Wet weather		Ferry Branch/Oconee River
2019-01-03	Augusta, City of (J.B. Messerly WPCP)	Richmond	Augusta	1899 Virginia Avenue – Augusta	2,000	Raw Sewage	GA0037621	Collection System	Grease		Rocky Creek
2019-01-03	Dekalb County (Snapfinger Creek WPCP)	DeKalb	Lithonia		233,540	Raw Sewage	GA0024147	Collection System	Wet weather	Ocmulgee	Snapfinger Creek
2019-01-02	Dublin, City of (Dublin WPCP)	Laurens	Dublin	711 Alabama St – Dublin	8,000	Raw Sewage	GA0025569	Pump Station	Equipment failure		Did Not Enter State Waters
2019-01-01	Fulton County (Big Creek WPCP)	Fulton	Sandy Springs	7148 Stonington Drive	3,480	Raw Sewage	GA0024333	Collection System	Debris	Chattahoochee	Marsh Creek
2018-12-30	Cobb County (South WPCP)	Cobb	Marietta	South Cobb Drive	0	Raw Sewage	GA0026158	WWTP	Wet weather	Chattahoochee	Chattahoochee River
2018-12-28	Dekalb County (Snapfinger Creek WPCP)	DeKalb	Lithonia	4557 Meadow Creek Path, Lithonia	268,961	Raw Sewage	GA0024147	Collection System	Wet weather	Ocmulgee	Snapfinger Creek
2018-12-28	Cobb County (Marietta Water Authority – James E. Quarles WTP)	Cobb	Marietta	614 Wilshire Ave.	4,750	Raw Sewage		Collection System	Wet weather	Chattahoochee	Sope Creek
2018-12-10	Dallas, City of (Pumpkinvine Creek WPCP)	Paulding	Dallas	575 West Memorial Drive, Dallas	400	Raw Sewage	GA0039241	WWTP	Grease	Coosa	Overflow didn’t reach State Waters
2018-12-10	Savannah, City of (President Street WRF)	Chatham	Savannah	601 Penn Waller Road, Wilmington Island GA	2,240	Raw Sewage	GA0025348	Collection System	Grease	Savannah	Betz Creek
2018-12-10	Atlanta, City of (R.M. Clayton, Utoy Creek, and South River WRCs)	Fulton	Atlanta	2696 Santa Barbara Dr. NW – Atlanta	50	Raw Sewage	GA0039012	Collection System	Debris		Did Not Enter State Waters

The good news: no new spills reported from Valdosta (or Quitman or Tifton or Lowndes County).

Some of the recent difference tables in the archives on the WWALS website look rather odd, because for one day (and one day only) GA-EPD added latitude and longitude. Quite a few rows didn’t have either, such as Valdosta’s North Oak Street at Midbriar Drive or Smith Briar or somewhere. I’m guessing GA-EPD found assigning latlongs harder than it expected. I look forward to them solving that problem and publishing a map of the past 30 days, like Florida already does.

For more context, see wwals.net/issues/vww/ga-spills.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

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