No spills yet from rain on Valdosta 2024-07-28 | WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

Update 2024-08-02: Three more Ashburn sewage spills reported more than a week late 2024-07-20.

Pictures of flooding in Valdosta are circulating on social media.

Flooding in Valdosta, Three inches of rain 2024-07-28, No sewage spills yet. Other contaminants?

As usual, people are commenting that Valdosta must be spilling wastewater.

So I called Valdosta Utilities Director Jason Barnes. He says there have been no spills from this rain.

Sometimes WWALS members spot them first. So if you see or smell a spill, please let us know.
https://wwals.net/report/

The Valdosta Utilities Director didn’t mention, because he’s not in charge of this: there may be E. coli from other sources, such as pets, livestock, and wildlife.

And of course there will be trash washed into creeks and rivers, especially from all the parking lots that do not yet have trash cans. Much of that trash converges onto Sugar Creek, along with any sewage spills, because something like 80% of Valdosta drains into that creek.

I commend Anetra Riley and Valdosta City Marshalls for notifying parking lot owners and managers (and citing them if necessary), that they have to follow Valdosta City trash ordinances that require the parking lot owner or manager to keep trash from escaping, no matter where it came from, and to strategically place trash cans according to the number of parking spaces. But that process takes a while and is not yet finished.

Valdosta has bought two trash traps and built another, but there are more of those to be added, as well. That’s before getting into styrofoam packaging bans and other measures to stop single-use packaging.
https://wwals.net/issues/trash/

As the most populous city in the Suwannee River Basin, Valdosta is not surprisingly the source of the most sewage spills and trash into waterways.

Valdosta has already spent more than $100 million fixing sewage problems, including building a new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) uphill out of the flood plain, constructing a force main with two pump stations, and repairing many old, leaky, manholes and sewer lines.

In its FY 2025 budget Valdosta has approved a $67 million bond to fix water and sewer problems.
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/?p=24326

Valdosta VY 2025 Budget with $67 million bond for water and sewer projects

The Valdosta city staff directing this sewage work are different from back when the main problems occured. There’s a new Utilities Director, City Engineer, and City Manager, and of course the Mayor is new since 2019 and some of the City Council are new.
https://wwals.net/?p=65255

All of the City Council seems set on fixing the sewage problems. But the problem is huge and it isn’t fixed yet.

Meanwhile, Valdosta is far from the only source of sewage spills or trash. Quitman, for example, has spilled many times into Okapilco Creek, upstream of the Withlacoochee River above Knights Ferry Boat Ramp, as well as other wastewater permit violations. See Quitman: Noncompliance, 9 effluent violations, 5 sewage spills, 11 monitoring violations, 1 reporting violation –GA-EPD Nov 2022 – Oct 2023.
https://wwals.net/?p=65020

Quitman, GA, Noncompliant for Nov 2022 – Oct 2023 –GA-EPD, 9 effluent, 5 spills,, 11 monitoring, 1 reporting

Upstream of Valdosta, something comes down Cat Creek in big rains.

WWALS will be watching.

Some people wonder, what good will watching do?

Well, we don’t just watch, we test.
https://wwals.net/?p=64787

And sometimes WWALS testing contributes to action by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD), such as a Consent Order last September.
https://wwals.net/?p=63524

IG: Sara and Scotti Jay Jones, the GA-EPD Consent Order, location map, and fish kill

And we are not the only ones watching. See Downstream dozen Florida counties task force reactivated after raw sewage spills across Georgia state line –WUFT 2024-07-23
https://wwals.net/?p=65440

That’s the same Task Force that back in 2020 was instrumental in getting GA-EPD to levy an Enforcement Order on Valdosta. WWALS helped with that, too.
https://wwals.net/?p=52412

There are some maps below, of relevant areas of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT). The south and east parts of Valdosta drain into the Alapaha River Basin, but most of that city drains into the Withlacoochee River.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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