Category Archives: Quality

Valdosta attempts to come clean about sewage, and how you can help

People keep asking me what can be done to prevent this from happening again? Valdosta has already built an entirely new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) uphill out of the flood plain, and a force main to reroute sewage around most of the manholes that previously were leaking: see their extensive writeups on those and other improvements. This recent event was due to equipment failure at the new WWTP, and they have the contractors out there redoing that under warranty.

What can you do? Continue reading →

Coal ash protection legislation pending in Georgia legislature

The Georgia Water Coalition (of which WWALS is a partner) notes the city of Brunswick, Georgia passed a resolution agaionst coal ash 21 September 2016, and legislation is about to appear in the Georgia House of Representatives. There is already TVA and JEA coal ash in the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County, just outside Valdosta, and in WWALS watersheds other landfills likely to be targetted are in Cook, Tift, Atkinson, Ben Hill, and Crisp Counties (see GWC map), all upstream of the Withlacoochee or Alapaha Rivers, and all upstream of the Suwannee River, all above the Floridan Aquifer from which we all drink. We don’t want the utility company coal ash problem exported to our landfills. The companies that produced this toxic pollutant should be responsible for disposing of it safely at their expense without foisting it on the rest of us.

Landfills Map
Coal Ash in Your District — Ash Ponds & Municipal Solid Waste, Published by the GA Water Coalition
See also the GWC position on coal ash.

WWALS recommends all Georgia legislators, especially those in WWALS watersheds, join in to prevent further coal ash contamination. See as an example the PR below by Rep. Jeff Jones of Brunswick, which concludes: Continue reading →

SRWMD says FDEP has confirmed river contamination possibly from Valdosta sewage 2017-01-26

Enteric bacteria have been confirmed in the Withlacoochee River, and in the Suwannee River downstream of the confluence, USGS Streamer say SRWMD and FDEP, while there’s still no update on the City of Valdosta website about the 2.2 million gallons of sewage Valdosta leaked into the Withlacoochee River and didn’t tell the public about for two days.

Valdosta wasn’t the only city to spill into the Withlacoochee during the recent storms. Tifton did, too, but Valdosta’s spill was more than 230 times bigger than Tifton’s. And city sewage is not the only source of contamination in the rivers: wildlife, agricultural animals, and septic tanks add to it. Baseline monitoring would help disentangle which is which. But nobody is going to believe this contamination this time came from any place but Valdosta.

SRWMD, News Flash, 2017-01-26 (no time given), Health Officials Confirm Wastewater Contamination In The Withlacoochee And Suwannee Rivers,

Madison, Fla. — The Florida Department of Health in Hamilton, Madison and Suwannee today issued a joint health advisory extending the previous advisory for the Withlacoochee River to include a portion of the Suwannee River. The health advisory is now in effect for residents and visitors on the Withlachoochee River and on a portion of the Suwannee River from the point where the two rivers meet, downstream along the border of Madison and Suwannee County to the Lafayette County line just above Dowling Park. The river waters are not safe for contact during recreational use at this time.

Test results from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection water sampling in the area have confirmed high levels of enteric bacteria possibly due to a large spill of untreated sewage reported by the City of Valdosta, Georgia.

People are urged to avoid contact with water in the Withlacoochee River and the impacted areas of the Suwannee River. Water contaminated with wastewater overflow presents several health risks to humans. Untreated human sewage with microbes can cause gastrointestinal issues, disease, infections or rashes.

Anyone who comes in contact with the river water should wash thoroughly, especially hands, and before eating and drinking. Children and older adults, as well as people with weakened immune systems, are particularly vulnerable to disease so every precaution should be taken to avoid contact with river water.

Additional sampling will take place to determine when the river water is safe for recreational use.

Individuals with questions about the spillage should contact Valdosta Environmental Manager Scott Fowler at 229-259-3592 or by email at sfowler@valdostacity.com.

Individual with questions for Florida DEP should contact wastewater coordinator Jim Mayer at the NE District office in Jacksonville at 904-256-1700.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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

Sabal Trail pipe and tires standing in water, Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA 2017-01-25

Tires 31.3060850, -84.0087700 And they followed her down the road, as Sabal Trail’s hardhats usually do when they see anybody watching their trail of destruction. This was Wednesday 25 January 2017 on Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA, 31.306085, -84.008770.

Pictures and video by Sherry Layton Gatewood: they didn’t scare her off, and they haven’t scared off the many other people throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama who are watching them like hawks, looking for violations.

Kind of hard to get to your fields to do agriculture with this in the way.

Video: Continue reading →

Water standing on Sabal Trail RoW, Colquitt County towards Mitchell County, GA 2017-01-25

Erosion After the recent storms, water is standing on Sabal Trail’s exotic invasive planted grasses, and sometimes on bare dirt, some of it apparently eroded, in Colquitt County, Georgia west of Moultrie towards Mitchell County. Remember, that 3-foot fracked methane pipe is only 3 feet under the surface. It wouldn’t take much erosion to expose it, increasing likelihood of corrosion, leak, break, explosion, etc.

These pictures were taken Continue reading →

Moultrie sewage spill into Ocholockonee River

The city of Moultrie also had a small wastewater spill Sunday during the storm, but it was tiny compared to Valdosta’s, and Moultrie’s WTP is on the Ochlockonee River, not in the Suwannee River Basin.

Like Tifton, Moultrie’s wastewater operator is not listed on Moultrie’s city website, because its Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF) is operated by the same private contractor, ESG Operations, Inc. That arrangement was announced in June 2015, shortly before major Moultrie WWTF improvements by RTD Construction were announced in September 2015.

Pretty quickly I got through to Bryan Roland, Project Manager, who said yes, Continue reading →

Tifton wastewater spill into the New River

Valdosta wasn’t the only city to spill sewage in the recent storms, but Tifton’s spill was tiny by comparison.

Downstream from Tifton Regional Wastewater Treatment Complex (TRE) Following up a rumor, I called the city of Tifton and eventually got to Tommy Coker, Wastewater Superintendent, Tifton Regional Waste Water Treatment Complex (TRE). You won’t find him listed on Tifton’s website, because he works for the private contractor that runs TRE: ESG Operations, Inc. That arrangement was announced in November 2012.

Anyway, Tommy Coker says they did have a spill, of 9,500 gallons, into a storm drain inside the TRE site, that goes into the New River. It started Sunday January 22nd and stopped about midnight Monday January 23rd, 2017.

The TRE is located at 80 Old Brookfield Rd W, Tifton, GA 31794, which is east of Tifton on US 82 towards Alapaha and Willacoochee, GA.

The New River flows into the Withlacoochee River east of Adel and south of Nashville, between Cook and Berrien Counties, GA. The Withlacoochee forms the rest of the border of those two counties, then flows through Lowndes County past Valdosta and its WWTP, then forms the border of Brooks and Lowndes County, Georgia, and Madison and Hamilton County, Florida, until it joins the Suwannee River, which runs on along Suwannee County and others down to the Gulf.

So Valdosta was not the only city to have a spill during the recent storms, but Valdosta’s 2.2 million gallon leak was more than 230 times bigger than Tifton’s spill.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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

Valdosta WWTP spilled millions of gallons and didn’t tell the public for days 2017-01-25

Update 2017-01-30:

Valdosta also didn’t tell the public all day after the spill stopped, and then posted something that’s flat not true.

I just called Valdosta WWTP Superintendent John Waite, as it says to do on the city’s PR posted Wednesday, January 25, 2017 5:09:00 PM, Withlacoochee Plant Warranty Repairs Underway, which says “The plant is under warranty and the repairs will be complete by end of day Jan. 25 at no cost to the city.” Meanwhile, the Valdosta Daily Times posted yesterday evening City sewage spill stopped.

I asked Superintendent Waite when the spill stopped.

Answer: Continue reading →

And also a Valdosta WWTP spill 2017-01-24

After I posted about the three manhole spills, I discovered Valdosta also announced a spill at the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP).

I just called Scott Fowler at Valdosta Utilities, and he explained:

The leak is from the jet mix pipe that comes back from the influence and pushes back to the EQ [Equalization Tank]. When they put the pipe in with its industrial strength rubber seal, they pressure tested it, and it held. But the seal blew this weekend. They have cameras there to watch it.

Fowler said they also going to have a camera at Wainwright Drive, where one of the other three spills, the ones from manhole covers, happened.

I pointed out to Fowler that the Valdosta PR about the WWTP spill says they detected it Sunday January 22nd, yet it wasn’t published on the city’s website until Tuesday January 24th after 6PM. He said that’s due to Continue reading →

Small Valdosta sewer spills after big rains 2017-01-23

Update 2017-01-25: And also a spill at the WWTP.

Nobody likes sewer spills, but no, these are not the same as before Valdosta’s recent wastewater system improvements: Document-0001 nothing this time came from the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the amounts were small compared to previous years (10-62%) and in far fewer locations.

That didn’t stop WTXL from using this title: Amber Lewis, WTXL, 24 January 2017, Major Sewage Spill Reported in Valdosta,

The City of Valdosta has reported that a large amount of untreated sewage has spilled in the area.

The Florida Department of Health reports that Continue reading →