Here’s the invitation card for the Valdosta WWTP ribbon cutting Tuesday morning. Congratulations, Valdosta!
VALDOSTA
A City Without LimitsThe City of Valdosta, Georgia
Requests the Honor of your Presence
at the
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
for the
Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant Continue reading
Finally ready for prime time and a ribbon cutting:
the new, uphill, out-of-the-floodplain, long-awaited
Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) and Force Main,
which have not overflowed or otherwise caused sewage spills in the recent rains,
so maybe Valdosta’s chronic problem smelt downstream all the way to the Gulf
is perhaps finally fixed.
Congratulations, Valdosta!
When: 8AM Tuesday July 12th 2016
Where: At the new WWTP on Wetherington Lane, north off US 84, west of I-75 exit 16
Invitations: Paper invitations were mailed last week, including to counties and health departments downstream in Florida, according to Sementha Mathews. If you didn’t get one, contact her, and she says the event is in any case open to the public.
Update 2016-05-30: Sementha Mathews says the paper invitations were mailed Tuesday (day before yesterday), so they should arrive by the end of the week. Arrived.
Contact: Sementha Mathews Continue reading
The recent rains caused little wastewater overflow, according to
Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll, who forwarded cryptic Valdosta press release yesterday and then explained on the telephone what it meant:
the two biggest pieces of Valdosta’s wastewater and sewer fixes
are operational already.
The press release referred to “the new force main” as if it were already in operation, yet nothing on Valdosta’s website says it is. So I called Tim Carroll and he confirmed that yes, the force main is online. Not only that, but 5 million gallons less water than usual for such rains entered the new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP).
Wait, does that mean the new, uphill, out-of-the-floodplain WWTP is also online? Yes, confirmed Carroll. And the less inflow was due to less INI.
What’s INI, I asked, ignorantly? Continue reading
Valdosta seems serious about finally opening its new force main and uphill Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant: they’re scheduling a ribbon cutting for May, a year ahead of the original schedule. According to both City Council Tim Carroll and Engineering Assistant Director Emily Davenport, the EPA has already pressure-tested the relevant lines and the plant, and approved them.
People downstream are rightly concerned at the many years they’ve endured wastewater from Valdosta. And recent schedule slips haven’t helped their perceptions, which is why actually holding Continue reading
Force main and the new WWTP on line by May!
More extensive overflows than usual last weekend, and now more extensive information about them,
in
the update Tim Carroll promised,
on the City of Valdosta website as
City System Impacted by Severe Storms and Regional Watershed.
It even starts with schedule details, which say they’re
ahead of
the schedule I previously posted.
This report’s table of overflows has start and stop times and amounts, with the Creeks affected.
It still doesn’t say which river basin they go into. Knights Creek flows into Mud Creek, which goes into the Alapahoochee, Alapaha, and Suwannee Rivers. All the others end up in the Withlacoochee and the Suwannee Rivers. And there are still some unanswered questions. But getting the force main and the new WWTP on line by May is a very good development.
The City of Valdosta is ahead of schedule and plans to bring online nearly $60 million in wastewater system improvements next month. The $35 million Force Main project and the $23 million new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) are both ahead of schedule, and bringing them both online cannot come a day too soon for the city.
“We are pleased to be in the final stages of construction on both projects. Testing is underway now with full startup expected in late May,” according to Director of Utilities Henry Hicks. “We are also pleased that these projects and other awarded sewer collection system improvement projects underway will resolve all the areas of the city impacted by reoccurring overflows that often follow heavy rains and regional flooding.”
Continue reading
Update 2016-04-05: Actually, force main and new WWTP on line by May.
Frances Adams asked:
I just want to know when will this be fixed, I can’t even drink my water for it having ecoli in it. Someone needs to do something now!!!
The two biggest pieces are scheduled to be finished this summer and next summer:
the force main project in July 2016, and the new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant relocated uphill by August 2017.
Valdosta is spending upwards of $300 million to fix the problem.
As I point out every time I post about new spills, there are still open questions and, as your Waterkeeper® Affiliate for the upper Suwannee River and the Withlacoochee and Alapaha Rivers, WWALS Watershed Coalition will keep after Valdosta until we get the answers. See also the slides and videos from the meeting Valdosta held for us a year ago about this.
Here’s what Valdosta’s Sewer System Improvements web page says today: Continue reading
Update 2016-04-05: Here are the details, and force main and new WWTP on line by May.
Valdosta spilled more wastewater over the weekend,
according to Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll, who called just now.
The Withlacoochee River is out of its banks, actually up on the property containing the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), but “according to the experts” not going to threaten the plant. “But lines are underwater”.
Water is not even close to the new WWTP currently under construction, according to Carroll. And the new force main project should deal with much of the manhole overflow problem on the west side of Valdosta in the Withlacoochee basin, for example into Sugar Creek.
On the east and southeast, in the Alapaha basin, Continue reading
I wonder what this “debris” was? And the rags? Anyway, Valdosta has fixed another sanitary sewage spill. Probably if you stay out of the water around 2500 Bemiss Road (south of Northside Drive) you’ll be OK. But you may also want to know where Two Mile Branch goes downstream, and as usual Valdosta didn’t tell us.
As we recall from Valdosta’s last episode of multiple wastewater spills earlier this month,
Two Mile Branch runs into Sugar Creek which goes into the Withlacoochee River,
and eventually into the Suwannee River and the Gulf of Mexico.
Don’t be surprised if you see a Florida Department of Health advisory
like the one earlier this month. Continue reading
Maybe soon this February baker’s dozen of wastewater spills will be a thing of the past, but for now it’s deja vu similar to but worse than last February.
It looks like Valdosta has updated,
as repeatedly asked,
its
schedule for wastewater project completion,
with the force main project now aimed at July 2016 and relocation of the
Withlacoochee WasteWater Treatment Plant (WWTP) for August 2017.
See also Valdosta PR 22 January 2016,
Withlacoochee Aerial Sewer Mains Replacement Project.
Those schedule changes are mentioned in the most recent Valdosta News. It does not, however, say which watersheds the various spills affect. I have added * for Alapaha River watershed and ** for Withlacoochee River watershed. It’s not that hard, and Valdosta has a water management plan that spells this all out, with maps. One Mile Branch** and Two Mile Branch** flow into Sugar Creek**, which goes into the Withlacoochee River**. Knights Creek* goes into Mud Creek* which goes into the Alapahoochee* River and then the Alapaha River*, eventually joining the Suwannee River in Florida, as does the Withlacoochee. Valdosta Utilities and Public Relations know all that. But why should every citizen, Continue reading
What crosses Lee Street and Gornton Road heading to the
Withlacoochee River? 
One Mile Branch and Sugar Creek, but you wouldn’t know that
from Valdosta’s press releases.
Valdosta PR 27 October 2015, Grease Blockage Causes Small Sanitary Sewer Spill in City,
At approximately 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 26, 2015, the City of Valdosta Utilities Department responded to a grease blockage that caused Continue reading