Tag Archives: quality

Halloween Valdosta sewer system upgrades

Valdosta has scheduled sewer main repairs for Halloween (October 30-31) and the Days of the Dead (November 1-2); see WWALS map.

Received via email, Sementha Mathews, Valdosta PR, 26 October 2017, City Schedules Maintenance and Repairs to Sewer System,

City of Valdosta Utilities Department has scheduled two sewer main repairs, Oct. 30-Nov. 2, that will maintain the health of the city’s sewer collection system. Both of these issues were identified through the city’s smoke testing program which has tested all of the city’s 300 miles of sewer lines since 2014.

Follow this link for the interactive Google Map by WWALS.

On Monday, Oct. 30, beginning at 9 a.m., Continue reading →

Alabama sends email for sewage spills 2017-09-01

Florida does it. Alabama does it. Maybe Georgia should do it: post pollution notices online as they are received, and send out email notices to those who have signed up. That way cities and counties would not have to notify anybody but the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD), and Riverkeepers wouldn’t have to poll each and every city and county to find out what is going on.

See below for the interactive map of sewage spills in Alabama in 2016 by Alabama Riverkeepers, and see also the Florida map I drew from Florida’s Pollution Notices.

Alabama also requires reporters to include latitude and longitude in their reports, and to use an electronic reporting system. Both are great improvements on Georgia’s current methods of telephoning in a number and responding to open records requests with records that do not have GPS coordinates.

Dennis Pillion, AL.com, 1 September 2017, ADEM rolls out email notifications for sewage spills, Continue reading →

Lead TMDL Evaluation for Three Segments in the Suwannee River Basin 2016-06-01

Through November 24, 2017, public comment is open about lead in our Georgia watersheds, in a new proposed Total Maximum Daily Load Evaluation.

Map: Streams Not Supporting Designated, Lead Criteria Violation

Georgia EPD, Proposed TMDLs, 29 September 2017, NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF REVISED TOTAL MAXIMUM DAILY LOADS FOR WATERS AND POLLUTANTS OF CONCERN IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA, Continue reading →

Waterkeeper Alliance supports Clean Water Act

Suwannee Riverkeeper is among the signatories on the comments Waterkeeper Alliance sent in the rulemaking on redefining Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS). Protecting feeder streams and wetlands is important also to prevent floods such as we had in 2009 and 2013, which caused massive sewage overflows.

Waterkeeper Alliance, PR, 28 September 2017, Proposed Revisions to WOTUS Reduce Clean Water Protections: EPA and the Corps’ attempts to revoke Clean Water Act protections from waters is an illegal effort that puts drinking water and public health at risk

Waterkeeper Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and 115 Waterkeeper Organizations and Affiliates submitted comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) urging Continue reading →

Irma sewage spills from Lowndes County 2017-09-12

Received 28 September 2017 from Lowndes County Utilities Director Steve Stalvey:

See interactive google map.

John,
This is the information I sent to the State concerning the spills related to Irma on Tuesday 9-12-17. Continue reading →

SWIM Plan Meeting, Live Oak 2017-10-03

Nitrates, agriculture, and silviculture were already in, and sewage, phosphate mines, and the Floridan Aquifer got added yesterday afternoon in Live Oak in public comments on updates to SRWMD’s SWIM Plans, plus new SRWMD E.D. Hugh Thomas spoke.

Thanks to presenter Tom Singleton, the slides presented are on the WWALS website. Here are a few notes and pictures.

Floridan Aquifer

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Sierra Club Florida noted Continue reading →

Florida Public Notice of Pollution

While Alabama is thinking about it (actually, Alabama already does it) and Georgia requires an open records request with slow response (since 2018-12-21 Georgia now posts spills),

Florida has already required and is publishing timely notices of spills, and more recently a map of the most recent 30 days of spills!

Among them, surprisingly few in the Suwannee River Basin from Hurricane Irma: three in Baker and Bradford Counties from The Chemours Company, and two from Camp Blanding.

Follow this link for the interactive google map.

Daniel H. Thompson, Lexology, 4 May 2017, Florida Legislature Passes “Public Notice of Pollution Act” Continue reading →

Alabama stricter sewage spill regulations and notification

Here’s an idea for Georgia and Florida!

Dennis Pillion, AL.com, 27 September 2017, Alabama cracks down on E. coli bacteria in rivers with revised standards,

A sanitary sewer overflows into Opossom Creek in Hueytown, Ala.(Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper)

Existing five-year permits are valid until they expire, but all new or renewed permits issued by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management going forward will include the new standards.

E. coli bacteria are commonly found in Continue reading →

Quitman, GA, WPCP spill 2017-09-11

Quitman, Georgia also spilled sewage during Tropical Storm Irma, next to Okapilco Creek, which runs into the Withlacoochee River, then the Suwannee River.

According to John Thursby with Quitman Utilities, the lift station at Quitman’s main wastewater treatment plant lost power, and Continue reading →

Lowndes County Force Main Spill 2017-09-23

Lowndes County (not Valdosta) spilled sewage Saturday that may have reached the Withlacoochee River. The county also had “several” lift station spills during Tropical Storm Irma.

Google map, Val Tech Road.

After tonight’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session, I asked Utilities Director Steve Stalvey whether the county had spilled any sewage this month. He said yes, Saturday (September 23, 2017), about 25,000 gallons from the force main on Val Tech Road. He said it was due to Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.