Tag Archives: spill

What Valdosta is doing about its wastewater problem

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 →

More Valdosta wastewater spills over the weekend; stay tuned 2016-04-04

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 →

Two Valdosta sewer spills in Withlacoochee River watershed

What crosses Lee Street and Gornton Road heading to the Withlacoochee River? Aerial Map: One Mile Branch HUCs 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 →