Tonight we get to hear twice about the long-awaited
flooding study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:
once with no citizen input at the Valdosta City Council Work Session,
and then with citizen input at Valdosta City Hall Annex.
Presumably this study will say something about the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), the new
force main to prevent manhole overflows, and
maybe some upstream measures to keep quite as much water from getting there.
This study only addresses issues within the city limits of Valdosta,
not the larger watersheds upstream on the Withlacoochee and Little Rivers
and downstream: that will take more funding.
People
downstream in Florida may be relieved to hear something is being done.
Tag Archives: Withlacoochee River
Videos: No you cannot speak @ LCC 2014-04-22
Two citizens from Hahira couldn’t speak in Citizens Wishing
to Be Heard, but the Chairman
would go into the private board room out of camera range afterwards
to speak to them.
The Chairman did
describe a statement about the Sabal Trail pipeline.
Veterinarian Amanda Hall didn’t appear but was appointed to the Dangerous Dog Board. They objected to the Hahira annexation request. They approved a bid for an mobile emergency bypass pump on a trailer, a computer lease purchase agreement, and two Juvenile Justice grant application items, for Continuation and for Enhancement (more about that). And all four remaining voting Commissioners showed up.
Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Videos: Dangerous Dog Board, Juvenile Justice, a pump, Hahira Annexation, and weather @ LCC 2014-04-21
Local veterinarian Amanda Hall for the
Dangerous Dog Board,
a very long weather report,
another
Hahira annexation request,
a
bid for an emergency bypass pump (water well? wastewater force main? other?),
two
Juvenile Justice grant application items, for
Continuation
and for
Enhancement (more about that).
Oh, and all four remaining voting Commissioners showed up,
unlike either the Work Session or Regular Session two weeks ago.
Here’s the agenda.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Defibrilators from Homeland Security @ LCC 2014-04-07
The
KLVB presentation told us up to three states dump in
the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County,
for which the county gets some unspecified amount of tipping fees,
which go to fund KLVB.
An appointment to
KLVB was added to the agenda,
although nobody deigned to reveal who was “that individual that has
requested to serve on that board”.
The
Homeland Security grant application turned out to be for defibrillators.
Here’s the agenda, with a few annotations and links to the videos.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
AMENDED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Valdosta working to fix sewer problems
The city of Valdosta does have a plan to fix its sewer problems;
it’s funded; and it’s moving along rapidly.
In the Spotlight on Valdosta’s front page says:
Click here for updates to Valdosta’s Sanitary Sewer System improvement projects.
That link leads to Valdosta Sanitary Sewer System Improvements [Since moved by Valdosta to a new URL. 2018-01-28 -jsq], Continue reading
Sewage into the Withlacoochee again –WCTV
Although the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) didn’t overflow in the rains earlier this week, and apparently not yesterday, either, there were manhole sewage overflows then and according to the Florida Department of Health there were similar overflows yesterday, from Valdosta into the Withlacoochee River.
WCTV posted yesterday a News Release: Florida Department of Health,
TALLAHASSEE- The Florida Department of Health today issued an advisory to residents in counties surrounding the Withlacoochee and the downstream Suwannee River. The City of Valdosta has reported a spill, made up of a combination of storm water and untreated sewage, that has overflowed into the One-Mile Branch, Two-Mile Branch, Sugar Creek and Cherry Creek which flow into the Withlacoochee River. Lab test results received April 18, 2014, indicate higher than normal levels of fecal coliform bacteria in the river waters.
Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be anything about this on the city of Valdosta’s own website yet, but no doubt there will be. More in later posts about what that.
-jsq
Valdosta sewage PR reaches Florida
Valdosta sure has an effective PR mechanism,
famous all the way to Florida again,
for the second time this month.
Most cities wouldn’t think
to dump stuff into the river to get in the news!
But Valdosta buried the solution at the end of
a traditional press release:
“The city has planned, designed and bid a force main project and will award a $32 million contract in May that will prevent the majority of these overflows from occurring in the future.”
That would be one of the projects Valdosta will use the
$36.7 million GEFA loan to fund.
Other projects are related to the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), which wasn’t the culprit this time.
This sewer spill came from manholes overflowing.
Winnie Wright wrote for WCTV yesterday, Over 1 Million Gallons Of Wastewater Spills Into Local Waterways,
The Florida Department of Public Health is warning residents to avoid contact with water from the Withlacoochee River.
Continue reading
Florida tired of Valdosta’s WWTP spills
Once again, Valdosta famous into Florida again for wastewater spill, and Florida residents are tired of it.
WCTV 1 March 2014, Georgia Spill Leads To Warning In Florida
[Matt] Meersman and his friends enjoy visiting the Suwannee River to train for canoe races. According to the City of Valdosta, heavy rains have caused about 7.5 million gallons of highly treated waste water to wash into the Withlacoochee River, which connects to the Suwannee. Signs are posted around the Suwannee River State Park to let people know about the possible dangers of swimming in the water.
“When it’s impacted by stuff like this, it makes it hard on us to think about it as the pristine place that we like to think of it as,” said Meersman.
Meersman says there are other rivers around the area they can practice on in the meantime, but he says he’s tired of the spills.
“It’s bad enough Continue reading
Waste from Superfund site in Waycross went to Lowndes County landfill
What was in that waste water that went into landfill in an aquifer recharge zone, with surface runoff into the Withlacoochee River? The 44 shipments from the toxic waste site in Waycross to the Pecan Row landfill in Lowndes County were “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids”, but “PCBs are not defined as hazardous wastes” and according to the U.S. Department of Energy, “To be a hazardous waste, a material must first be a solid waste.” So “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids” apparently says nothing about hazard or toxicity.
44 shipments went from the
“7 Out Site”
to “Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA” for $59,495.00 total
of your federal tax dollars paid to Veolia,
according to
pages 12 and 13
of
Final Report, Task Order # F-0032, Seven Out LLC Tank Site, Waycross, Georgia,
Contract No. 68S4-02-06
for
Emergency and Rapid Response Services, EPA Region 4,
Prepared By WRS Infrastructure & Environment, Inc.,
5555 Oakbrook Pkwy, Suite 175, Norcross, Georgia 30093,
May 2, 2006.
Is this where those PCBs in the landfill came from? EPA itself says, Are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) regulated under RCRA as a hazardous waste?
PCBs are not defined as hazardous wastes (Memo, Weddle to Verde; May 18, 1984 (RCRA Online #12235)). However, it is possible that PCBs may be incidental contaminants in listed hazardous waste (e.g., solvent used to remove PCBs from transformers) or may be present in wastes that are characteristically hazardous. In these cases, wastes that otherwise meet a listing criteria or are characteristically hazardous are still subject to RCRA regulation regardless of PCB content.
However, to avoid duplicative regulation with Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), certain PCB containing wastes that exhibit the toxicity characteristic are exempt from regulation under RCRA (Monthly Call Center Report Question; September 1996 (RCRA Online #14014)). Section 261.8 exempts from RCRA Subtitle C regulation PCB-containing dielectric fluid and the electric equipment which holds such fluid if they satisfy two criteria. First, these PCB wastes must be regulated under the TSCA standards of Part 761. Second, only the PCB wastes which exhibit the toxicity characteristic for an organic constituent (waste codes D018-43) may qualify for the exemption (§261.8).
Apparently any liquid wastes from a Superfund site would be “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids”, according to U.S. DoE EH-231-034/0593 (May 1993), Exclusions and Exemptions from RCRA Hazardous Waste Regulation,
- any solid or dissolved material introduced by a source into a federally owned treatment work (FOTW) if certain conditions, described in Sect. 108 of the FFCA of 1992, are met;
- industrial wastewater discharges that are point source discharges regulated under section 402 of the Clean Water Act [§261.4(a)(2)]
If a Superfund site is not a federally owned treatment work, what is? And if the Seven Out site was not an industrial wastewater point source, what is?
The Onyx Waste Manifests on pages 75-120
say the materials were “Non-Hazardous Non-Regulated Waste water”.
(Onyx became Veolia Environmental Services in 2005,
according to Veolia.)
As we’ve seen, “Non-Regulated” apparently means little.
We don’t know what was in that waste water
that went into a landfill
in a recharge zone for
the Floridan Aquifer, the source of our drinking water,
and
with surface runoff into the Withlacoochee River.
-jsq
Flood control measures encourage settling too close and provoke severe flooding events
Flood control to keep water out of houses seems like a good idea,
but it turns out that it causes the flood control measures to keep
needing to be raised higher, and it encourages people to build
too close to flooding areas, plus
“rare and catastrophic events take place”.
Like the 2009 “700 year flood” and the
four or more floods this year
that have overflowed the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant.
In our case, there are also the issues of widespread clearcutting
and buildings and streets with impervious cover.
The local runoff containment requirements in the various local government zoning codes may be
like levees: “flood control
structures might even increase flood risk as protection from
frequent flooding reduces perceptions of risk”.
This encourages human settlements in floodplain areas, which are then vulnerable to high-consequence and low-probability events.Much simpler just not to give out building permits for flood zones. Or we could put medical buildings right next to a creek, assuming because it’s never flooded it never will….
Socio-hydrology: conceptualising human-flood interactions, G. Di Baldassarre, A. Viglione, G. Carr, L. Kuil, J. L. Salinas, and G. Bloschl, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 3295–3303, 2013 doi:10.5194/hess-17-3295-2013, © Author(s) 2013. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
Abstract. Over history, humankind has tended to settle near streams Continue reading