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, for example into Knights Creek, Valdosta is doing smoke tests and rehabbing pipes and manholes. The Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant that serves Alapaha Basin was already upgraded some years ago.

“We have over 6,000 manholes, and I think we’re well on the way to rehabbing all of them,” said Carroll. All these projects are ahead of schedule.

None of this fixes the strategic problem of running stormwater into the sanitary sewer system, but it should help. We shall see. Carroll also promised to look into the outstanding questions WWALS has been asking for a year now. I reminded him that downstream on the Suwannee River, people were rather, ah, sceptical of promises from Valdosta.

There is nothing on the City of Valdosta website about these recent spills, apparently because Valdosta’s marketing person is out. There will be nothing in today’s Valdosta Daily Times, both because of that, and because the VDT no longer publishes on Mondays. Carroll promises someone will send the official notice about these spills to WWALS once it is completed, and meanwhile, here’s what we know so far.

One wonders which other local cities and counties have also had overflows. At least Valdosta proactively contacts WWALS to inform everyone. Thanks to Tim Carroll for doing that. Carroll added, “We want to do everything we can to fix it, and we are putting our money where our mouth is.”

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