Back in December, Valdosta got a five-year renewal of its stormwater permit by GA-EPD. I noticed that the renewal process requires updating the city’s Best Management Practices (BMPs) by June 4, 2023. And the permit requires annual reports.

Here are the last five years of Valdosta annual stormwater permit reports, in 1051 files.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1MOOnrGRNitnaD1pxmSrxM54qDtG4vhgm

They must be valuable: Valdosta charged WWALS $106.53 to satisfy the open records request.

Two Mile Branch water quality, Pond inspection list, Pond enforcement

They are rather dry reading, and I do not claim to have read them all. But there are some interesting bits.

It turns out Valdosta has some Fecal coliform results for Two Mile Branch, including a spike up to 4,500 on September 22, 2022. I wonder if they told residents nearby?

That could be an opportunity for an additional BMP.

01–Two-Mile-Branch-Monitoring-Report-0002

They did a lot of detention pond inspections, which is good.

01–2022-Pond-Inspection-Summary-Report-0001

And in some cases they sent the pond owner a notice to fix things. In several cases where the notice did not get action, the city cited the owner. In one case, the city levied a fine of $100 a day for 84 days. That’s right, a fine of $8,400. Eventually the pond got fixed.

Almost. That particular pond still has nothing to stop trash from washing out of it into Sugar Creek. And it appears the city did not require that, even though I’m pretty sure city ordinances do require it.

That seems to be an example where an additional BMP could be useful.

For more about the trash situation, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/trash

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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