City forced to take a dump into Chattahoochee
September 22, 2009 at 12:58 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsYes, the Chattahoochee will appear a little extra brown in the near future, as city officials have been given no choice but to dump dookie and minimally treated wastewater into the river.
Atlanta Department of Watershed Management Commissioner Rob Hunter this morning told reporters that serious flooding has shut down the city’s R.M. Clayton wastewater treatment plant in Northwest Atlanta and forced the department to dump raw sewage into the river.
The plant, which Hunter said is the largest in the Southeast, has sustained damages in the “tens of millions of dollars.” On an average day, it can treat 180 million gallons of poop-tinged liquid. As the AJC notes, it’s part of the city’s controversial combined sewage overflow project.
“It’s not imperiling or causing a problem for any drinking water supplies, but people need to minimize contact with the Chattahoochee River and all flood waters,” Hunter said. The city has already lined up contractors to make repairs and made first steps to qualify for federal assistance. But until the R.M. Clayton plant is back up and running, more sewage will be discharged into the river.
Sally Bethea of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper says the sewage discharge’s long-term impact on the waterway depends on when watershed officials fix R.M. Clayton — and how long the flooding continues.
“The river is highly polluted right now,” Bethea said. “Not just from the city’s sewage plant, but from other sources: sewer lines, pollutants and trash. The question is, how long is the plant and other plants going to be incapacitated? Is this days, or weeks or more?
She continues: “In terms of the long-term threat to the river, if the flooding dissipates within a few weeks, we’ll probably see the bacteria levels coming back to normal within a few days. But what else has been washed into the river?… I’ve never seen so much trash headed into the river.”
Bethea said that the organization’s longtime boat captain Harlan Trammell has volunteered his vessel and expertise to help watershed officials assess the damage and navigate the plant.
So avoid canoeing in the Krog Street tunnel. Tell your kids to stop splashing in flood waters. As Mayor Shirley Franklin said this morning, this isn’t a snowstorm. That water is filthy. And now we know for a fact that it’s swimming with shit.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
If Alabama wants our water, they can have it!
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
“Dookie”? Really?
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I blame Scott Henry. He suggested the word.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Well, you can’t be blamed for deferring to Henry’s scatological expertise. Carry on.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Dookie. I am going to say that all day.
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Mayor Franklin will be at Sbarro at Lenox later today if anyone wishes to discuss this with her.
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I am confused. We’ve spent how many untold billions on the combined sewer/waste water system?
Are we saying it isn’t working as designed? (and being paid for?)
Or is this just an ‘act of God’ type thing that can’t be expected to perform in a 50/100 year flood?
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
No, Krog st has nothing to do with the RMClayton treatment plant.
The billions have been spent on tunnels and improvement to the collection system, not flood control. Treatment plants do not work well when they are underwater. Still, the city should have made a better effort to protect the plant from flooding.
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Scott,
I asked Hunter this morning how the sewers have performed during the floods. He said they’ve performed well and at capacity. Overflowing creeks and rivers caused much of the flooding and the treatment plant’s shutdown, he said. I’m still looking into that, however.
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Shirley Franklin never applied for the permits she needs for Atlanta’s tunnels.
Upper Chat Rivkeep knows it and isn’t doing anything about it.
What will City Council do?
Learn how badly the water/sewer ratepayers have been misled at:
http://buckhead.reporternewspapers.net/Articles-c-2009-09-17-166764.113118_Atlanta_is_polluting_aquifers_violating_Safe_Drinking_Water_Act.html
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Let’s never forget that Shirley Franklin is the sewer mayor. That is one of her very few “accomplishments.” Where is she when the system fails, the very inadequate system she forced on us and that gives us the priciest glass of water in the nation?
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
So where did Shirley issue her statement? From Bed Bath & Beyond?
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I work in this general industry – Water/Wastewater – and can tell you that when you have massive amounts of rain in such a short period of time with massive flooding, no wastewater plant can handle that. It is standard practice (nasty as it may be) to release untreated storm/wastewater out of the system in this kind of event to prevent flooding of the wastewater plant. (Note that the flooding of RM Clayton had more to do with the Chatt River rising 12 ft above flood stage). NYC is infamous for doing this (I know. I worked on a project involving their “regulator” gates that do just this).
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Great canoe shot for those interested.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolinesmith/3942460747/
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
This is why it’s called the Scattahoochee.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I’ll never worry about my dubious choice of words again after seeing “dookie.”
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I like to think of it as giving our neighbors downstream an Atlanta Steamer.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 am
I just figured that SOMEONE was channeling Latrelle’s casket-side meltdown in the movie “Sordid Lives”.