VALDOSTA, Ga. (WALB) - The City of Valdosta is dealing with their second sewage spill to happen within the past two weeks.
Our sister station WALB spoke with city leaders who shared what plans the city has been working on to ensure this does not happen again.
"The temporary fix is going to be some additional storage at the plant and we're going to do that in the next 72 hours. We're going to put a temporary pond there," said Darryl Muse, Valdosta Utilities Director.
Valdosta City crews are already working to check the sewage system. Muse said that right after, they anticipate working on the permanent solution.
"It's going to have some additional automation there also so that when the flows so start to come up, we can automatically open valves, close valves, and start moving water to accommodate the additional flows," said Muse.
The city said the spill is a result of the three to four inches of rain Valdosta saw over this past weekend, along with the 11 inches we saw in weeks prior.
"As the rivers and streams start to subside, those flows are still coming to the treatment plant, even though the rain has stopped, many days before," said Muse.
He said that before these last two spills, the plant had been operating appropriately.
"This treatment plant has been through at least two major hurricanes and there was not one single spill at the treatment plant as a result of those hurricanes coming through town," said Muse.
And we still have not seen any major problems like the ones seen before the new plant and the updated infrastructure.
"We were having major event happen in neighborhoods and communities and in people's homes. We don't have that now," said Muse.
But nonetheless, he said that they will be addressing the storage issues that has caused the spill.
"We built excess capacity into the treatment facility. We need to build more, so that's what we're going to do," said Muse.
