The City of Cornelia cleaned up sewage that spilled into a local creek over the weekend. Now, the city manager is working to clean up the fallout over a social media post that he says misrepresented that spill.
Under 1000 gallons of sewage flowed into South Fork Mud Creek Sunday near Irvin’s Mobile Home Park after a pump stopped working when an electrical breaker tripped, according to City Manager Donald “Dee” Anderson. It was the second of two pumps to go down at the sewer lift station in three days. On Friday, workers temporarily removed the other pump from service due to a bad isolation valve and check valve.
Discovering and containing the spill
The mobile home park is located off of Level Grove Road, not far from Cornelia’s Waste Water Treatment Plant. The pumping station there handles the sewer flow for the residential and commercial businesses on the west side of the 441 Bypass. Mobile home park resident Sam Holden says he first became aware of the spill while walking with his kids to the creek. The closer they got to the water, the more it smelled like a sewer, Holden says. He captured video of the untreated sewage spilling from an overflowing cesspool into the stream.
Several hours later, the head of the Habersham County Libertarian Party Seth Benton shared images purportedly showing hoses pumping sewage into the creek.
“What you see here is a sewage line running over in to the creek behind the park,” Benton’s post read.
Anderson rebuffed Benton’s claim.
“The hoses shown in the pictures are used to hook to our sewer pump truck when an issue arises at one of our pump stations. They are not used to pump sewer into the creek as you claim,” Anderson said in an email to Benton, which he also sent to local media.
City personnel monitored the pumping station over the weekend, making nine trips to the site between Friday and Sunday. However, it wasn’t until a city employee saw it on Facebook that they became aware of the spill, Anderson says.
In his email to Benton, Anderson asserts workers could have contained the spill sooner if the person who discovered it had notified the city before posting about it on social media. But Holden disputes that, saying he told the city before posting his video to Facebook.
Holden tells Now Habersham that the only number he saw on the fence surrounding the pumping station was one for City Hall. Thinking that no one would answer on the weekend, Holden says he looked up phone numbers until he finally found one for Cornelia Main Street and texted them. Within 30 minutes of sending that text, Holden says a city worker showed up at the pumping station. Anderson says they were able to replace the breaker within five minutes and get the second pump back online.
Not an isolated incident
Sunday’s incident was not isolated, according to people who have lived near South Fork Mud Creek for years.
“When we get a good rain, there’s a pump truck in there,” says Holden. “One will come in, and he’ll get loaded, and he’ll take off. In the meantime, while he’s gone, you know it’s probably overflowing.”
Daphnie Barron grew in the area of Level Grove and J Warren Road. As a child, she says, “I was taught to stay away from the creek because of the raw sewage known to be in it. This is nothing new, nor is it a one time incident. Anyone who says such is simply trying to continue the cover up or hasn’t done the research needed.”
Anderson says the city has spent millions of dollars over the last ten years replacing sewer lines, replacing pump stations, and doing upgrades to its Waste Water Plant to ensure against incidents such as this. Still, he acknowledges that the station near Irvin’s Mobile Home Park “is past its useful life.” The pump station is slated for replacement in Cornelia’s Capital Improvement Plan at the cost of between $300,000 to $400,000.
Clean-up cost and fine
The city put up signs in the area to make residents aware of the June 14 spill. Public works crews removed the affected soil, applied calcium carbonate, sowed grass seed, and spread wheat straw to clean up the sewage. The total cost of the clean-up was around $400. Additionally, Anderson says he expects the city will be fined around $1,000 by the Environmental Protection Division, which also will require Cornelia to sample the stream for twelve months to monitor water quality.
Benton says he was pleased to see such a “quick and thorough response” from the city manager and says he feels Anderson was “sincere” in his answers. Still, he’s concerned about the well-being of the residents in the mobile home park.
“In any situation where the government is responsible for providing for the people and protecting the people, they should be held to a massively higher standard,” says Benton. “Pollution and hazardous situations to the environment should never be a result of government services.”
Reflecting on what he saw and smelled Sunday, Holden says, “Kids did play in that creek. They did, but they won’t no more.”
