Come Clean About Sewage

 Come Clean About Sewage

On Nov. 7, 2022 I reported a major sewage overflow on JVC road that was leaving the site and going underground along I-59. My first thought was that it must have been getting into the drains leading to Cottondale Creek. In fact the official notice from the city said as much “There has been a sanitary sewer overflow in the 1 block of JVC Road. The overflow is ongoing. It will reach a storm drain that leads to an unnamed tributary that leads to Cottondale Creek, which leads to Hurricane Creek. The affected area will be cleaned and disinfected. Signage is in place.” Tuscaloosa City sewer overflow notice Tue, Nov 8, 12:49 PM.

Since the sinkhole around the manhole happened within 100 yds. of Cottondale Creek it was only natural to assume that was where it was going. The creek was dark black and had an unpleasant odor to it.

Cottondale Creek did, in fact show signs of being discolored with a dark substance. A direct quote from the city sewer head, Kimberly Michael states “The sewer line in question carries wastewater from Mercedes Benz U.S. International to the city's wastewater treatment plant, and Michael said the land around Manhole No. 6978 was washed out during heavy rains in 2020.”

 

 

Here is a photo of that same manhole in July of 20 and it was not washed out.

 

"This is a project that we have had in the works since 2020 when there was a major washout in the area, so we have been working with engineering and we're in the final stages of engineering on that project," Michael said. "However, we've had a catastrophic failure out there so we are actively working with the John Plott Company to try to stabilize everything right now."

Ms. Michael was not in the sewer dep. in 2020. Where did that information come from? I have visited this site many times before and since 2020 and have seen no such “wash out”. Which rain event caused this mystery washout and WHY did the city not address it at that time? Why did they wait for a catastrophic failure to react? This is the result of neglecting the situation? There are so many questions that need answered.

If the “washout” happened in 2020, was it there in 2021 Alabama Power Co. (APCO) set up mats and drove heavy equipment through the area to access the ROW for the new concrete poles set only a few feet away. Take a look at this Google Earth photo from 2021. It shows the APCO mats in place the one is directly over the recently “catastrophic failure”. The APCO permit (ALR10C0DG) for that construction was issued in Feb. 21 and was terminated March 18, 2022.

Did this really start in 2020? The catastrophic failure of this force main line happened recently in my opinion. If Ms. Michael has evidence that contradicts mine, I’d like to see it.  

Ms. Michael claims it is all contained in the hole nearby. Watch this video and ask yourself who’s telling the truth here?

What was in that black wastewater and where did this stuff go? According to Michael "There is an active overflow happening right now, but we do feel like it is contained in the hole that is in the area.” The hole she is referring to is a sinkhole leading to a decrepit, rusted sewer pipe leading under the interstate. The open sinkhole measured roughly 25 feet long and as much as 15 feet wide. All of the dirt that was there before has washed down the drain, so to speak. It has completely eroded the I-59 fence poles from the ground where they hung suspended above a large hole that has funneled potentially thousands if not millions of gallons of industrial wastewater and sewage effluent underground. When it entered this pipe, where did it go?

Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper

I have searched the area on foot and can’t find where it is coming in but I do believe it is finding it’s way to the creek, if not now, sometime in the future.

David Butler, Cahaba Riverkeeper

Mercedes has a permit to discharge industrial wastewater into the city's sanitary sewer system. Could the mixture of those chemicals be killing out the E-coli? What tests did the city perform? Just E-coli or did they do a full spectrum test to determine what industrial pollutants might have been entering Cottondale Creek and later Hurricane Creek itself? The tests to determine that should have been done at once by Tuscaloosa sewer dep. It is their responsibility to accurately report what and how much sewage effluent that is lost into the environment. Where are those results?

Ms. Michael stated “the city was making plans to reroute sewage away from that manhole and hoped to "limp along" until that project was finished, but said the failure came a few months before the work was to be completed.” Limping along with a major sewer artery, which delivers toxic sewage and industrial wastewater, is why the city sewer system is in such disrepair. It’s time to stop limping along and FIX the failures.

 

According one official report there was only 500 gallons “contained in a hole”. Review the video above and see for yourself. I believe it was a lot more and the city knew where it.

 

 

 

I know now that I was right all along. There was, in fact a large severely deteriorated pipe under the ground which all of the effluent went into. I still don’t know where it leads but I do know that SOMEONE at the city knows and has known for some time now. The city needs to notify the public about the true nature of how much sewage and wastewater was spilled over multiple days, and where this pipe took it to. 

About a 30 inch, severely degraded pipe at Sinkhole

Severely degraded steel pipe contains sewage and oily sheen

 This is a section of the forced main leading away from Mercedes and discharging for days at the JVC site! It had failed long ago according to the size of those rust holes.

18 inch Forced Sewer Main coming from Mercedes.

It’s the city’s responsibility to check these things out and make the facts available to the public. After all, they work for us!

 UPDATE

We now know from scouring the city reports that the overflow was flowing back into the degraded system going under the interstate. From the size and number of holes in the pipe, it makes sense. It looks like the entire system needs to be replaced.

(Video taken 11/16/22, 11:35 AM.)

 

More Sewer Issues.

SSO Notification, 10/03/22 07:06 PM. Updated 11/07/22 The only sign was completely hidden from residents   City of Tuscaloosa sewer overflow notice. "There has been a sanitary sewer overflow in the 1700 block of Hurricane Road. The about 200-gallon overflow reached Hurricane Creek. The affected area will be cleaned and disinfected. Signage is in place. Those in affected areas should exercise caution. In the affected areas, there could be health risks associated with the water and contaminated areas that adjoin the water so the City of Tuscaloosa advises people to avoid the water and contaminated areas. Signage is in place at all affected locations and public should follow instructions if in an affected area. This does not impact tap water as the water and wastewater systems are two completely different systems. In an effort to increase transparency, the City is notifying residents and media of all overflows regardless of cause or severity. The City of Tuscaloosa treats over 6.5 billion gallons of wastewater annually at its wastewater plant and less than 0.03% of that volume has been lost to sanitary sewer overflows in its collection system over the last three years. Stay up to date on all City of Tuscaloosa news via social media: Twitter |@TuscaloosaCity Facebook |City of Tuscaloosa - Government Instagram |@TuscaloosaCity"

First I’d like to know how the city came up with only 200 gallons? Second, it was NOT Hurricane Creek but Cottondale Creek, a tributary to Hurricane Creek. It may not sound like that much of a discrepancy since Cottondale Creek does eventually reach Hurricane Creek. However, if you live along Cottondale Creek it makes a huge difference.

The notice says 200 gallons. How do they know when it started and how long did it run before it was found by a young man riding a 4 wheeler? He notified Paddington Park mobile home park authorities where the overflow was ongoing at around 4:30. They then called the city whose general response time is about 30 minutes based on my experience. The city sent out the email notice at around 7 PM.

The city notice also claimed the area will be disinfected and cleaned. There was no such activity going on while I was there. 

The city notice said there was signage in place. NO it was not and still is not as of 12:noon 11.04.22. The only sign I saw was at the creek bank hidden behind a piece of machinery. None of the residents I spoke with said they were notified in any way. They found out when machines showed up and started digging a path to the creek bed where the sewer line runs.

This galvanized pipe broke off due to rust.

As it turns out, there was a malfunctioning air relief valve, which was deep inside a culvert pipe and had to be dug up. It looks like the valve had broken off of the galvanized fitting due to excessive rust. How many more are like this?

At one point a man entered the hole with a shovel for some reason. This location is only about 1,000 feet upstream from Lift Station 10, which has been a chronic and ongoing failure for years. I can’t help wondering if the two aren’t related. It stands to reason that mechanical things break. I get that but why would you place a relief valve that deep in the ground where it’s known to flood. 

At any rate, I have taken samples, which will be ready for distribution tomorrow around 1 PM. I will post the results ASAP.

In the mean time, out of an abundance of caution, I would advise all residents living in the Paddington Park area and below on Cottondale Creek to stay clear of the water. Make sure your pets also can not access the water until we know for sure.

I do not trust the city of Tuscaloosa reporting data so I will get my own data.

I would also like to invite all residents to let us know if you see something like this going on. I sincerely believe the city needs to be far more transparent about overflows and far more accurate in the measurements reported. It takes all of us to hold polluters accountable.  

UPDATE: I returned the next day and found that they did, indeed clean and use granular disinfectant. It's amazing how well they operate when they know someone is watching. 

Water samples taken yesterday show the creek within acceptable limits for Ecoli.

Hurricane Creek Fall Spectacular

 Hurricane Creek Fall Spectacular

 Fall on Hurricane Creek is always something to see but this year has been extraordinary. Colors began changing in mid October and by the 23 it was really popping. Each color represents it's own diverse species in this teasure must people take for granted.

 

It's a shame the fall is also low water season so paddling is almost out of the question. There are plenty of hiking trails at the park of Hwy 216 which run right along the creek bank and many through the upper woodland area. 

 

This year I thought instead of a paddle trip I would take you for a flight over about a mile of the creek taken in segments. It's just too pretty not to try and share. Watch the video below for a flight at sunrise.

 

 

 

 

These were taken over the week of Oct. 25 through Nov.02. I hope you will enjoy.

 

When the fog comes up in the morning you can see the creek by the rising fog in the hills.

 

 

It's not hard to see why I love both working and living in this watershed.

Let's shed some light on sewage!

 

I truly want to thank the city for such a beautiful display of lighting under the bridge over Jack Warner Parkway. It really highlights the underbelly of the bridge but I'm not sure why.

Green-ways and parks are crucial to the health and well being of communities. They give people places to go and feel like they are in nature even if it is surrounded by a concrete jungle. 

Green is good except when it is the color of local streams and ditches at some of Tuscaloosa's most chronic sewage overflows. They are a lot more frequent and voluminous than most people might imagine.Since I first engaged with the city sewer department there have been many promises of improvement but very little follow through beyond words on paper and campaign commitments.

I admit that the city has improved in some areas of sewage overflows and we thank them for the robust notification system that was put in place even if it has fallen off in recent months. Most of the really meaningful changes to the system, at least in the Hurricane Creek watershed only came after notices of federal lawsuits in 1999 and 2000 demanding that generators be placed at chronically failing lift stations. Actually there was a lot of change right after that. City leaders made all sorts of promises to deal with the sewage overflows in more rural areas draining into the Hurricane Creek basin. Those promises have still not been honored for the most part and the some of the sites that were chronic then still are today.

I can't remember exactly when I met Jarrod Milligan but he had just been named Tuscaloosa's new sewer head. He called me into his office and wanted to "work on common problems" within the system. My major complaints from 2005 were brought up again when I met Jarrod. Many of them still exist.

For those who may not know. Sewage all flows down hill along naturally occurring drainage's like creek beds when possible. It's called gravity flow. When it reaches a low point and can not continue, there are large pumping stations (Lift Stations) which collect the sewage and force feed it into another line leading back to the treatment plant under pressure. Lift stations are our major source of chronic, ongoing overflows but not the only source.

Pump trucks line up to haul sewage away

I told Milligan about Lift station 10 on Keens Mill Road and how it had been ongoing problem for years. He said it was "High on the list of priorities". 

It still hasn't been repaired and is responsible for more than 950,000 gallons of raw sewage being discharged in the last 5 years of the permit according to their own reporting. Those discharges come into Hurricane Creek just above the public park on Hwy 216. In many of these cases there was vary little public notice and no report when it was clear for swimming.

Vacuum truck spreads sewage onto Keens Mill Drive

 

 

Trucks can be seen regularly overfilled and slopping raw sewage onto the roadways.

 

 

 

The standard procedure for LS10 overflows is to take it to the Eastwood Middle School and dump it in a manhole right outside of the faculty entrance. As you can see in the video clip attached, they dumped it out and left. No signage or disinfectant. 

Sewage debris outside faculty entrance

 

 

Photos up close show sewage debris left in the street in the direct path of what I was told is the faculty entrance. Did anyone notify the school? There is no signage warning people to avoid contact.

 

 

JVC site, 2019. Sewage debris hangs out of cover

Not far from this location is the old JVC plant. It is closed now but the sewer line still belches sewage into a wetland of Cottondale Creek. There is no lift station associated with this chronic source of pollution but it is so severe it can't be ignored. I have had conversations with Mr. Milligan about this one and sent him photos of sewage debris laying all over the ground. He sent a crew out there within 2 days to pick up the debris and I appreciate that. However, it's not my job to inspect the lines and report to the city and ask them to do their job! 

JVC overflow. Feces and other debris on ground

 

What started out as something I have bragged about has fallen into the category of more broken promises. For all the praise I gave them for the notices, I wish I could now recant. Over the 5 year period of the city permit, there have been 1,530,848 gallons of sewage "self reported" just in the Hurricane Creek basin from only 4 of our discharge sites. That does not take in the entire Black Warrior River.

JVC site 09/25/22 Ecoli level "too numerous to count"

 This failure is both preventable and absolutely not allowed under the current permit. It has only been reported as losing 6,300 gallons but I know for a fact there has been more.  Just recently I found sewage standing all around the manhole but no signage, cleanup and or disinfectant and more importantly, no rain in over 3 weeks. There had been NO email notice as promised under the new "robust notification" alert procedure. It wasn't reported and has ignored for years.

 Lift Station 42 on Hargrove Road is another another chronic site which was was one of the earlier discussions I had with Mr. Milligan. I actually engaged the city long before then but this article will cover mostly the permit period of the last 5 years. For the sake of history let me say that this site has been the subject of many discussions with city officials dating back to Mayor Dupont. It was built decades ago for the capacity at that time. Since then there have been several subdivisions permitted and added to the system by city planners with no regard for the overloading of the infrastructure. The system is simply overloaded and in spite of all the promises, it can't be fixed without a major overhaul in my opinion. Besides the overflows from this site in the amount of 110,500 gallons over 5 years there is the H2S gas problem .

Hydrogen Sulfide is one of the most corrosive gasses known. It also is a carcinogen. There have been a few news stories in recent years about the neighbors petition to "fix" the problem. The fix would be humorous if it wasn't so pitiful. The first fix was to hang balls of deodorant which resembled huge toilet pucks!

Toilet pucks installed for odor. No effect on H2S

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toilet pucks installed for odor. No effect on H2S

Toilet pucks installed for odor. No effect on H2S

The odor devices may mask the odor but do nothing at all for neutralizing the H2S gas. As stated above this gas is extremely caustic as well as carcinogenic. There is a very strong odor associated with H2S which has been described as "rotten eggs" or something dead rotting. While the city did take action after the 33/40 stories ran, it was not the only problem, which I will go into later. Nothing the city did will address the air discharge of the corrosive gas.   

 

 

 

 

Look at the photo taken in 2016 and take note of the fence condition. 

Now look at the same fence taken this year, 2022. In only 6 years, the H2S has eaten the galvanized steel fence. Even the galvanized poles have rotted through. Photos I have taken show the degradation of the galvanized chain link fence from H2S corrosion. It has literally rusted the steel away to a pile of dust! PEOPLE have been breathing the same gas that ate this fence in only 6 years!

 I am not sure what this new device does BUT does it stop the H2S escape? STOP rigging symptoms and fix the inundated infrastructure. It's obsolete and no amount of rigging is going to magically give it more capacity. 

There's more.

 

Residents live only 300 feet away

 Lift station 40 in the Brookwood area was built to service Mercedes when it was built. Since then there have been many spin-off businesses built which again has over taxed the infrastructure. I started getting calls from residents about odor. It was the old familiar "rotten eggs" or "something dead rotting".

 

I first used a drone to find the location where the smell was coming from. It turned out to be yet another H2S gas problem. When I saw the first photos of the site I was puzzled by the deep holes surrounding the pumps wet well. They are all on the side of Little Hurricane Creek.

Lift station 40 is not an old pump station. It was built right on the bank of Little Hurricane Creek in an area that had to be back-filled. The deep holes I saw were subsidence and washed out base from overflows. You can see from the photo that the concrete slab on the right is hanging in the air. It was not built like that. The dirt or fill material that was there when it was built has long ago washed away and into the creek. 

Look closely at the photo on the left and you can see that the concrete slab on top has about a 1 inch gap between the well and the top slab. That is where the overflows come from and the smell when it's pumping. In a more recent event, on 09/25/22, I was able to get a drone overhead while an overflow was ongoing. I was surprised at the amount of sewage flowing into the creek. If you watch the video clip included here you can see sewage flowing out of 2 places under the top slab.

If you watch the video clip below you can see for yourself the volume coming from the site and entering the creek. According to the city incident report it was only 1,000 gallons. I seriously question the validity of that claim. The pump truck showed up on scene at about 1:01 P.M. and started pumping at about 1:07. I later followed the truck back to the sewage plant taking 28 minutes to make the trip with no stops so it stands to reason that it took that long to get there. That makes it at LEAST 35 minutes from the time they left the plant. That's just drive time. (TURN SOUND OFF)

 

 

At one time the city had the most robust notification system in the state. I even endorsed it and bragged to my other Waterkeepers Alabama group that it could be used as a model. That is no longer true. I feel like we have fallen back several years and can no longer count on the city's notification system. Case in point: right across the creek from that sign through the woods is a small community who have lived there long before the sewage pumps were installed. They have NEVER been notified of any sewage issues behind their houses unless I tell them. 

 

The city notices claim that "The affected area was cleaned and disinfected. Signage is in place." That was once true but I ask you to look at some of these photos taken 5 days after the last dumping into Little Hurricane. I did see them with back pack sprayers I took for disinfectant but as far as cleanup? It had not been completed 5 days later.

                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

Remember what I said above about H2S gas? That is the smell that inundates the neighborhood with poisonous gas. Here again, at lift station 40 in a few short years the gas has rotted the galvanized fencing to the ground!

Please understand that this article only covers 4 of the more chronic discharges in the Hurricane Creek watershed alone. During the last 5 years of their permit the city has dumped 1,708,693 gallons of raw sewage into the Hurricane Creek basin, according to their own self reported figures. There are many more in the basin and hundreds more in the Black Warrior River basin. For me to get excited about spending 60 million+ for pretty lights downtown is impossible as long as I know that money would have been better spent or repairing the outlying decrepit infrastructure. I know the city will cry about "that's another pot of money" but I have seen this administration shift funding in the past to facilitate special projects by council people and the mayor. 

No more promises! Fix this chronic and ongoing violation of the permit, AL0022713 . Go to the ADEM E-file and click the water category and then type in the permit just as written. It is filled with self reported overflow reports. I personally do not trust their figures. I sincerely believe they underestimate most incidents based on my observations. 

Let's shed some light on the sewage issue. I am calling on all concerned citizens who are on the Tuscaloosa city sewer collection system to document the conditions around your neighborhood. If you see something say something to me and I will investigate and document what is going on throughout the entire city collection system if possible. I am especially interested in issues facing Hurricane Creek and it's tributaries. Send me an email to hccreekkeeper@gmail.com 

If the politicians who allow this to continue won't change their politics, then we must change the politicians!