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Officials: Spill from wastewater treatment plant not a major concern
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A recent discharge at Richmond Hill’s Sterling Creek wastewater treatment plant was termed a “major spill,” but city and state officials claim it is no cause for alarm.


A discharge of treated water into Elbow Swamp on May 28 exceeded the plant’s permitted limit for biochemical oxygen demand, or BOD, Richmond Hill Public Works Director Charles Heino.


Test results received Friday showed the effluent at 31 milligrams of BOD per liter of water, higher than the 25 mg/L allowed for the plant at this time of year. BOD is the amount of dissolved oxygen microorganisms consume in breaking down wastewater.


That classified as a “major spill” for reporting purposes to the Environmental Protection Division. However, the city and EPD both clarified that no sewage actually spilled.


“Technically, it isn’t a spill. Basically it’s an exceedance of permit limits,” said Bruce Foisy, the district manager for EPD’s Coastal District.


The water released was “in fact, fully treated water, with just an elevated BOD,” Heino said. The potential danger is “none whatsoever,” he added.


“There’s no concern of fish kills or anything of that nature,” Heino said. “If it got high — three or four times our limit — it would result in a fish kill. But we’re so far away from that level, it’s not an issue.”


City officials have not been notified of a possible fine from EPD, Heino said. The EPD is in the midst of determining whether a penalty is merited, according to Foisy.


“We’ve got it under investigation,” he said.


The city posted a sign at the Sterling Creek site about the elevated BOD level and another sign at a location downstream, Heino said. Elbow Swamp runs to Sterling Creek and eventually to the Ogeechee River.


No further action was taken by city officials. The Sterling Creek plant’s “natural land-application process and subsequent manmade wetlands do not allow us to mitigate instances of higher BOD levels currently,” according to a city news release.


The Richmond Hill plant is a constructed wetlands wastewater treatment facility, a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly option than a mechanical plant. The manmade sewage lagoons imitate natural wetlands by filtering sewage with native plants, microorganisms and other natural processes.


As the weather and environmental factors change throughout the year, so do the permissible BOD limits for the plant.


“If this was April, it wouldn’t even be a violation,” Heino said.


The city is nearing completion of a newwater reclamation facility at Sterling Creek. The approximately $24 million plant is “designed to prevent and mitigate any further violations of this type,” the press release states.


“The reason we’re building a new plant is because we have so little control over these parameters,” Heino said. “We’re really at the mercy of our environment.”


Set to open this fall, the new water treatment plant isthe single largest expenditure in the city’s history. It is being paid for by increases in water and sewer rates approved by City Council in November.


The city previously has paid fines for discharge permit violations at the Sterling Creek treatment plant.In 2008, the city settled with the EPD and signed a consent order to keep the facility operating.


Because of those repeated problems with spills, the EPD mandated that a new plant be built. The new one will be able to meet “more stringent requirements,” a Foisy.


“That’s something they’re required to do, and they’re doing it,” he said.

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Later yall, its been fun
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This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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