Flushed items flowing from plant

By MIKE MORRISON | Times-Union Correspondent

November 8, 2007

BRUNSWICK - Some things shouldn't be flushed down the toilet - birth control and hygiene products, articles of clothing, money.

But such items often find their way into Brunswick's sewage system, and that has the state Environmental Protection Division looking over the city's shoulder at its Academy Creek Water Pollution Control Facility.

"There are things coming into the plant that should not be coming into the plant," City Manager Roosevelt Harris said. "People do not need to flush these things."

Mark Ryals, operations superintendent at the Academy Creek facility, said the city is expecting a Notice of Violation from the EPD. The EPD has investigated the plant in response to complaints by Altamaha Riverkeeper James Holland. Holland has alleged that solid non-organic waste - condoms and tampons, for example - regularly is emitted from the plant's outfall into Academy Creek.

Grease also is working its way through the treatment process, Holland claims.

"It's dumped into Academy Creek right upstream from where people fish and throw cast nets," he said.

The creek and treatment plant are just north of the city's downtown business district.

Ryals said the city recognizes there is a problem and is taking steps to remedy it. The solution may cost the city as much as $500,000. That's the price of a better filtration system that Ryals said will ensure that very little solid waste ends up in Academy Creek.

"We've got it in the budget," Ryals said. "We have contractors coming out here to look at what they will have to do to put this thing in."

Ryals said the rotary fine screen, a self-cleaning mechanism, makes sense economically as well as environmentally.

"It'll trap 99 percent of what's coming through," he said. "It'll be cleaner and a clean pump uses less energy. It'll pay for itself over time."

The new Brunswick-Glynn County Joint Water and Sewer Commission will take charge of the facility on Jan. 1.

"I'm trying to expedite this now. I want to see it happen," but the joint commission will have the final word, Ryals said.

Some people would be surprised by what wends its way through the city's sewer pipes and winds up at the facility, Ryals said.

"We've had toys, thousands of ramen noodle wrappers, crack pipes, needles, T-shirts, some of everything, even money," he said. "I think I've got the record. I found a $50 bill."

Most of those items are filtered out, and are found when the filters are cleaned. But some does flow into the creek, and that's a violation of state law.

Jim Harris, program manager for the EPD, said the agency is watching what the city does at the facility.

"We have sent them a notice of violation in the past for letting large debris make its way through the treatment process into the creek," he said.

In spite of several attempted remedies, some debris keeps getting through, he said.

"But they've been very cooperative and they are trying to solve the problem," Harris said.

No action will be taken until a follow-up investigation by the EPD this month, he said.

The solids that escape into the creek don't represent a serious environmental threat but are eyesores Harris said.

"It's unsightly," Harris said. "You can't have any municipality discharge anything that is unsightly or interferes with or impairs the normal use of the stream," the EPD manager said.

Even the grease, which likely originates in industrial and commercial operations such as seafood packing houses and restaurants, does not pose a serious environmental problem, he said.

"The grease looks like snowflakes," he said, "They're biodegradable. A lot of fishermen come up to outfalls because fish seem to be attracted to them."

Still, it's against state law to discharge it because "it clutters the environment," Harris said.

The EPD is also trying to make sure restaurants have proper grease traps to keep the substance out of the system, he said.