Sewage spill near Loganville requires more monitoring

County work crews were called out Thursday night to repair a sewer line near Loganville. A sewage spill developed when power failed at the Brushy Fork pump station. The line was repaired within an hour of the alert, but some 6,250 gallons spilled.

By state standards, it was a minor spill — one of 18 minor spills the Gwinnett Department of Water Resources has dealt with this year. But it happened near a tributary of Big Haynes Creek, and the area will require monitoring, said Jeff Boss director of field operations for the department.

“The power went out,” Boss said. “When that happens, typically, the backup generators kick on and back up until power comes back on at the station.”

In this case, he said, the pump station was in the process of being replaced with a gravity system, and the contractor failed to monitor the system to guarantee the backup system worked properly, Boss said.

Shanda Perugini, DWR administrative assistant, said crews — usually consisting of three persons — are on call for reports of sewer line breaks 24 hours a day. The crew may also call for additional workers, depending on the extent of the problem.

“We have an outside contractor for major catastrophes,” Boss said. “If a 48-inch pipe were to break, a 72-inch pipe were to break, we have an on-call contractor we could call on for that. But, 99 percent of repairs are done in-house.”

So far this year, the department has handled 24 sewer line leaks. Six of those were major, where 10,000 or more gallons of sewerage is leaked.

Even with minor spills, the county must notify the Georgia Environmental Protection Division of the incident.

Bill Noell, supervisor in the watershed protection branch in the permitting compliance and enforcement program of EPD, said his office was notified of the Sept. 11 leak by fax less than three hours after the repair.

If there is nothing to suggest an unusually large discharge — a possible fish kill or something extraordinary, Noell said, the incident is logged into the department’s database for followup by a compliance officer. The officer then reviews the information and determines whether the incident warrants an enforcement action.

“There’s a particular enforcement action in place with Gwinnett County,” Noell said. “It’s a particular order that was negotiated between Gwinnett County and the EPD, where the county agreed to develop an intensive comprehensive sewer system program with guidance from EPD.”

In exchange for the extra lengths the county goes through for sewer maintenance, Noell said, the EPD waives any penalties for major spills up to 30,000 gallons.

“But that’s not typical of the state,” Noell said. “A system has to qualify for that type of a situation.”

As of the last of August, Gwinnett County has spent about $2.85 million for sewer maintenance, Boss said. Another $3 million is budgeted for preventive maintenance, which includes sewer line inspections.

The field operations division has 52 employees, including three administrative staff members, and is responsible for 2,889 miles of sewer line. The system averages about 1.42 spills per 100 miles of line, Boss said. Last September, the system was averaging 1.58 leaks per 100 miles of line.

Most of those leaks, Boss said, are not due to deterioration of the lines. They are due to grease. People dumping grease down the drain has become a major problem with the increase in apartment residents in the county, he said.

The second biggest cause for leaks, Boss said, is obstructions in the line — rocks, bricks, cinderblocks.

“They pull a manhole cover off, ” he said. “You’d be surprised. We’ve found bowling balls in the line.

“Most times it’s just kids seeing what will happen when you fill up a manhole with rocks. Those are the worst kind, when you have to pull them out of a manhole.”