2020 city millage rate approved; 2021 budget hearing

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city millage rate

BLAIRSVILLE, Ga – In the October 2020, Blairsville City Council meeting it approved the 2020 millage rate at 1.895 percent. The rate remains the same as the previous year.

According to the tax digest, the city will receive $899 less in taxes by maintaining the current millage rate.

The council also held the first public hearing and first reading for the 2021 operating budget. The budget is not yet adopted because the second reading and approval still need to occur.

Some departments are receiving an increase in 2021, such as the downtown development authority for salary increases.

Councilmember Mary Ruth Cook asked if the property taxes were down, but City Clerk Kaye McCann explained that the revenue may have slightly decreased due to property reevaluation. However, it wasn’t a large amount.

Blairsville Police Department received approval to hire a part-time officer Josh Owenby. Police Chief Michael “Bear” Baxter explained that while the police department hasn’t fallen victim to COVID-19, the Sheriff’s Office has experienced several positive deputies. With several part-time police officers who also work for the Sheriff, Blairsville Police Department needed to add an extra part-timer to ensure proper staffing for every shift.

The City council also granted approval for trade-ins and purchases of police vehicles. Jacky Jones Chevrolet will receive one Tahoe trade-in for a new 2021 model if the mileage is 12,000 or less.  The second car for car trade-in will go to Ware Chevrolet. Finally, the city is buying a new Ford Explorer for $32,103 from King Ford and trading-in a 2014 Dodge Charger. King will give the city $7,800 for the trade, so the total price for the new Explorer will be $24,303. Price is the main reason behind the purchase of the Explorer. A new car will be traded every year without any extra expenses.

All cars will be outfitted to meet police vehicle safety standards.

“It’s the same thing that we’ve done with the Tahoe year after year,” explained Chief Baxter, “It’s a win-win for the city and money-wise, we don’t have to spend anything other than fuel every year.”

Leachate-opposition representative Steve Herbst presented his petition to stop all future dumping of the chemical cocktail into Lake Nottely or surrounding waterways. The group would like an ordinance stating the city will never accept Leachate again. Herbst also spoke about developing a stakeholder’s task force made up of members from the Lake Nottely Improvement Association, Friends of Lake Nottely, MountainTrue Watershed, and Nottely Water Authority.

The council tabled Herbst proposal to give time for the city attorney to review the document.

October 1 is Environmental Awareness Day in Union County

Community
Environmental awareness

BLAIRSVILLE, Ga – To demonstrate good faith and commitment to a clean future, Union County Sole Commissioner declared October 1, 2020, as Environmental Awareness Day in the county.

“The citizens of Union County shown great concern regarding the water quality of rivers, lakes, and streams in Union County, whereas the rivers, streams, and Lake Nottely are invaluable to recreation and tourism in Union County, whereas Lake Nottely specifically is an asset for Union County and its citizens, Union County and its citizens must join together to protect and maintain water quality of bodies of water in Union County and the surrounding areas,” read the proclamation.

The government will protect and sustain local waterways, including Lake Nottely, to the extent that it has the authority to do so. Lake Nottely is TVA property, which will impose some limitations.
Marlene Hadden spoke at the meeting about preserving current quality of local water. She asked Paris to help the citizens to help him maintain water quality.

Marlene Hadden asked for a joint effort in protecting Union County’s water and air quality.

“Here in Union County, we believe we have higher standard criteria of good clean water, and we’d like it to stay that way,” Hadden stated. “Being reactive is not the way to deal with this situation. It spawns distrust. It makes people angry, worried, and even scared about their water. Being proactive fosters all of us coming together to try and maintain and protect our current quality of water.”

Paris thanked her for speaking and serving as a reminder about the importance of water and air quality.

At the September Union County Commission meeting, Paris again stated that Union County government didn’t control the leachate issue. It’s a city issue, and Blairsville City Council voted to halt leachate processing in September. According to Paris, “there’s no evidence the city did anything wrong or polluted Lake Nottely in the least.

In other meeting news, the county accepted an accountability courts grant for Enotah Adult Felony Drug Courts Medically Assisted Treatment program for $30,832.00.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HfC1jlTIN8&feature=youtu.be

Blairsville City Council ends Leachate Processing

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leachate processing

BLAIRSVILLE, Ga – In a unanimous vote, Blairsville City Council decided to halt all leachate related-contracts and remove the chemicals from the waste treatment facility.

Citing the concern of the mayor and council, Mayor Jim Conley, made a motion to discontinue the leachate processing contract. All present councilmembers accepted the contract dissolution.

Councilmember Mary Ruth Cook asked about the remaining leachate currently in the wastewater treatment facility. Wastewater Treatment Facility Manager Jody Cook responded that around 3,000 gallons of the chemical waste remained at the plant. It was currently being moved through digestors and dewatered. However, it would not go back into the system. Once complete, Blairsville Wastewater Treatment Plant is finished with leachate.

Background Information

Blairsville Wastewater Treatment Facility began accepting leachate from the The Water Authority (TWA) in June 2019. Leachate is landfill municipal waste runoff that generates from liquids present in waste and outside water, such as rainfall. It must be properly treated before being discharged back into a water system.

TWA approached Blairsville about receiving leachate for processing because the wastewater plant could accommodate the runoff. The plant’s tank had extra capacity, so the city agreed to accept the waste for processing. As part of the contract, TWA paid the city of Blairsville by the gallon.

Leachate, as illustrated here, collects at the bottom of landfills and requires processing before going into any water source.

The company serves as a transporter of leachate from landfills to treatment facilities across the state. TWA is partly owned by State Senator Steve Gooch, who represents Union, Fannin, Lumpkin, White, Gilmer, and Dawson counties.

Lake Nottely Improvement Association (LNIA) began protesting the leachate process last year first appearing at the September 2019 Blairsville City Council to voice displeasure. Mayor Jim Conley and Wastewater Treatment Manager assured the group that the water being released Lake Nottely passed EPD tests, including the PFAS test. Testing documents that Fetch Your News acquired in 2019 demonstrated that PFAS levels weren’t an issue in Lake Nottely even with the addition of leachate.

Fast forward to July 2020, LNIA continued to research the issue with chemical engineers, case studies, EPD, TWA, Gooch, and others. They discussed findings at two county commission meetings and one city council meeting. However, the county held zero responsibility for the leachate decision as the city managed the wastewater treatment facility and the TWA contract. Additionally, Lake Nottely is the property of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA); it’s not a county-owned lake.

Also, since the water continued to the chemical waste tests for PFAS, the county didn’t have a legitimate reason to step in. The decision to continue with leachate processing or suspend the contract sat squarely on Blairsville’s shoulders.

In the July 2020 City Council meeting, Wastewater Treatment Manager explained that they would never treat more than 11,000 gallons of leachate a day. Also, that the notice of a water treatment permit from the EPD wasn’t related to the leachate. It was part of the standard permit renewal process, which is required every five years.

However, on August 28, Mountain True Western Regional Director Callie Moore agreed that more extensive metals testing could be performed in Lake Nottely. Some of the concerns raised by LNIA about activity in the narrow corridor of Lake Nottely gave her reason to believe that MountainTrue might need to test for different types of pollutants. These new samplings won’t include a PFAS test because EPD continues to show that these aren’t an issue.

MountainTrue arranging new water quality tests in Lake Nottely, E. coli update

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MountainTrue Lake Nottely

BLAIRSVILLE, Ga – MountainTrue Western Regional Director Callie Moore presented a Union County water quality update and introduced a sampling plan to test for metals and other materials in Lake Nottely.

The proposed testing does not include PFAS because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tests only found trace amounts of PFAS in the lake. In other words, the tests determined that there wasn’t enough PFAS in the water to impact the overall quality. 

MountainTrue relies on science to support the reasoning behind a decision. When it comes to leachate, legally, the city of Blairsville and The Water Authority are within the parameters set by the EPA.

“We need to have a reason, not just that there’s hazardous stuff in there. There’s hazardous stuff already in our waters. These PFAS, these microplastics, they’re everywhere,” added Moore. “We don’t have the proof to be able to say that that landfill water should stop because of PFAS.”

However, MountainTrue Co-Directors have decided to conduct some sampling, and they will create a list of materials for testing.

They’ve been consulting with leachate processing experts to monitor the water accurately.

E. coli Butternut Creek 

Moore predominately wanted to clear up the E. coli concerns that many have expressed to her. MountainTrue has sampled streams, rivers, and lakes around the Hiawassee River Basin area for twenty years, including Butternut Creek.

“Different people at different times have sent different correspondence and put different things in the paper, none of which are accurate, when it comes to the Butternut Creek Watershed,” stated Moore.

MountainTrue employees sample five areas in the Butternut Creek Watershed – Headwaters, Mountain Building Supply, Farmers’ Market, golf course, and Meeks Park. The wastewater treatment plant is approximately halfway between the golf course site and Meeks Park.

MountainTrue Map of Butternut Creek watershed from the Headwaters site to the Meeks Park II/Lake Nottely/ Nottely River site.

Additionally, a tributary watershed drains into Butternut Creek before the Meeks Park testing site.

Not all sites have the same amount of sampling data as Meeks Park because it’s the oldest testing site. As of July 28, 2020, MountainTrue samples Meeks Park every week.

The golf course site was only monitored intensively in 2016 and 2020. In 2019, the Headwaters site launched. An intern sampled Mountain Building Supply only in 2016. MountainTrue doesn’t always have enough volunteers to monitor all sites. However, with the recent interest in leachate and E.coli, more volunteers have stepped up to test the water.

Three E. coli graphs from Farmers Market, golf course, and Meeks Park.

“When you start to make conclusions about the golf course site verses the Meeks Park site, you can’t really compare them the same because there’s a gap between 2017 and 2018,” said Moore.

She presented three graphs concerning E. coli data from the Farmers’ Market, the golf course, and Meeks Park. The Farmers’ Market and the golf course are upstream from the water treatment plant, and each exhibits peaks near 5,000 colony forming units per 100 milliliters. However, the top of the graph on the Meeks Park map is 2,500 colony forming units per 100 milliliters.

“The Meeks Park site is the cleanest of the three featured in the data. Does that mean that it’s clean? No, it’s not clean,” explained Moore. “We saw a peak at the Meeks Park site, and people were concerned, and we wanted to have current data.”

Previously, the most intensive data from Meeks Park was from 2016, which was during a drought year. The 2016 and 2020 data indicates a significant change in E. coli data between those two years. Moore added that changes to the tributary watershed have contributed to the increase.

 

A state agency determines if a site is safe for swimming by gathering five samples within 30 days, then determining the geometric mean. Currently, Butternut Creek at the Farmers’ Market, golf course, and Meeks Park (Colwell Fields) are significantly over the EPA recommended E. coli levels for swimming, even infrequent swimming.

Geometric Mean for Butternut Creek

  • Farmers’ Market – 457.7
  • Golf Course – 3016.0
  • Meeks Park (Colwell Fields) – 867.0

Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) lists infrequent swimming at <576 CFU/100mL and designated swimming at <235 CFU/100mL. The Nottely River/Lake test site at Meeks Park II passes the designated swimming E. coli level with a geometric mean of 180.6.

E. coli data from this 2020. According to MountainTrue, Lake Nottely meets the criteria for frequent swimming.

“Butternut Creek is impaired. It’s on the Stage Three of impaired waters, and it has been ever since I know of, definitely as far back as 2012,” Moore added. “The reasons why are livestock having access to streams, leaking septic systems, and in some cases, woods.”

During a forestland E. coli monitoring, they found high levels of bacteria because of the high concentration of wildlife in some regions of the watershed.

The non-point source pollutions are a problem for the community, Butternut Creek, and even the upstream of Nottely River.

MountainTrue plans to create a new plan for the Butternut Creek Watershed and use grant funding to overcome these issues.

“The wastewater treatment plant has not ever contributed to the E. coli problem at Meeks Park. The E. coli problem has always been higher than that. Even, Headwaters site since we started monitoring it in 2019, most of the time, it’s over the EPA recommended levels already before it gets to the highway.”

Moore added that the wastewater treatment plant is efficient when processing traditional pollutants, not the ones found in leachate.

https://youtu.be/bnXjsKfLaO4

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