Cordele handicapped by bad sewer pipes while combating heavy rainfall

CORDELE, GA. – The water treatment plant in Cordele is doing everything it can to quickly treat the excess water it’s receiving due to a combination of heavy rainfall and broken-down sewer pipes.

The water treatment plant is operating beyond what is permitted at the risk of facing a notice of violation from the Environmental Protection Division to treat five times as much water as usual.

Heavy rains have forced the plant to treat ten million gallons of water, their permit only allows for five.

All of this extra water in sewer pipes is contributing to Cordele’s flooded roadways.

Debbie Wright

On average, the water treatment plant runs 2 million gallons of water coming in from sewer pipes and Director of Utilities, Debbie Wright, says “right now, we’re running 10. So that tells you how big a problem this is.”

Wright says she’s been warning City Commissioners since December that the excess stormwater in sewer pipes is caused by “serious inflow and infiltration problems.”

Overflowing manhole in Cordele

Stormwater is able to infiltrate the sewer pipes because Wright says that “they’re old,” broken and cracked and along with all the rain, they’re filling up and an abnormal amount of water is reaching the plant through these pipes and sometimes overflowing onto streets.

“It’s just really put a strain on this plant,” says Wright.

Wright says treating the excess water coming into the plant is better than leaving it untreated and potentially causing a spill by capping the invading water at the recommended five gallon limit.

“We’re treating more than what we should and we’re over permit but we’re trying to keep it out of peoples’ houses.”

Wright says the solution to this issue is sliplining the damaged pipes. Sliplining is a process used to repair leaks or restore structural stability to an existing pipeline without having to dig it up.

Wright says it’s effective in sealing the pipes “and you have like a brand new pipe and it works awesome.”

Although some funding for sliplining is available, the department is currently filing for a grant to help reach their goal of sliplining an entire mile of sewer pipe. Sliplining is a less expensive and less intrusive method of repairing pipes in contrast to digging them up and completely replacing faulty areas.

Regardless of funding, Wright says the maintenance can’t be done just yet since water is nearly waist deep in areas that are needed to gain access to sewer pipes.

She says the department is waiting for a dry spell to allow them time and access to slipline the pipes.

Wright says she hopes to have a mile of sewer pipe sliplined within the next few months to help prevent this issue from occurring or getting worse.