Recently, some 187,500 gallons (709,764 litres) of wastewater in its final stages of treatment spilled into Flat Creek, Georgia, United States (U.S.) over a period of one and a half hours due to a valve at the Flat Creek Water Reclamation Facility being improperly closed, according to the Gainesville Times.
“It’s basically a final filtration process,” Horace Gee, environmental compliance manager for the Gainesville Department of Water Resources, said. “When the water finally reaches the tertiary treatment process, it’s cleaner than four permitted plants north of us. If I put it in a glass beaker along with tap water, you would not know the difference in the two beakers of water.”
According to Gee and environmental conservation group, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, committed to cleaning and preserving the Chattahoochee River system and Lake Lanier, no adverse effects are expected for both Flat Creek and Lake Lanier.
“This seemed to be a very minor malfunction,” Dale Caldwell, a watershed protection specialist with Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said. “I don’t think we’re going to see any environmental impacts, any real negative environmental impacts.”
Source: The Gainesville Times
