Another sewage spill at city’s new lift station

City of Cairo officials this week are reporting another sewage spill at the new Seventh Avenue lift station.
This is the second spill at the new lift station since it went online earlier this year.
On Monday, Grady County received two to three inches of rain in some areas. Due to the age of the city’s infrastructure, storm water infiltrates the sewer system.
According to city officials, the spill at the new lift station Monday was caused by a crack in the force main.
An estimated 2,925 gallons of sewage was discharged into Little Tired Creek and city officials say there were no corrective actions available to mitigate the possible adverse effects of the spill.
The spill occurred between 8:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. Monday.
Cairo City Manager Chris Addleton is out of the office until Thursday and was unavailable for comment.
Last month, a 9,900 gallon spill was reported by city officials at the new Seventh Avenue S.E. lift station.
At the city council’s Oct. 28 meeting, Addleton briefed councilmen on a design flaw with the new lift station that caused the October sewage spill.
According to Addleton, an alert system using a phone line to notify city personnel of an issue at the station was not included in the plant’s design.
Since the Oct. 15-16 sewer spill, an auto dialer with battery back-up has been installed at the lift station. Addleton told councilmen last month that eventually he would like for all lift stations to be hooked up to the city’s supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system like the city’s existing water plants.
The city will have to monitor upstream and downstream of the sewage spill for the next 12 months.
The new Seventh Avenue S.E. lift station went online earlier this year. It was built by RTD Construction, Inc., of Zephyrhills, Fla., at a cost of $709,377.50. The engineers on the project were with the firm of Wiedeman & Singleton of Atlanta.