- Originally established in 1980, the Withlacoochee River Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) has been a vital part of Valdosta's infrastructure, according to the city.
- Leaders say flooding from the river necessitated the construction of a new facility at a higher elevation.
- Watch the video to go inside the new lab and see how it's supposed to help.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Neighbors in Valdosta have had concerns with water quality. They hope a new lab is a step towards helping our infrastructure.
"More testing, more places, more reports, more quickly."
I'm Malia Thomas, your neighborhood reporter in Valdosta, and I'm checking back in with neighbors who've been calling for more water testing.
Valdosta has built a new Withlacoochee Lab Facility to help modernize and streamline wastewater treatment capabilities and is getting operations off the ground.
This news comes as a much needed upgrade to neighbors like John Quarterman.
You may remember him from my story on code enforcement for the city.
He tells me he hopes this new facility will keep our waterways safe and clean.
"I got to compliment the acting utilities director Jason Barnes."
He also tells me while he and other neighbors have had concerns with sewage spills, he commends the city for being proactive.
"I think it's greatly improved from you know even a year or so ago. There's fewer spills that get resolved quicker and the amounts spilled are less of course nobody's going to be happy until there's no spills."
The city has been working to correct our area's aging infrastructure.
Knob Hill Drive in particular has seen over 100,000 gallons of sewage spilled in the area in the last 55 days.
Jason Barnes, our city's assistant utilities manager, tells me as far as our water's goes, there's no reason to be concerned, and the new facility will make sure of that.
"We're hoping to be able to just be able to test better and get better results faster results saving some time on analysis of all our samplings we got for our infrastructure and wastewater facility."
With the new consolidated lab, the city is hoping for instantaneous testing for future water treatment. In Valdosta, Im Malia Thomas, reporting for ABC27.
