Construction of a new wastewater treatment plant in Madisonville has officials optimistic toward improving water quality in Bat Creek.
Madisonville and state officials held a groundbreaking ceremony June 9 behind Hunting Subdivision, which is across the creek from the city’s old sewer plant.
“It’s a big milestone, I’d guess you’d say, over the last several years the city of Madisonville to get this new sewage plant under construction,” Glenn Moser, mayor of Madisonville, said. “... It’s something we’ve been working diligently on for actually seven years, I’d guess you’d say. We’ve got everything in place for the funding and, in fact, the construction’s already started.”
Moser said the $7 million project is to be finished by July 2017. About $3.5 million of the construction is financed with a Rural Development Grant. Work is being done by Kentucky-based Judy Construction Co.
Madisonville’s old plant was built in 1961. In the early 2000s, the state declared it needed to be replaced. State officials noted Bat Creek, where the plant discharged treated water, was too polluted for use.
City officials came to terms with the Watershed Association of the Tellico Reservoir and Tennessee Clean Water Network last year that ultimately led to a new wastewater treatment plant. A consent decree went into effect June 2015. As part of the decree, city officials agreed to pay $10,000 for WATeR representatives to test Bat Creek’s water and send it for laboratory analysis.
Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation representative Eric Ward said while no visits are required during a major construction project, officials will stay in “frequent contact” with permit holders and make visits to stay updated with operations.
“There are contingent penalties with failing to achieve final compliance with its order,” Ward said in an email correspondence.
TDEC received plans for the new plant in November 2015, Ward said.
Bill Waldrop, Tellico Village resident and WATeR representative, said moving forward with a new wastewater treatment plant is good for Monroe and Loudon counties.
“One of the requirements of the consent decree was that in lieu of the fines for violation of the Clean Water Act over the last many years was that Madisonville agreed to something called funding a supplemental environmental project and what we proposed — we the Watershed Association — proposed and they agreed to was that we tried to identify other sources of nonpoint source pollution throughout the watershed of Bat Creek and we do this by water quality sampling,” Waldrop said.
Testing will occur at least five or six times throughout the summer months, Waldrop said, noting volunteers were on site Friday morning.
“Now, we’re doing sampling right now of various places along county roads to try to identify the types of — the various types of nonpoint source pollution and the general areas in which they’re coming from,” Waldrop said. “We’re not going to solve the problem. What we’re trying to do is to help someone, some agency, that has the authority to do that, to do an effective job of it. We just want to say you’ve got these types of pollution and it’s coming from this area so that somebody knows where to look to help clean up the rest of Bat Creek.
“... The goal is to ultimately clean up Bat Creek,” Waldrop added. “Certainly a new wastewater treatment plant is a major step, but that’s not all of it.”
A portion of the old facility will be used as a “connecting point” to the new system, Moser said.
“We’re getting a new treatment plant and our old — what we call headwork where everything from the collection system comes to, it comes to a point, then we’re pumping it into the new plant to be treated,” Moser said. “Then it goes back to the outlet in Bat Creek after it’s treated.”
