PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. — In December, the state fined two metro Atlanta water systems for spilling raw sewage into surrounding property. It happened in Forsyth County and in Peachtree City, in Fayette County.
The state quietly published the two enforcement orders on Christmas Day.
The largest of the two fines named the Peachtree City Water and Sewer Authority – which the state says agreed to pay an $11,018 settlement for “spills of raw sewage into water of the state.” Peachtree City’s facility sits alongside Line Creek, which joins the Flint River basin.
The other Christmas Day order named the Forsyth County Department of Water and Sewer, which agreed to pay a $6,065 settlement for “spills of raw sewage into water of the state and to dry land.”
Both water systems agreed to comply with the state’s rules requiring containment of sewage. Both declined to comment Wednesday until they have more information about the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) action.
As the state’s population grows and demand for sewage system capacity grows, strains can grow on water and sewage systems – especially when customers flush trash into them.
But the water systems deserve credit for handling them as well as they do, says the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s former executive director, Juliet Cohen, who spoke with 11Alive in 2022.
"There are failures and it’s not out of the ordinary to have them. We just don’t want them to be happening on a routine basis,” Cohen previously said.
Cohen added that long-term water pollution trends have been encouraging – with an 80 percent drop in bacterial levels in the Chattahoochee since the 1990s.