MOUNT VERNON — Heavy rains over Labor Day Weekend caused water to overflow an embankment surrounding the piles of lime sludge at the city’s water treatment plant on Old Delaware Road.
The overflow occurred about 9:30 am on Monday. Water flowed over the embankment and through a swale, moving the straw bales placed in the swale as an energy-diversion measure.
It also swept away loose straw placed when Kokosing Construction recently reseeded the area. The water ponded in a grassy area between the embankment and the plant’s parking lot and ultimately overflowed into the parking lot.
Public Utilities Director Tom Marshall said he notified the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency of the spill around 11 am.
“Basically, it was clear water, rainwater,” he told Knox Pages today. “To our knowledge, nothing came off of our property. It’s on city property, it did not affect anyone else’s property, and it did not affect the environment.
“We notified the EPA right away that we had flooding,” he continued. “There was no damage. No lime entered the waterways of the state. No lime has ever migrated to the grassy waterway area.”
Marshall said that samples taken during the situation showed the overflow was rainwater.
Mike Galloway of OEPA’s Division of Surface Water visited the site this morning and told Marshall and Brian Ball, city engineer, that things worked like they were supposed to regarding runoff. He referred Knox Pages to OEPA’s media relations department for official comment.
Anthony Chenault, media coordinator for OEPA, issued the following statement:
“Mt. Vernon is following their stormwater management plan and best management practices. The dike is intact and was not breached. Rather, heavy rains over the weekend flowed over the top of the dike. Containment measures remain in place and any significant amount of lime material was intercepted before making its way to nearby streams.”
Ball noted that another ponded area within an embankment is close to overflowing. Discussion to resolve the overflow problem involved siphoning off the surface water to lower the water level.
Lyle David Daniels, whose property is next to the water treatment plant, is not convinced the runoff did not include lime residuals.
“It’s not a leap to say the material that was behind the dike flowed out when the dike burst,” he said.
Referencing OEPA pictures of sludge from a June 23 lagoon visit, he said, “That’s the same color as what was on the parking lot. It’s the same stuff.”
Lime spillover ran onto Daniels’ property following an earlier rain in July. He and other neighbors are concerned about the sludge’s effect on their drinking water and potential long-term effect of metals found in the sludge.
