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10/14/2024
WT Staff
 Drinking water comments, questions or concerns? Give us a call at 877-52-WATER (877-529-2837), or email us at info@wtla.us
October 14, 2024 1139 am CDT
Central Georgia under high fire danger Columbus Day; Rockdale County still recovering from BioLab Fire
Rockdale County, GA: Under a National Weather Service high fire danger this afternoon and still recovering from the massive chemical fire at BioLab in Conyers Sep 30, Rockland Water has an especially challenging job to do, providing potable water for more than 91,000 residents from a surface water source recently impacted by the widespread flooding caused by Hurricane Helene. A toxic plume from the BioLab fire at Conyers spurred the evacuation of 17 thousand people from the immediate area and the re-routing of traffic on I-20 early on the morning of September 30. Up to a week ago, the heavy air had still not cleared sufficiently to allow for some businesses to re-open. WT looks into the status of the drinking water supply for the area, Rockdale County.
Rockdale Water Resources Administration has a grand mission: "Remain Perfectly Positioned to provide the ultimate natural resource ….WATER". This mission has been tested heavily over the last three weeks, did Rockdale hold up through flood and fire? We asked the water plant for an update, more to follow.
Here is what we know so far. The source of raw water for Rockdale County is an intake in Big Haynes Creek located in the Ocmulgee River watershed downstream of Conyers. According to the official news release from Rockland County, creeks in the vicinity of the fire do not directly feed into Big Haynes Creek, the Rockland County surface water source. Biolab Incident 2024 Frequently Asked Questions states "Rockdale County’s drinking water remains safe. Water samples are being tested three times daily, and all results have returned safe levels. Streams downstream from the Biolab facility do not feed into the Haynes Watershed, the source of Rockdale County’s drinking water." The toxic plume we presume may have carried contaminants downstream, we are looking into this, more to follow.
Big Haynes Creek is a tributary of the Ocmulgee River which flooded heavily during the impact of Hurricane Helene at Bald Rock Rd near Milstead. The water level here shot up to more than five times normal level in a matter of hours, peaking just short of moderate flood stage on the morning of September 28. Floodwaters rapidly cleared off into the larger tributary Yellow River and on to Ocmulgee River by September 29. Active flooding around the Rockdale raw water intake subsided the day before the Conyers chemical fire broke out.
The Ocmulgee River watershed clears the surface run-off from more than five thousand square miles of central Georgia, picking up contaminants all along the way. Drinking water treatment plants sourced from surface water are tasked to produce potable water from the fluctuating quality of the raw water source, made all the more challenging during flooding, and whenever there are toxic releases in the watershed. Ocmulgee River joins Oconee to form Altamaha River, later joined by the blackwater Ohoopee River, eventually exiting to Altamaha Sound in the Atlantic Ocean. As all of Georgia's central and south waterbodies were flooded by Hurricane Helene, the raw drinking water sources for hundreds of thousands if not millions of people was impacted.
See the watershed and directional arrows layers on the Georgia map, here. Safe drinking water advisories, hazardous spills and flood events are plotted on WT licensed maps by watershed area, these are the events that can mingle based on the surface water flow. Impacts based on airborne contamination are another matter, more to follow in our next report.
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