Blairsville, Ga. – There is no impact to Murphy due to the discharge of treated wastewater south of the state line.
The City of Blairsville has a contract with The Water Authority to legally treat leachate – stormwater that infiltrates through trash – from a landfill in Forsyth County, Ga. The discharge goes into Butternut Creek at the head of Lake Nottely. The Lake Nottely Improvement Association believes the plant does not remove some of the toxic chemicals and the water is being contaminated, according to its website.
Callie Moore, western regional director of MountainTrue, and volunteers have been sampling Butternut Creek both upstream and downstream before and since the agreement began about a year ago. She has seen no negative impact to the water, and said there is no impact to Murphy or any place in North Carolina.
“This discharge is miles upstream and flowing into a very large reservoir before making its way into North Carolina,” Moore said.
“Also, the confluence of the Nottely River is downstream of Murphy and flowing into Hiwassee Lake, which is probably twice the size of Nottely in terms of volume. Even if that treatment plant failed, we wouldn’t even remotely be able to detect anything below Nottely Dam.”
Moore added that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has also done a study on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in the leachate. The EPA determined it is not a health concern for Lake Nottely or Union County.
City Clerk Kaye McCann said the wastewater treatment plant treats 11,000 gallons of leachate daily – a small amount of the total waste treated by the plant, and less than half of what the Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources allows to be treated.
Maggie Michaels DeCan, a member of the Lake Nottely Improvement Association, posted in several local Facebook groups claiming “Blairsville has been dumping 400,000 gallons of leachate daily” in Butternut Creek. She then referred to a public notice for a permit that allegedly would allow the plant to increase the amount of treated wastewater to 1 million gallons.
In her posts, she claimed Murphy was one of the areas that would be affected. DeCan said Friday her source for information was the Lake Nottely Improvement Association.
McCann clarified that the public notice is for a routine renewal of the plant’s permit. She said the treatment amount in the notice was put there by the Environmental Protection Division based on the plant’s capacity.
“That doesn’t mean we’re going to start processing double what we’re doing,” McCann said. “We have no plans to increase.”
DeCan lives and works in Roswell, Ga., but said she owns property in Blairsville and lives there part of the year. She donated to the campaign of June Krise, who is running against state Sen. Steve Gooch, co-owner of The Water Authority.
“I was not a supporter of Jane Krise until I found out her stand on the leachate,” DeCan said Friday. “I asked a friend if Gooch had an opponent and found out who she was after most of my posting.”
Moore will be making a presentation during the Union County Commissioners meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20. Weekly water quality reports for Lake Nottely will be posted on the MountainTrue West Facebook page every Friday.