Despite a sewer plant and collection system that is only five years old and can handle four times that amount of sewage as the prior plant, the city of Bull Shoals is having problems during times of heavy rain with overflows which has caused over 1.6 million gallons of raw sewage to make its way into the White River. There were 56 recorded instances of that happening from 2019 until May of this year.
The city has been fined by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) and is working with the agency, along with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to remedy the situation. Bull Shoals Mayor Bill Stahlman says during heavy rain events, rainwater is infiltrating the new system which is causing overflows. The city is working on determining where the rainwater is coming from.
Stahlman says originally it was going to be a large fine for the city until ADEQ saw the city was working hard to fix the problem.
Stahlman says the state agency agreed to lower the fine.
The Bull Shoals Mayor says he doesn’t know how much it’s going to cost the city to fix the problems once they find out what is causing them.
Stahlman says they don’t want any sewage to get into the river, but that is next to impossible.
The mayor says they have flow meters installed in lines now, but there hasn’t been any heavy rain since they were installed. The company that installed them will collect them later this month or in early November to get the data and they will run cameras through the lines to check for problem areas.
The city will apply for grants to fix the problems once they determine what needs to be done.