surge relief
Category: stinky
tailpipe
civility
A million cubic feet
honey wagon
Put a lid on it
Administration Building 695 Moores Creek Lane. Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Staff
will recommend that the Board adopt a revised dollar figure for odor control capital expenditures 2015-2019.
Previously, the odor control figure was 2 million dollars, RWSA staff recommend increasing that figure to
9.3 million dollars in an effort to keep odors on-site at the Moores Creek sewage treatment plant.
The outlay would fund:
“The proposed improvements include covering the primary clarifiers, equalization and grit removal upgrades,
covering the headworks and screening channels, hauling improvements associated with the biosolids storage area,
eliminating the post digestion clarifiers, digester interior coating, cleaning the holding ponds and
equalization basins, and providing a centralized odor scrubber unit to treat foul air.”
Both the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Service Authority have passed resolutions
in support of the proposed odor control expenditures.
making a hole
Please note that a blast at the Moores Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility on Moores Creek Lane
has been scheduled for Wednesday, October 1, 2014. A single blast is anticipated mid-day.
Several seismographs will be set up in the Woolen Mills neighborhood to gather additional vibration data.
We appreciate your cooperation to adhere to all signage and personnel regarding blasting for your SAFETY!–RWSA
Work continues at the former MCWWTP, digging a hole which will eventually house the wet well, the drop off point
for the Rivanna Interceptor, the pipe that catches the sewage from 42 square miles of Charlottesville and Albemarle.
This is a big hole being excavated in solid rock.
At some point a TBM (tunnel boring machine) will be introduced to this hole and it will bore its way to Riverview Park
allowing the installation of a gravity flow line, replacing the current force main from Riverview to the sewage plant.
Also in the works, Monticello, home of Th. Jefferson, is in the process of hooking up its sewage to the MCAWTF
(MCAWTF = MCWWTP = Moores Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant = sewage plant) Monticello is located about 3350 feet
from where the blasting is going on.
We know that water runs downhill. I wonder if the smell will waft uphill? The stink plume certainly wafts laterally,
To sample, drive from the east into Charlottesville on Interstate 64 with a window cracked in the morning…
quiet enjoyment
People have been living in this neighborhood, this place, for thousands of years.
We live in the bend of a state scenic River, on rich, fertile ground, Davidson Loam. Seated here we are eight tenths of a mile from the front porch of Monticello, a mile and 2/10ths from the downtown mall. Seated here we are home, in the center of our universe.
But often we feel, as a neighborhood, that we are in the center of the crosshairs.
Over the years our discussions with the Council have focused on a handful of issues. We’ve asked for reductions in traffic speed and volume, we’ve asked for a reduction of the sewage smell. We’ve asked for pedestrian safety improvements and we have asked that planning and zoning be used to conserve our cultural and natural resources as well as our quality of life.
We have partnered with government entities in the creation of a national historic district, in the design of a sewage pumping station and in the care of our City park. We plant streetscape trees. We pick up trash, we attend City meetings. We have accomplished much but still, we feel threatened.
We are reassured by statements from Mayor Huja and Vice Mayor Szakos in opposition to a bridge through the Woolen Mills. We thank Dave Norris for his enduring stand against the County using City neighborhoods as an interchange.
Diversity is a strength to our way of thinking. We are all kinds of people in this neighborhood. But our mixed status, our socio-economic profile, seems to attract locally unwanted landuses.
Please work with us in our effort to secure the quiet enjoyment of our own homes and the health, safety and welfare of our neighborhood. Together we can make it so.
mice and men
All manner of development activity afoot in Charlottesville. One of the Planning Commissioners commented on it last night, I didn’t write the exact number down, but there are something like a thousand “dwelling units” fixing to appear on the real estate market. Another Planning Commissioner asked how we were coming on meeting the proposed Comprehensive Plan goal of having 15% of that new housing affordable. There wasn’t an answer readily available to that question. Most of the housing being built near UVA is constructed to do liposuction on the students’ parents wallets. No one ever builds affordable housing for UVA workers near the U. There is some affordable housing coming on line, JABA’s Timberlake Place in the Woolen Mills and Habitat’s Sunrise Park, 1/4 mile south of Timberlake, in east Belmont-Carlton. (so roughly 5% of the 1000 units are affordable)
Not all the development is residential. CFA remodeling is rocking along at the former Martha Jefferson.
Not all the development is roofs for sleeping/working people. Over on the sewer side of town Big doings. RWSA has been successfully addressing multiple issues. They have increased Phosphorous and Nitrogen removal from their effluent, an excellent development for the Rivanna River, the James and the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, they’ve constructed a wetland, they are fixing to unleash a tunnel boring machine and they have made major strides in odor control, keeping the stink on site.
In every direction there are people planning…
…tackling long range issues. How do we reconnect the people to the river. How do we make the street a place that’s good for more than squashing possums and exercising fire engines? How do we restore streets to their commons status?
How do we incorporate green infrastructure and low impact development practices into our cheat the cookie building culture?
How do we move to excellent urban planning?
speculating
Time didn’t permit interviewing these gentlemen but I speculate that they are checking out the substrata along tunnel route between Riverview Park and Moore’s Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.