18 MAR 09: Big River, Big Mess

May I be the first (and I'm pretty sure I am) to wish you a happy "Fix-a-Leak Week." I'm not sure when Columbus Water Works scheduled this event. But it really didn't have to go to such extremes to celebrate - by leaking sewage into the river.

Columbus Water Works confessed Tuesday its crews had to fix a very big leak. About 1.75 million gallons of sewage spilled into the Chattahoochee River Monday. That's almost enough sewage to fill three Olympic-sized swimming pools -- and someday I fear there will be a TV reality show requiring contestants to swim across such a thing.

The sewage spill was reported south of Rigdon Park, indicating it happened at Oxbow Meadows. This was one time when people at Fort Benning might have welcomed a controlled burn - so the aroma of smoke could override that other one.

Columbus Water Works officials blamed the big spill on our recent five inches of rain. It was more than the sewage treatment plant could handle, and some kind of manhole cover blew off. Next time we have a major storm, someone from Port Columbus should go to Oxbow Meadows - to teach the staff about "battening down the hatches."

Because our area had so much rain, some of the sewage spill wound up on the Riverwalk near Fort Benning. Water Works officials say the evidence of that is gone from the Riverwalk now - and for once, the prison inmates who had to clean up that mess earned their cigarette money.

Columbus Water Works officials described the sewage spill as "very unusual." The people who live downstream from Oxbow Meadows certainly hope so. What can brown do for you at Florence Marina and Lake Eufaula? If it's in the middle of the river, not very much....

This spill allows us to fulfill a semi-promise at the top of the blog, to talk about "the flow of the river." Did you know the Chattahoochee River in Columbus has a "mean daily flow" of 8,250 cubic feet per second? When there's heavy rain, I suppose the flow is even meaner.

We learned elsewhere that a "cubic foot per second" translates to 7.48 gallons of water -- so on a typical day, more than 61,000 gallons of water move down the Chattahoochee River through Columbus. Monday's sewage spill was 28 times that amount. So (ahem) it was like almost all of Columbus developed diarrhea at once.

The good news from Columbus Water Works is that the spill has stopped, and things are back in order. But the timing of this was terrible, and not only because it's "Fix-a-Leak Week." After all, this is the time of year when Chicago dyes its river green -- not brown.

The real goal of Fix-a-Leak Week is to help you save money on your water bill. Columbus Water Works plans to hold a live demonstration downtown Thursday of how to stop leaky faucets in the bathroom and kitchen. Government officials concerned about leaks to the news media remain on their own.

Let's tighten things up around here, with a quick check of other drips from the news tap....

+ The Phenix-Girard Bank near the Phenix City Wal-Mart was robbed -- and police reported the suspect's "weapon" was an insect sprayer. At last report, officers were using RoundUp -- or was that conducting one?

+ The Phenix City Council approved new rules for roadside memorials. This has turned out to be a touchy subject for some families - but I want to know who decided to limit the memorials to a cross. As a commenter at another blog has suggested, that's a strange way to make Jewish residents feel welcome.

+ Georgia Power reported it lost about one million dollars last year, due to people stealing electricity. Why, it's almost enough to start a drive to get rid of lethal injection for criminals - you know, to bring back the electric chair.

(Yes, I can hear the critics now -- the ones who say Georgia Power has been robbing them for years through rate increases. But you could argue the "power pilferers" are more likely to get away with their crime. You need to convince 12 jurors, as opposed to two members of the Public Service Commission.)

+ The evening news reported on a Columbus businessman's plan to open a bar in Auburn, next door to a day care center. I can understand why some people are objecting to this. It's the idea of overlapping "happy hours" in the late afternoon....

+ The Eufaula Tribune reported Enterprise, Alabama staged what was billed as the "World's Smallest St. Patrick's Day Parade." Apparently it only has one marcher - which for some Protestants in Northern Ireland still would be one too many.

+ Instant Message to the people who insist I should start using Twitter: Calm down now. I only post here once a day. I see no reason to tell you every little detail about my life. And I'm from a generation which remembers when "twitter-pated" meant you were in love.

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