TDEC Reports on Monteagle Sewage Spill

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation was called Sunday morning, March 15, about the failure of a tank at one of Monteagle's two wastewater treatment plants and went to the scene. Department staff members have been back to Monteagle each day since the spill occurred.

The situation is that one of the primary treatment basin at Plant #1 failed. Plant #1 serves approximately 300 customers, including Tracy City and an apartment complex. The wall that gave way is made of steel and was part of an above-ground tank. Please see attached picture for an idea of what the tank and failure look like.

All of the influent (approx. 98,736 gallons) in the tank went into Juanita Creek. Additional influent that continued to enter the tank after the failure also went into Juanita Creek until Monteagle was able to reroute the influent into the remaining basin for treatment. The remaining basin contains the main components of the plant needed to treat wastewater. That rerouting was completed at approximately 6 p.m. Sunday evening. Monteagle chlorinated the bypass into Juanita Creek until the rerouting was complete, giving it some disinfection.

Before it leaves the top of Monteagle Mountain, Juanita Creek enters a small cave and only when Juanita has large flows does water reach the escarpment and flows over the top and down into the valley. It is believed the water from Juanita Creek ultimately flows into Gilliam Creek which flows into the Elk River.

In addition to the activities to remedy the situation at the plant, the department has given direction to Monteagle and they have begun collecting water samples from private wells at the base of Monteagle Mountain on the Pelham side of the mountain in Grundy County. There are about 25 private wells in this area. Monteagle is working with the sheriff's office to identify wells and to contact residents. If contaminated wells are documented, Monteagle will provide bottled water. TDEC has also notified the Tennessee Dept. of Health.

The department gave Monteagle a deadline of today to identify a source to conduct a dye test to track the flow of Juanita Creek once it goes underground. TDEC staff collected samples Sunday at Gilliam Spring and we received those results Monday. They indicated elevated e.coli levels. While we never like to see high e.coli levels, there is a silver lining in this particular situation because it confirms that Juanita Creek likely does flow into Gilliam Creek, which means the karst geology is less likely to be so fractured. That means we may be able to more easily define/confirm the underground flow path and the water from Juanita Creek is less likely to be impacting the groundwater that charges people's wells.

No public water systems in the area are expected to be impacted by the release. It is premature to speculate on long-term impacts to the creek at this point, but certainly that is something that will be tracked.