Wastewater Treatment Plant Overflows in Nacogdoches

Rainfall totals in our area have been exceedingly high for the past few weeks. Storms this past Sunday sent that number way out of normal range, and rain gauges overflowed. So much rain, that it's actually overwhelmed the City of Nacogdoches Wastewater Treatment Plant. The capacity of the system is being over reached by almost 100%.

Simply stated, the plant has gotten a lot more coming in, then they can take. This extra rain water has to go somewhere. Nacogdoches has over 425 miles of sewer mains running under the city. That includes 12 sewer lift stations. That's a lot of places for water of all types to come in.

The plant was made to handle 12.88 million gallons per day. When the plant overflowed it was treating nearly 21 million gallons. This resulted in overflow of rainwater and sanitary sewage.

It came out of a manhole near the treatment plant, and went into Lanana Creek, about 100,000 gallons of it. The environmental threat is minimal, as the water was 95% rainwater. Overflow is also still being diverted into the equalization basin.

This report comes via the City of Nacogdoches - City Government page on facebook. I didn't know what exactly sanitary sewage was, so I looked it up. Flush your toilet, and you just made... sanitary sewage.

The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality has been notified, and notifications have been issued to the public. We will get another update when the plant goes back to normal operation. 

Get our free mobile app

That was a lot of rain yesterday Sunday, Mothers Day 05/09/2021. More rain is headed our way in the next few days.