County officials finally looking to install grinder at Polk County Jail
The old line “it’s a dirty job and someone has to do it” ap-plies to a proposal which will soon be heading out for a bid by Polk County for a new sewer line grinder for the Polk County Jail.
A project that was studied as far back as 2013 is back up for serious consideration is now back on the table as City Man-ager Bill Fann came asking the county commission to do something about the sewer line problems with the Polk County Jail.
The issue comes down to this: inmates at the jail will dis-pose of various items and flush them into the City of Cedar-town’s sewer system, which the jail is connected to along with the rest of the Public Safety complex next to the Polk County Fairgrounds.
So everything from toothbrushes to ramen noodle packet wrappers end up clogging up the works, and causing damage to pumps and filters at the city’s sewage treatment plant. This means the City of Cedartown get stuck paying to complete fixes when pumps break because of the errant toothbrush or comb purchased at the commissary ending up in the lines.
It’s a problem so bad that the city has been forced install their own filters coming in, and have collected bucket after bucket of materials coming from the jail.
“Where the problem was in 2011 was at TNC, and it backed up inside the building and the city had to pay $25,000 to clean it up,” he said.
Proposals to install a metal grate in the sewer line before it arrives to the street were put forth, but Denton saw the inevi-table problem: inmates would have to work at all hours of the day in order to keep the filter clean of any materials that aren’t supposed to be in the sewer lines.
A system whereby inmates would have to turn in everything that they purchased in order to obtain new items from the commissary within the Polk County Jail was also previously proposed, but Denton reported that Chief Jailer Al Sharp had said that system is still in the process of being worked out.
“We actually gave 5 five-gallon buckets of that stuff to the previous sheriff,” Fann told the committee. “Right after I got here… it’s been a long time… it’s tearing up our pumps... And I understand the Sheriff’s aversion to having inmates out there cleaning up a bar screen. But where do you think all these items have been coming from?”
Thus, the only solution left to the county commission has come to spending what had previously been bid between $ 80,000 to $100,000, Denton said, on the grinder system.
It’ll work continuously to chop up any debris that enters the sewer system, Denton said, turning any item from solid plas-tic to toilet paper into the smallest of particles to go back into the sewer system and eventually be filtered out before water is put back into the creek and river systems within Northwest Georgia.
“In 2013, we had these plans done for a sewer grinder, and we’d talked about putting it outside the jail,” he said.
Those designs for the system will be what a bid package will likely be going out in October, Denton said, meaning it will be months before any work on a potential new grider system is begun.
Barber did say that back when the most recent jail addi-tions were built, promises were made by contrac- tors that trash items like toothbrushes or safety razors couldn’t end up in the sewer lines.
“They weren’t supposed to be any kind of stuff down there, and it’s frustrating that they can,” he said.
Denton said he would seek to pay for the project out of Special Purpose, Local Option Sales Tax funds from the 2014 package.
“This would be considered a public infrastructure improvement,” he said in justifying the cost.
“I think we’ve put them off as long as we can,” said Barber.
Expect bids to come back by the October Public Works committee meeting for the work to be completed.