wqcs00011_NOV-2021-DV-0179 RSP_20210412

5-
ROCKY MOUNT
WATER RESOURCES
THE CENTER OF IT AL[
April 12, 2021
Brenton Bent
Director of Water Resources
City of Rocky Mount
331 South Franklin Street
Rocky Mount, NC 27804
Scott Vinson, Regional Supervisor
Water Quality Regional Operations Section
Raleigh Regional Office
13800 Barrett Drive,
Raleigh, NC 27609
Subject: Notice of Violation & Intent to Issue Civil Penalty
Tracking No.-NOV 2021-DV-0055 & NOV-2021-DV-0179
Collection System Pen -nit No. WQCS00011
Dear Mr. Vinson,
I received the Notices of Violation from the DWR dated March 23, 2021 and March 29, 2021 as
identified by the subject tracking numbers regarding the sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) events
that occurred on 12/24/2021, 12/31/2020, 2/13/2021, 2/15/2021, 2/16/2021, 2/19/2021, and
2/27/2021.The city of Rocky Mount takes these incidents very seriously and continues to take
steps to minimize the potential for such overflows within our sewer collection system.
Consistent with previous responses, the city continues to investigate, evaluate, and invest in the
sewer collection system to mitigate these incidents. As you are aware, these overflows occurred
primarily when Rocky Mount received heavy sustained rainfall causing flash flooding of streets,
drainage ditches and streams. The collection system can become hydraulically overloaded from
inflow and infiltration. In addition, the city has wholesale wastewater purchase agreements with
neighboring systems such as the town of Nashville, town of Whitakers, town of Sharpsburg,
town of Dortches, Nash County and Edgecombe County and these systems are also contributing
increased flows during rain events.
[phone] / 331 S. Franklin St., PO Box 1180, Rocky Mount, NC 27802-1180 1 www.rockymount�ic.gov

The city currently maintains in excess of 435 miles of sanitary sewer collection lines. Over the
past year, the Water and Sewer Division has engaged in many projects to alleviate inflows,
infiltration and improve flow capabilities to the treatment plant. The city recently completed two
major projects to assist in these efforts. These are the relining of approximately 1.7 miles of a
27" sewer outfall line and the replacement of two old screw pumps. The latter will increase
conveyance capabilities by 20 million gallons per day. The city has also continued the annual
appropriation of funds to our sewer rehab program which targets the resurfacing of manholes
that are of older masonry construction or found to have leaking joints. The other scope of our
rehab program is relining sewer mains identified to have breaks, cracks, or root intrusions.
On 2/22/2021, the city signed a Task Order and prepared a Purchase Order with Green
Engineering PLLC in the amount of $177,100 to plan, design, permit, and bid for replacing the
Old Mill Road sewer pump station and force main to improve pumping capacity in that basin.
The city continued to smoke test the collection and conduct repairs as soon as intrusion points
are identified. In addition, we continued our diligent daily maintenance, repair, video inspection
and cleaning of our system to prevent further SSOs or system interruptions.
Please be assured that the city of Rocky Mount is working with great care and perseverance to
reduce the number of sanitary sewer overflows in the collection system and this effort will
remain a top priority into the foreseeable future. As you can see, we are taking the necessary
steps to address the integrity of our entire collection system and our hope is that the Division of
Water Resources will favorably consider these efforts as you deliberate on any further actions
regarding these incidents.
If you have any questions, or require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact
one at 252-972-1299 or email at [e-mail]
rockmountne.gov
Sincerely,
Brenton Bent, Director of Water Resources
[phone] / 331 S. Franklin 3t., PO Box 1180, Rocky Mount, NC 278t12-1180 / www.rockymountnc.gov2