WQCS00011_NOV-2022-DV-0055 Response_20220301

ROCKY MOUNT
WATER RESOURCES
THE CENTER OF II ALL
March 1, 2022
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 2022-DV-0055
Collection System Permit No. WQCS00011
Dear Mr. Vinson,
I received the Notice of Violation from the DWR dated February 14, 2022, as identified by the
subject tracking number regarding the sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) event that occurred on
1/16/2022 at the Riverside Drive manhole. 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,
Nash County and Edgecombe County and these systems are also contributing increased flows
during rain events.
1252) 972-1121 / 331 S. Franklin St., PO Box 1180, Rocky Mount, NC 27802 11801 www rockymountnc.gov

The city currently maintains more than 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 continues 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.
Green Engineering PLLC is finishing the design portion on replacing the Old Mill Road sewer
pump station and force main to improve pumping capacity in that basin. The city continues 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. Finally, the city is in the process of
securing funding to conduct a sewer model of the entire collection system to identify flow
challenges.
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
me at 252-972-1299 or email at Brenton.bent©rockmountnc.gov
Sincerely,
Brenton Bent, Director of Water Resources
(252) 972-13251331 S. Fran,* St, PO Box 1180, RockyMount, NC 27802-1190 ! wwwrockyrnountnc.gl