Upper Savannah Council of Governments provides a wide scope of services and performs many functions. This activities report highlights this information and offers us the chance to regularly communicate our general activities in your county with you. Download the June report here.
Upper Savannah COG Community Development staff prepared and submitted the grant application on behalf of Laurens County.
The grant award will help Laurens County continue the project that was awarded in August 2022 but came in over budget. The latest grant award will be Phase II of the project.
In June 2023, the project for the plant was bid for construction, including installation of a second 750,000-gallon sludge holding tank as an alternate bid item. 
However, due to the high bids the second tank was unable to be funded. As a result, the project was awarded with the construction of only one 750,000-gallon tank.
While the addition of the one 750,000-gallon tank was a considerable improvement from the old drying beds, it still did not entirely fulfill the biosolids handling needs of the plant. The original design for the plant included two 750,000-gallon tanks which would work in tandem with each other. Basically, one tank would be filled and then digest/age the sludge for land application. Once digestion in the first tank has begun, the second tank would then begin to be filled. The tanks would provide approximately 45 days of storage.
In the spring 2024 CDBG application round, funds were requested to continue upgrading the plant including the purchase and installation of the second sludge holding tank, aeration, mixers, pumps, controls, and other necessary fittings. Project cost is estimated to be $1,780,000, with $1.618,000 in CDBG funds and $162,000 in matching funds provided by Laurens County Water & Sewer Commission.
The proposed improvements consist of installing the 750,000-gallon tank. The drying beds were removed as part of the original scope in Phase I. The location is already cleared and will provide the space necessary to house the proposed second tank and its equipment, without acquisition and/or land clearing.
This additional tank will be the completion of the 2022 original scope, providing the Clinton-Joanna plant its necessary capacity to not only sustain its increasing wastewater volume, but to handle the facility’s max capacity.
The grant is one of 10 awarded statewide in the CDBG Community Infrastructure Spring 2024 Funding Round. It is the largest of the 10 grant awards.
Upper Savannah Council of Governments provides a wide scope of services and performs many functions. This activities report highlights this information and offers us the chance to regularly communicate our general activities in your county with you. Download the May report here.
Ombudsman Chasity Lewis, left, with Upper Savannah Long Term Care Ombudsman/Volunteer Ombudsman Coordinator Ashley Capps; and Natasha Duncan, right
In honor of National Volunteer Week in May, the Upper Savannah Regional Long Term Care Ombudsman Program recently recognized Chasity Lewis and Natasha Duncan for their work as Volunteer Ombudsman.
Volunteer Ombudsman are volunteers who conduct friendly routine visits at assisted living facilities and nursing homes providing information and education to residents, their families, and facility staff about residents’ rights.
“We appreciate everything Chasity and Natasha are doing to make a difference with our residents,” said Ashley Capps, who is Upper Savannah’s Long Term Care Ombudsman/Volunteer Ombudsman Coordinator. “Their efforts are not going unnoticed. Our program would not be where it is today without them.”
Upper Savannah Regional Long-Term Care Ombudsman Ericca Livingston added, “I appreciate Chasity and Natasha and the impact they have made.”
Livingston and Capps are the two certified Long Term Care Ombudsman of the Upper Savannah Region that advocate for and work to resolve problems or complaints affecting residents in the nursing homes, assisted living facilities (community residential care facilities), and the facilities that are owned/operated by the Department of Disability and Special Needs, and Department of Mental Health.
If you are interested in becoming a Volunteer Ombudsman, please contact Ashley Capps via email at acapps@uppersavannah.com.
Upper Savannah COG Community Development Director Keith Smith and Assistant Community Development Director Brittany Hallman Enjoy Arrival of Clinton’s new truck
City of Clinton Fire Chief Jeremy Marshall described his emotions as “a sigh of relief” when the department’s new fire truck arrived on May 29.
The City was awarded a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant in November 2021 for purchase of a new truck.
Upper Savannah COG Workforce Development staff applied for and submitted the grant application to the S.C. Department of Commerce. The total project cost is $650,000, with the City of Clinton contributing a local match of $144,911.
The Spartan FC-94/Southeast Apparatus Extreme Duty Rescue Pumper was built by Southeast Apparatus in Corbin, Ky, and was driven down to Clinton last week.
“I had actually seen it up in Kentucky when it was being built,” Marshall said. “You name a problem, we’ve probably experienced it (at the City of Clinton Fire Department) in the last year. It was a sigh of relief.”
Funds were requested to purchase a new fire pumper to replace a 1995 International KME that was recently decommissioned due to transmission failure.
This truck ended its service in March 2021 and has since been sold at auction as surplus equipment. The vehicle was decommissioned with an estimated 8,800 hours and approximately 72,000 miles.
The new pumper provides the department with 1,500 gallons of water per minute and has a 1,000-gallon tank. This department and its responding units offer fire protection to approximately 547 businesses and 3,836 residential units throughout the city limits.
The City also has active automatic and mutual aid agreements with the Joanna, Sandy Springs and Renno Fire Departments as well as a mutual aid agreement with Laurens County Fire Service.
“We’ve had higher maintenance costs, growing population, growing hazards, increasing calls. We’re breaking (call) records every year,” Marshall said. “Our aging fleet was having trouble keeping up. We even had to borrow a truck from a neighboring department.”
The challenges the department has faced include a tragic accident that claimed the life of a fireman this spring in a 2008 pumper.
The department had 1,531 calls in 2023, including structure, grass/brush and vehicle fires, medical emergencies, motor vehicle accidents and other service calls including responses to fire alarms. The department now has four engines, a brush truck and three support vehicles.
Marshall said he believed the 2024 truck would go out for its first service call next week.
Upper Savannah COG Community Development Director Keith Smith and Assistant Community Development Director Brittany Hallman Enjoy Arrival of Clinton’s new truck
Upper Savannah Council of Governments provides a wide scope of services and performs many functions. This activities report highlights this information and offers us the chance to regularly communicate our general activities in your county with you. Download the April report here.
Upper Savannah Council of Governments provides a wide scope of services and performs many functions. This activities report highlights this information and offers us the chance to regularly communicate our general activities in your county with you. Download the March report here.
Upper Savannah Council of Governments provides a wide scope of services and performs many functions. This activities report highlights this information and offers us the chance to regularly communicate our general activities in your county with you. Download the February report here.
MarshCat Mobile Trash Compaction Owner Brian Elender (behind truck) explains how his company’s service can save counties money by cutting down trips to landfill
Officials learned about a trash compaction service that can potentially save counties thousands of dollars and also viewed a demonstration of the company’s 6,000-pound roller “eating couches” at a local solid waste convenience center.
Upper Savannah COG invited MarshCat Mobile Compaction Service to make a presentation and demonstration to city and county administrators and public works officials during a Tuesday lunch meeting.
The veteran-owned and operated company uses a specialized truck equipped with a 6,000-pound roller with spikes to crush the contents of an overflowing open top trash dumpster commonly used at a recycle “convenience” center down to 30 percent or lower capacity.
The operator stays inside the cab of the truck which he parks with the rear facing the end of the dumpster. Using a joystick, the operator moves the roller into and around the dumpster, aided by cameras that give him a 360-degree view. It takes approximately five to 10 minutes to compact trash in each dumpster.
The compaction can potentially save counties thousands of dollars by reducing the number of trash hauls to landfills by 50-70 percent, reducing the number of hours for drivers, and slicing diesel fuel costs.
It also eliminates the occasional need to shut down a convenience center before official closing time due to overflows of yard debris, furniture, etc.
Additionally, it also reduces the need for backhoes and tractors that often suffer irreparable damage during compaction while also reducing the potential for damage to dumpsters.
This service could be provided on-site at a convenience center when needed most, possibly on Saturdays and Mondays during and after peak collection times.
MarshCat Compaction Owner Brian Elender who made the presentation said Dorchester County, S.C., saved approximately $650,000 in a year by using their services.
“It can take a dumpster with an overflowing load that your driver can’t even legally haul down the road (to the landfill) down to 30 percent capacity,” Elender said.
The service is environmentally friendly and greatly reduces trash in landfills, he said.
Six officials attended the presentation while a few traveled to a convenience center on Deadfall Road West in Greenwood County to watch a demonstration.
One dumpster used in the demonstration was overfilled and included two couches on top. The roller easily crushed the couches and all other items leaving the box only around 20-30 percent full (before and after pictures below). Click here for video.
MarshCat currently operates in the Charleston, Savannah and Columbia areas and is looking to grow into other parts of the state including the Upper Savannah region.
Upper Savannah Council of Governments provides a wide scope of services and performs many functions. This activities report highlights this information and offers us the chance to regularly communicate our general activities in your county with you. Download the January report here.