GOOD HOPE — The City of Good Hope received a good score on its annual water pollution report for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, but the report did highlight some areas of improvement for the city’s sewer system.

Grady Parsons, president of Living Water Services, presented the annual Municipal Water Pollution Prevention Report to the council Monday night. 

The MWPP report is a full account of a municipalities sewer system over the previous year, and is scored from 0-783, with a zero being a perfect score.

The age of the plan received a score of 40 out of 40, and because the plant is more than 30 years old, that portion of the score will always be high, Parsons said.

“You’re always going to have 40 points in that,” he said. “You just can’t get around that.”

For water quality, the system received only five points out of a possible 200, which indicates that the water coming out of the plant is well within ADEM limits, he said. 

The other area of the report that received a high score was the bypass and overflow portion. The area received a score of 45 out of 80, and is caused by the high amount of rainwater infiltration that has occurred in a few areas around the city, Parsons said. 

The total score of 90 puts the city in the Departmental Recommendation Range, which means the city will need to show that it is working to address the infiltration, Parsons said. He said the city completed a flow study last year to find some of the areas of highest infiltration, so that already fulfills that requirement and highlighted the areas that are in need of work. 

That study showed the biggest amount of infiltration is coming from the sewer line that connects the Welcome Center on I-65, and repairs to the line will be completed once the weather dries up, Parsons said.

Living Water Services will also work with the Alabama Department of Transportation to inspect all of the manholes along that section of the interstate to make sure those are in good shape, and ALDOT will be responsible for making any required repairs on those, he said. 

“They’ve been really good about fixing it,” he said.