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Residents outraged over sewage plans

By BEN NELMS
bnelms@TheCitizenNews.com

Residents of unincorporated Southwest Fulton County came in droves Monday night to a public meeting at the Palmetto Seniors Center. Nearly 100 filled the room. They came to voice their opposition and concerns about the upcoming sewer project partnership between Palmetto and Fulton County that will install sewer lines along Ono, Hobgood and Rivertown roads. It is a project, said many, for which they had no notification and no input. The meeting followed the Aug. 1 council meeting where many in attendance Monday had come to voice their frustration with a project they said would have a negative impact on their property, property values and their future.

Meeting with residents were Palmetto Mayor Clark Boddie, city engineering firm Keck & Wood Senior Project Engineer Karl Brantner, Fulton County Engineering Administrator C. Lamar Lambert and Fulton County Dep. Director of Technical Services Kun Suwanarpa.

Brantner began the meeting with an overview of the project. He explained the status of the city’s outdated wastewater treatment system, the forced moratorium by Georgia Environmental Protection Division on city sewer services and the subsequent plan between Palmetto and Fulton county to form a partnership to help resolve sewer issues for both entities.

Lambert explained that the project was consistent with Fulton County’s Master Plan for Line Creek Basin, citing the project as providing a sewer system that will eventually be available to most affected residents.

“This system may become extremely valuable to you in the future,” he said.

Frustrated and unconvinced, many residents in attendance said they felt deceived by the city and abandoned by the county to which they pay taxes but from which they did not receive any communication of the project until surveyors began showing up in their front yards.

Boddie told residents the city had not set out with the desire to impinge on their property but, rather, to provide a solution to the city’s dilapidated system by partnering with Fulton County.

“We went for the straightest, most economical way to do it and we did it at a cost of $9 million instead of the $15 million it would have taken to build a new plant in the city.” said Boddie, offering an explanation both he and Brantner would use on several occasions during the meeting.

Most Southwest Fulton residents were unconvinced, stating that the city’s problem belonged to the city. Some of the many concerns voiced by residents involved the lack of notification about the project and the belief that they should not be forced to be a part of the solution to the city and the county’s problem.

“Why can’t things stay the way they are if the residents don’t want it?” asked resident Howard Stephens.

On an occasion during the meeting, and stated specifically afterwards, Boddie said the city likely bore the responsibility for not notifying affected residents in a timely manner.

“In all reality the blame probably lies within the City of Palmetto as far as notification of these people is concerned. We had a situation where it was the first time where the city had joined with the county on a joint project,” Boddie said. “In the project, the city’s responsibility was spelled out in terms of construction of the line and obtaining right-of-way if needed on our section. As for the county’s portion of it, the acquisition of right-of-way fell to the county. And here again, that was a situation that probably the city engineers should have probably followed a little bit closer and talked with some of these folks as surveys were run down Hobgood Road for locations of lines to be on the county’s right-of-way.”

Other residents during the meeting questioned the viability of having a million gallons of sewage per day flowing along their property, the tendency of the pipe to rupture and the liability issues inherent to any environmental contamination that might result. Others questioned the routing of the sewer lines, the odor that might result once lines are installed and their general dissatisfaction with the project.

Most residents’ questions were answered, but a few of those satisfied property owners believed they had received the short end of the sewer project stick.

One resident, concerned about what she explained as deceptive behavior, said surveyors that came to her mother’s property two months ago said, when asked, that they had been sent by the City of Palmetto. Yet when she called the city she was told the municipality knew nothing about it, she continued. Boddie said the clerk that answered the phone probably knew nothing of the surveyor’s assigned task. In response, Boddie said the city should have prepared something better for the ladies that take those calls. In all, the origination of the project and its inception was never intended to pose a burden.

“Neither the city nor Fulton County intentionally deceived anybody about this project,” Boddie commented after the meeting. “None of these decisions about the location of lines or anything else that were made behind closed doors. This was all voted on out in the open. It would probably have been better if the property owners had been notified but unfortunately the situation we were looking at was that we felt like we were running the lines on county right-of-way. Here again, you’ve got to remember, if it was a situation where we were running this line through 20 pieces of property, you could bet we would be at their doors negotiating with them for purchase of the affected property.”

Boddie said he is unaware of any location along the project where anything other than right-of-way has been affected, adding that property affected beyond right-of-way boundaries would be the subject of an easement purchase.

Boddie said engineers met with two property owners subsequent to last weeks’ council meeting where a council chambers full of angry and frustrated residents from Ono, Hobgood and Rivertown roads expressed their views.

“The city talked with those two property owners. Those were the only two that at this time were the only independent properties where anything would be located. One of those was a pump station on Hobgood Road and the other was a deodorizer (at another location). After last Monday’s meeting we asked the engineer to look at relocating the deodorizer. I hope he’s pretty much got that worked out. And as for the pump station, we will be back with the property owner. Of course, the design of the pump station they showed tonight was not very intrusive and it had a buffer area around it. So I wouldn’t foresee a problem with it being located next to someone else’s property. The property on Hobgood Road is actually a lot without a house on it, although there are neighbors in the area and it would be in proximity to them.”

Though some in attendance may have had their concerns satisfactorily addressed, many others left the Seniors Center as frustrated as when they entered nearly two hours earlier.

“You are trampling our rights and ignoring the environment,” one woman said emphatically, the last resident to express her thoughts at meeting’s end. “When it ruptures my lake will be full of human waste. You are hoisting the problem of the city of Palmetto on those of us who have no say.”