Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

Residents sound of sewer

By BEN NELMS
bnelms@TheCitizenNews.com

More than 50 residents of unincorporated Fulton County affected by Palmetto’s upcoming one million gallon per day sewer project were presented with modifications to the plan at an Aug. 16 meeting at Palmetto’s Seniors Center. In some cases residents got what they wanted, but the lack of notification of the project’s existence and the installation of sewer lines on right-of-way adjacent to their property loomed large in their comments.

The meeting was a continuation of an Aug. 8 meeting at which Palmetto Mayor Clark Boddie responded to most of the concerns and questions posed by residents. The Aug. 16 meeting was arranged by Fulton County Commissioner Bill Edwards in response to residents concerns. Boddie took the heat for the lack of notification given that Palmetto is the project manager but residents maintained that it was the responsibility of the city, the county or both to notify them well in advance. Though Edwards arranged the Aug. 18 meeting, he was not present.

The controversy among residents of unincorporated Southwest Fulton north of Palmetto was stirred initially because they only recently learned of 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 that will run forced main and gravity sewer lines along their properties on Ono, Hobgood and Rivertown roads. The project, residents maintain, was something they had never been informed of. They also had questions of the proximity of sewer lines to their homes, the inability to tap on to forced sewer lines and the placement of a deodorizer pad and pump station. Residents learned Aug. 16 that sewer lines and a pump station originally slated for Hobgood Road had been removed from the project. The alternative will place a gravity line from Hobgood at Bear Creek to run along the creek to Ono Road.

At the Aug. 16 meeting, county residents met with Fulton County Assistant Public Works Director Tim Equels, Palmetto Mayor Clark Boddie, city engineering firm Keck & Wood Senior Project Engineer Karl Brantner and Fulton County Engineering Administrator C. Lamar Lambert and other public works staff. Boddie explained Aug. 8 that the city sold $9 million in bonds for the project after opting to partner with the county to hook on to the Camp Creek facility. The alternative, said Boddie, was for the city to go it alone and construct a new facility at a projected cost of $15 million.

Equels told residents Aug. 16 that his department had re-worked plans for the project after the concern expressed by residents at the previous meeting.

“From that meeting there were some concerns, especially on Hobgood Road, about the amount of construction and the location of the pump station,” Equels said. “So we went back and put our heads together and asked what kind of options we had that would have less impact on the community and meet the project goals. We’re going to eliminate the forced main and the pump station and the gravity line going up and down Hobgood Road.”

Equels said the plan had been adjusted to install a gravity line from Bear Creek and Hobgood Road. The line will run adjacent to Bear Creek and continue westward to Ono Road. The line will likely be 24 inches in diameter, he said. A new pump station at Ono Road and Bear Creek will be added to the project. The gravity line will connect with the forced main at Ono Road on its way to the county’s newly upgraded, 24 million-gallon per day Camp Creek wastewater facility.

“The plan now has a lot of advantages. It’s less disruptive to the community, it has a lot of capability of gravity service by opening up additional area for sewer service, especially to the south of Bear Creek. It also places the pump station in an area the less obtrusive to the community and it eliminates two existing pump stations that service to local schools,” Equels explained. “One of the reasons why were doing this, in a broader sense, is that we want to eliminate as much potential sewer and other infrastructure as possible. We want to be able to reduce the number of pump stations and wastewater treatment plants. This is more efficient, it’s better for neighborhoods because they want have a pump stations in their back yards and it allows us to add features we need in the system.”

Affected residents of unincorporated Southwest Fulton, though largely less verbal compared to the Aug. 8 meeting, nonetheless had a number of questions and concerns about the project. Several of those questions came from area resident A. W. Davis, who asked about the location of the now-proposed pump station on Ono Road at Bear Creek and the potential odor associated with the sewer lines. Equels and other public works representatives responded to questions concerning whether portions of the project will intrude on private property. Equels maintained that the project will only encompass public right-of-way.

Bear Creek Homeowners Association President Toni Thornton requested and received confirmation that Equels would meet with residents at a later date to future potential projects based on the county’s Sewer Master Plan and Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Those plans look at anticipated growth and development needs over the next one to two decades. Thornton said she and her group were familiar with the comprehensive plan but wanted to see specifically what current plans call for in terms of sewer lines that would translate into potential development.

“The plan, I believe updated in 2000, calls for a density of one unit or less per acre,” Thornton said. “But developers are coming in and trying to buy property based on sewered land, so we’re just trying to figure out what the county is looking at for the future.”