What was expected to be a class-action lawsuit by residents of north and central Fayette County and south Fulton County sickened in mid-2006 by what they insisted were chemical releases from the Phillip Services Corp. (PSC) waste treatment plant near Fairburn has reached an out of court settlement agreement.

Lawyers for PSC and American Vanguard Corp. (AMVAC) agreed to a total of $4 million in payments to the 2,221 households within an approximate three-mile radius of the plant. Affected residents outside those parameters will receive nothing.

More than 770 residents in a 40 square-mile area of the Fayette and south Fulton communities began exhibiting symptoms such as prolonged nausea, vomiting, headaches and a variety of respiratory problems including first-time diagnoses of asthma and pleurisy subsequent to being exposed to the strong onion-like odor later identified as MOCAP “wash water,” a combination of the organophosphate pesticide ethoprop and a chemical odorant Propyl mercaptan.

PSC officials did not agree that residents illnesses, especially those that claimed long-term conditions, were connected to the exposure.

Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) apparently disagreed. The ATSDR study concluded in 2007 acknowledged that residents in the affected areas of Fayette and Fulton had experienced short-term adverse effects but no long-term ailments.

Many of the affected residents expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the outcome of the ATSDR study.