Sitting on a pile of it

First of all, a few disclaimers: I have not personally spoken with any city official past or present about the circumstances in this article. Although I am a police chaplain with the Peachtree City Police Department, I have not sought information about the facts of this situation from police officials. This is not an oversight because I know and am friends with individuals in the government and the police department. If any “sludge or bio-solid” is to be flung, I don’t want it hitting them. Fair enough?

There are those who say that “something stinks” in Peachtree City concerning the land on which the new police department was built. According to news reports, the site was located on top of a former landfill and the now-defunct Flat Creek Treatment Plant dumped sludge and bio-solid waste on the site. Is that a problem? Well, maybe. Prior to the purchase of the land by the city, a test was performed that revealed that the site had a “recognized environmental condition.” The report said that, at the time, there “was no evidence ... of any toxic issues relating to the site.”

So, what does the new police department building rest on? Sludge and bio-solid. Sludge, as you may know is defined as: “a muddy or slushy mass, deposit, or sediment: as a : precipitated solid matter produced by water and sewage treatment processes b : muddy sediment in a steam boiler c : a precipitate or settling (as a mixture of impurities and acid) from a mineral oil.”

Yuck. If you think that’s bad, here’s the definition of “bio-solid”: “solid organic matter recovered from a sewage treatment process and used especially as fertilizer.”

I believe, in the language of the King James Bible, “bio-solid” could be translated as processed “dung.” It may be a good thing to locate a public building on top of years of accumulation of dung; I don’t know. I’m frankly not sure what uses of such land is deemed right and proper. Perhaps this is an environmentally-friendly way of reclaiming land that has been used in this manner.

But I have to ask myself a few questions: Would government officials build a public playground or athletic fields on top of tons of dung? Would parents and taxpayers stand for it? Would the school board locate a public elementary school on such a site? Would the library commission recommend the building of a new library on the land? Would anybody seriously consider erecting a hospital there? Would the average homeowner build an expensive home on a “dung burial ground?” If he did, would there be a nasty result if he decided to put in a swimming pool? I have been involved with the building of two churches and I can tell you that I’d never knowingly build a church on a dung dump, processed or not, although it might give a legitimate reason to go extra heavy on the incense on Sundays.

Certainly, the bad guys in the community will have fun knowing that the police are working on top of bio-solids every day of their working life. If the bad guys already call the cops “pigs,” one can only imagine what names will be thrown at them now! Come to think of it, would the public even allow a jail or a prison to be built on such land? Would the ACLU file a lawsuit to stop it? Is it “cruel and unusual punishment” to make criminals spend years in a building located on top of dung?

Well, police officers are used to be overstressed, overworked, underpaid and underrespected. But doesn’t this just seem like the ultimate insult?  However, cops are tough — they regularly have to put up with sludge on their jobs.

Once again, it may be that turning a “dung pile” into a police department headquarters may have been the best and highest use of the land. Or maybe not. While the report indicated that there were no toxic issues at the time of the purchase, can that be said today? Or tomorrow? Or ten years from now? Will the health of police department personnel suffer with the results being seen only in the coming decades? Somebody obviously thought the site was a good idea since several people voted for the project. Dennis Chase, environmentalist and biologist, said, however, “I’m sorry the city didn’t listen to us when they bought the property.” Well, me, too, Mr. Chase, since I frequent that building on a regular basis. But, as they say, “Bio-solids happen.”

(Information for this article was gleaned from several newspapers.)