By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

Chariots of Fire Ministries has sued Fayette County for the right to buy sewer service from Clayton County, according to its attorney.

“We will seek an order of Superior Court providing for allowance of the hookup that's at issue,” said Brian Spears, attorney for the ministry.

Spears said he filed the suit Friday after county officials declined to put the ministry's request on its agenda for last week's County Commission meeting.

Commissioners already had denied the group's request, presented by its founder, Bishop Luther Graham, to allow extension of Clayton's sewer lines across county lines to serve its property on Ga. Highway 138, but the ministry asked to be placed on the agenda again after additional information came to light.

That information was that, following the commission's rejection of its request, the ministry hired soil scientists to search for a suitable site for a septic system on its 2.5-acre property, and none was found.

“In my professional opinion, the only remaining option is to connect the structure on this site to the Clayton County sewer,” said Martin McElhenny, consulting engineer, in a certification letter to Chariots of Fire board member John Ford.

Attorney Spears wrote to Chris Cofty, acting county administrator, and sent copies to County Attorney Bill McNally and all the county commissioners, asking that the ministry's request be considered again.

He received his response Thursday, he said. “The response we received consisted of their declining to put us on the agenda,” he said.

County Attorney Bill McNally said that as of deadline Tuesday, he had not been served a copy of the lawsuit. Once the county recieves the suit, it has 30 days to file a written answer.

“We were still talking to [Graham's] attorneys and had hoped he would follow some of the avenues available to him,” McNally said, adding that those avenues include reducing water usage at the site, which county officials consider abnormally high, and find a new site for the home's septic tank.

The lawsuit alleges that the county has no written standards in place for deciding whether to approve a request like the one from Chariots of Fire.

“We're in a circumstance where the decision by the commission is made without any standards of their own, and hence it is arbitrary,” said Spears. The lawsuit alleges that the county's refusal is “arbitrary, capricious and a gross abuse of discretion” and “will result in denial to plaintiff of all reasonable economic uses of the property.”

Also alleged is that “other persons or entities have been granted the permission to tie in to the sewer systems of other municipalities or counties;” therefore, “Plaintiff has been deprived of the equal protection of the law.”

Spears said the ministry is not asking for any monetary damages at this time, but the idea hasn't been ruled out entirely. “The money is a hardship,” he said, “but the direct response to our situation that would be most important would have to do with hooking [onto the sewer system].”

Chariots of Fire was founded two years ago by Graham and works to help people who have lost their jobs and homes get back on their feet. The ministry has been plagued with problems ever since it purchased a house and outbuildings on 2.5 acres just east of the intersection of Ga. highways 138 and 279. The septic system failed, and raw sewage seeped out of the ground and ran down the street, prompting complaints from neighbors and increasing pressure from the county Health Department to resolve the problem.

After a new septic system also failed, Graham made an appeal to Fayette County commissioners to allow the ministry to use Clayton County's sewer lines, which run right past the property. But commissioners last month turned down the ministry's request, citing fears the sewer lines will then be extended to other Fayette customers and allow increased density of development in north Fayette.

Fayette's Environmental Health Department then ordered the ministry to hire soil engineers and dig test holes to find the best place on the property for a new septic system, but those engineers last week declared that there is no such place.