Friday, December 29, 2006

Written 12/29/2006 (Updated 1/14/2007)

Details of Friends' Challenge to EPD Draft Permit

The Board of Directors of the Friends of Barber Creek, in documents submitted at the December 12 hearing before the Environment Protection Division and afterwards, has asked the EPD to deny Oconee County’s request for a permit to discharge wastewater into Barber Creek from an expanded Rocky Branch waste treatment facility.

The board made the request because it believes the County and the EPD incorrectly identified the receiving stream for the effluent, because it believes the County did not correctly post public notice about a hearing it held on the permit application in March of 2006, and because it believes Barber Creek already violates one state standard for water quality.

All three of these issues were raised by speakers at the public hearing at the Oconee County Civic Center on December 12. Reporters for the Athens Banner-Herald and The Oconee Enterprise did not include them in their stories on the meeting. The Oconee Leader did.

I gave reporters for all three papers copies of documents that support the Board’s position on the issued raised. (These documents are available on the Friends of Barber Creek web site, www.barbercreek.org.)

Included in the documents I gave the reporters were copies of an e-mail exchange between me and Chris Thomas, assistant director of the Oconee County Utility Department, stating that the County planned to discharge wastewater from the Rocky Branch plant into an unnamed tributary of Barber Creek, although the County had sought permission from the state to discharge directly into Barber Creek.

I also gave the reporters copies of the notices published by law in The Enterprise for the March 14 hearing. Neither of the notices published named the receiving waters for the discharge.

Allan Antley, the first of the speakers at the December 12 hearing, told the EPD that, based on data provided by the County, Barber Creek already exceeds the allowable level of fecal coliform bacteria and asked the EPD to deny the permit on that basis.

The e-mail exchange with Chris Thomas is unambiguous. It also was copied to Gary Dodd, director of the Utility Department. Here is what I asked Mr. Thomas on Tuesday, 9/5/2006:

"(F)rom the map (on the draft permit written by the EPD) and from other maps I have viewed, it appears to me that the discharge from the plant will not be directly to Barber Creek but rather to the unnamed tributary of Barber Creek on the northwest side of the property. Is this correct? Is this a flowing stream, or is it normally dry?"

Here is what Mr. Thomas said on Wednesday, 9/6/2006:

"The discharge will be into the feeder creek. The creek flows year round and actually has a very good existing flow."

The two public notices in The Enterprise also are clear, and, according to the County, these are the only two such notices that were published. One appeared on February 9, 2006, and the other on February 23, 2006. Neither of them makes any reference to Barber Creek or any stream.

The public simply was simply to provide input on the proposed upgrade to the Rock Branch Land Application System. The upgrade, according to the ads, "will allow for treatment of 1.0 million gallons per day (MGD) of wastewater to reuse quality standards." What will be done with the wastewater is not specified.

The fecal coliform standard is more complicated. On page 2 of the Fact Sheet attached to the draft permit handed out at the meeting, Water Quality Standards are listed. For the Months of May through October, fecal coliform is not to exceed an average of 200 fecal coliform units per 100 ml of water. For the months of November through April, fecal coliform cannot exceed 1,000 fecal coliform units per 100 ml.

The standard allows for some deviations for the 200 fecal coliform unit limit during the summer, "when contact recreation activities are expected to occur," but the standard says the deviation would have to be from non-human sources.

At the December 12 meeting, Oconee County officials presented a chart at the rear of the room showing that its samples from Barber Creek showed an average fecal coliform units of 219. No detail on the sampling dates or procedures was provided.

The County also presented this chart at the March 14 hearing. At that meeting, according to the official transcript, Mr. Thomas said some fecal coliform readings from Barber Creek have been as high as 512. The source for the data in the chart was the Watershed Protection Plan–Barber Creek and Calls Creek Watersheds, September 2005. The document was prepared by consulting firm Jordan Jones and Goulding (JJG).

Getting access to County data on the quality of water in Barber Creek has not been easy. On August of this year, I asked Mr. Thomas for data on Barber Creek in an email message. He responded the next day saying the County did not have sampling data from Barber Creek.

I filed an open records request with the County on December 19, 2006, asking for access to The Watershed Protection Plan–Barber Creek and Calls Creek Watersheds, prepared in September of 2005 for the County by JJG and for "any other documents or reports in possession of the County or its consultants containing information about the quality of water in Barber Creek or Calls Creek that have been produced since 2000."

On December 28, 2006, I reviewed the 2005 Watershed Protection Plan of JJG as well as a second report, also produced by JJG, called Final Report, February 2004, Watershed Assessment and Protection Plan Calls Creek and Barber Creek Watersheds.

Both documents contain tabled data showing fecal coliform counts for three sites on Barber Creek, all in Oconee County. According to both tables, the data come from May to November of 2000. The tables do not agree, however, and the 219 figure appears only in the 2005 report. The 219 figure is labeled as for the May to November period for one of the sites, with a reading of 572 for the "dry" months and 101 for the "wet" months. Another of the sites produced a reading of 337 for the May to November period.

The tables also contain data for Calls Creek, where the County currently operates a treatment plant. One of the readings for Calls Creek was 1,020!

In our filing with the EPD after the hearing, we also indicated that data gathered on May 1, 2002, by The Watershed Group at the University of Georgia as part of a City of Statham watershed assessment show three samples drawn from three different sites on Barber Creek in Barrow County with fecal coliform readings in excess of 500. Two of those samples were in excess of 1000.

We also argued that EPD has erred in not examining the condition of Barber Creek and the unnamed tributary to Barber Creek before issuing a Waste Load Allocation. Since Oconee County officials repeatedly have asserted that Barber Creek already is polluted, we wrote, it was inappropriate for the EPD to issue a Waste Load Allocation based solely on inferences about the quality of the water in the Creek from a theoretical model.

The Waste Load Allocation is the EPD's determination that a stream is capable of receiving polluted water.

In addition, we said, we fell the EPD has erred in not incorporating into the assessment of the application the adverse effects of the increase in volume of water in Barber Creek because of the Rocky Branch waste treatment plant. Barber Creek frequently floods, we noted, and any increase in water at flood stage will adversely affect the property of citizens downstream from the plant and increase the possibility of loss of life and injury.

Why the Banner-Herald and Enterprise stories ignored the specifics of the Friends of Barber Creek challenge to the County is an interesting question. The Oconee Leader has consistently provided the best coverage of this topic, though it, too, ignored the fecal coliform part of the challenge.

What we are saying is pretty simple. We think the County should have to tell people where the sewage water is going to be discharged in the public notice for a hearing on the topic. We think the application should correctly identify the stream, and we think the permit should as well. And we do not think a permit should be issued if Barber Creek already violates the state standard for water quality. We think water volume should be considered in making a decision.

The EPD will have to respond to the Friends filing, probably in January or February.

In the meantime, please refer anyone interested in the issues we raised to this posting and the Friends web site. It is pretty clear that we cannot depend on at least two of the newspapers to tell the story.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Written 12/10/2006

To Fix Barber Creek, Add Some Treated Sewage Water

Barber Creek is so dirty that even treated sewage water cannot hurt it, Oconee County officials have been saying for the last two years.

In fact, according to those officials, a little treated sewage water would do the Creek some good.

The story, as it turns out, is more complicated than that.

Little is known about the quality of water in Barber Creek, largely because the Georgia Environmental Protection Division does not take into consideration the actual quality of the water in a stream in making its decision about the ability of the stream to handle sewage plant discharge!

In fact, the state of Georgia has not studied Barber Creek and has only general notions about how clean or dirty Barber Creek is where Oconee County plans to discharge 1.0 million gallons per day of sewage water from its Rocky Branch plant.

The state made its decision about waste load allocations–the preliminary and controlling decision in drafting a permit to discharge into Barber Creek–without even gathering data on the quality of water in the stream or requiring Oconee County to submit data of that sort.

The EPD used maps and descriptive data on the Creek’s size and volume of flow to estimate, based on theoretical models, how much dirty water the Creek can handle.

Then the EPD told Oconee County that Barber Creek could handle more pollutants–based on those theoretical models, not on a knowledge of how dirty or clean the Creek actually was.

The EPD informed Oconee County it had to design a plant that would produce discharge that would not exceed set standards for 10 characteristics: flow, biochemical oxygen demand, ammonia, dissolved oxygen, total suspended solids, total residual chlorine, fecal coliform bacteria, pH, total phosphorus, and turbidity.

Oconee County has designed its planned expanded sewage treatment plant on Rocky Branch road with these requirements in mind, and the EPD has issued a draft permit for the County.

Citizens will get a chance to ask questions about that draft permit in a meeting scheduled by the EPD for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, December 12, 2006, at the Oconee County Civic Center on Hog Mountain road.

Citizens can ask what the state really knows about the quality of water in Barber Creek and why it believes it can handle reuse quality water–also called grey water–from a sewage plant.

Citizens also can ask the state to begin taking action to actually clean up the Creek if the Creek is as dirty as Oconee County officials say it is.

Paul Lamarre, an expert on the modeling the EPD uses to make the decisions about sewage plant discharges, was kind enough to explain the process to me in detail in two different telephone conversations I had with him the week of November 27, 2006. He also referred me to documents on the models used to make the allocation.

The modeling process, he emphasized, involved "no raw data" based on samples of water taken from Barber Creek.

Mr. Lamarre said he expects to attend the hearing the EPD has scheduled for December 12.

Even if Barber Creek is as dirty as County officials claim, part of the logic of the argument that a little more dirty water will do it some good is wrong, according to the information Mr. Lamarre gave to me.

A big focus in the waste load allocation decision, he said, is the theoretical amount of dissolved oxygen in a stream. Dissolved oxygen, up to a point, is good, since the bacteria in a stream that break down biodegradable materials that enter the stream require oxygen to do their work.

Water coming out of a sewage plant usually is high in dissolved oxygen, since part of the treatment process involves stirring the water. Oxygen is dissolved in the water through contact with the air.

The amount of oxygen in a stream also is affected by temperature, and a slow-moving stream low in volume in warm weather would benefit from the addition of water high in oxygen. But a colder stream, which holds more oxygen naturally, with a higher volume isn’t as likely to gain as much from the addition of water high in dissolved oxygen.

Yet Oconee County officials have been clear in saying they plan to discharge into Barber Creek from the Rocky Branch plant when they cannot sell the reuse water for irrigation. They won’t put the water in the Creek when it might do some good, in other words, but only when the Creek isn’t like to benefit much from the additional dissolved oxygen.

The other contaminants that are in sewage water–such as fecal coliform and ammonia–will only add to the amount of contaminants in the stream. Because of the increased volume, these contaminants will be diluted.

The County actually began the process that will come to a head with a decision on a discharge permit in September of 2004 when it asked the EPD for a Waste Load Allocation for Barber Creek. It was granted the allocation in August of 2005. Since that time, it has gone forward with the permitting process, filling out forms and submitting information about the plant.

The County, however, has not provided the state with data on the quality of water in Barber Creek in applying for the Waste Load Allocation or in any of the documents released to the public prior to a March 14 hearing.

The assertion that Barber Creek is currently so dirty comes from sampling data included in separate report produced by consulting firm Jordan Jones and Goulding in September of 2005.

At the hearing the County held on March 14, 2006, officials made reference to the data from those samplings and the characteristics of effluent from the County’s only other sewage treatment plant, now operating on Calls Creek. The Rocky Branch plant will be similar to the Calls Creek plant in design.

The charts showed that Total Suspended Solids and Fecal Coliform levels were higher in Barber Creek than in the effluent from the Calls Creek plant.

Chris Thomas, assistant director of the Oconee County Utility Department, acknowledged that there is a lot of variation in samplings from Barber Creek. "It’s your discretion as to whether your children play in the Creek," he said. "I was born and raised in Oconee County. I played in creeks my whole life. Getting in them now, I kind of think twice about it because I see samples like that."

Wayne Provost, long-time County official and planner, told those at the hearing that the new treatment plant would allow the County to put water back into Barber Creek that "would be a better quality of water than what’s in Barber Creek upstream from the facility."

Jimmy Parker, senior project manager at Precision Planning Inc., another consulting firm aiding the County, pointed to a jar of water from Barber Creek and a jar of water from the treatment plant. "I mean, it’s crystal clear," he said of the latter.

Even if it is true that Barber Creek is now polluted–and it would be a surprise if it were not given that it now flows through so much urban sprawl in the County--the addition of "crystal clear" water won’t help the kids playing in the Creek unless the County changes its plans.
Kids don’t play in the Creek when the water is cold, but that is when the County plans to discharge its treated effluent.

When the Creek is low and hot and flowing slowly, the "crystal clear" water is going to be used on spray fields and for irrigation of lawns and recreation facilities.

It is just another part of the confusing story surrounding the County’s plans for sewage treatment and discharge into Barber Creek.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Written 12/09/2006

Conflicting Statements about Demand for "Reuse Quality" Water

At the same time that Oconee County officials were telling citizens the County rarely will discharge treated sewage water from the County's Rocky Branch plant into Barber Creek because the County expects such strong demand for reuse water from customers in the County, they were telling state officials just the opposite.

In filing the application for the permit to begin discharging treated sewage water into Barber Creek, Oconee County rejected a "No Discharge Alternative," saying it could not rely on the demand for the discharge water and needed to be allowed to put the water into the Creek.

The County even expressed doubt that customers ever would be willing to accept reuse quality water.

I’ve filed two open records requests and asked specifically for evidence of contracts the County had signed or even discussed with reuse customers. I was provided no evidence any such contracts even record of discussion exist.

Despite this, Gary Dodd, Oconee County Utility Department director, and Chris Thomas, assistant director, have continued to reassure residents who live along Barber Creek that the County will only infrequently discharge treated sewage water from its Rocky Branch plant into Barber Creek.

In an article in the September 7 issue of The Oconee Leader, Mr. Thomas is quoted as saying:

"There’s a chance we would discharge some into the creek, but not on any regular basis, and it would be a slow release over a 24-hour period," Thomas is quoted as saying. "We’re not going to open up a gate and let 1 million gallons" into the Creek.

The draft permit, however, would allow the County to discharge exactly that amount–1 million gallons of water per day, into Barber Creek. The County could release that amount every day once the plant is in operation. The County also has discussed expanding the plant to 4 MGD of discharge at some point in the future.

County officials have acknowledged they will be most likely to discharge into the creek in periods of heavy rains, when there will be little demand for reuse quality water and when the County’s spray fields will be unable to handle discharge. Of course, that is when the creek will be high and prone to flooding, and extra water from the sewage plant will only increase the water volume.

The EPD has refused to consider the issue of water volume in drafting the permit for Oconee County for its Rocky Branch plant. That permit is still under review and will be the subject of a public hearing at 7 p.m. on December 12 in the Oconee County Civic Center on Hog Mountain road.

At a March 14, 2006, hearing on the expansion of the Rocky Branch plant, the County estimated that 1 MGD of discharge would amount to less than an inch of increase in the height of water flowing down the creek–in a dry period. The increase in height would be less when the creek is flooding, the officials said, since the water would already be outside its banks!

The County officials seemed to think that was reassuring, but adding any water to a flooded creek only increases flooding.

In December of 2005, as part of the application for the permit to discharge into Barber Creek, Oconee County completed an Antidegradtion Review. Such a review is designed to show what is being done to prevent degradation of state waters.

In seeking to expand the Rocky Branch plant, one option is termed No Discharge, meaning that no water from the treatment plant would be discharged into any state water. Oconee County rejected this option, stating that the county has "just recently" begun putting into place a system of distribution of nonpotable reuse water.

"It will probably be a number of years before there is enough infrastructure and customers to use a substantial quantity of reuse water produced at the proposed facility," according to the Antidegradation Review produced for Rocky Branch.

Even when the reuse market exists, according to the report, "it is foreseen that some of these applications (e.g. turf irrigation) will experience short-term drops in demand due to rain and other weather conditions." For this reason, the County said, it needs a discharge permit.

Oconee County officials have talked frequently about large-scale users, such as golf courses and parks, of its reuse quality water. But in the Antidegradation Review, the County says these are not likely to develop:

"(I)t is questionable whether or not potential large-scale users would be willing to accept a water supply at reuse standards vs. drinking water standards. In addition, the pattern of land use projected for Oconee County through 2015 and 2025 preclude the development of such water users...(I)t is clear that development in Oconee County, and the resulting increase in wastewater flows to Rocky Branch WRF (Water Reclamation Facility), will come before substantial demands for reuse water are realized. Therefore, urban reuse is not considered to be an acceptable NDA (No Discharge Alternative) for this project."

Oconee County specified in another document it produced for the application process, Rocky Branch WRF Environmental Information Document, that it proposed to treat sewage at the Rocky Branch plant to "water reuse standards as outlined in EPD’s Guidelines for Water Reclamation for Urban Water Reuse."

That document is in the Library (5/3/06 entry) of the Friends of Barber Creek web site, http://www.barbercreek.org./ The document discusses possible use of reuse quality water and specifically recommends against any use that brings the water in contact with the skin. The document, on page 13, gives the following guideline for use of the water:

"The customer shall not allow reclaimed water to be used for consumption (human or animal), interconnecting with another water source, sprinkling of edible crops (gardens), body contact recreation, filling of swimming pools, or sharing a common reclaimed service between properties."

Oconee County passed an ordinance in March of 2005 stipulating that reuse water should NOT be used for the following: "drinking, food preparation, hand washing, automobile washing, or irrigation of fruits and vegetables."

Despite this classification, Utility Department Director Dodd was quoted in The Oconee Enterprise on September 21, 2006 as saying:

"You wouldn’t want to drink it (the water from the proposed Rocky Branch plant) because of the implications, but we are planning dual water lines in new subdivisions that want them, ‘grey’ water suitable for lawns, washing cars and dogs and such benign uses."

This is another example of conflicting statements from government officials about Rocky Branch sewage treatment plant, or, as the County prefers, Water Reclamation Facility.

In an open records request I filed with Mr. Dodd on February 24, 2006, I stated:

"Pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Law (O.C.G.A § 50-18-70 et seq.) (the "Law"), you are hereby requested to make available for review and copying all files, records and other documents in your possessions that refer, reflect or relate to reuse of water from the Rocky Branch Waste Treatment Facility or any other waste treatment facility in Oconee County."

Mr. Dodd provided no evidence that any company or organization has actually discussed using water from the treatment plant.

I filed the following request on August 11, 2006:

"Pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Law (O.C.G.A § 50-18-70 et seq.) (the "Law"), you are hereby requested to make available for review and copying all files, records and other documents in your possessions that refer, reflect or relate to the County’s request for a permit to discharge wastewater from the Rocky Branch Waste Treatment Plant into Barber Creek and that were produced after February 24, 2006."

It also did not produce any written evidence of any discussion with any potential user of water from the Rocky Branch plant.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Written 12/04/06

A Note on Breaching Dams and Draining Ponds

Just before Thanksgiving I posted a report about a request for a stream buffer variance pending before the state Environmental Protection Division. I indicated at the time that the action being proposed might actually help the creek, but I noted that the public notice made it impossible for citizens to even guess about the nature of the project.

When I wrote that note I had not yet reviewed the site plans in the Oconee County Planning Office. I now have, and the plans reveal the challenges facing us as we try to get stormwater runoff under control in the county. Earlier this year we were able to get the county to pass a tougher stormwater ordinance than developers wanted. Now comes the tricky part: enforcement. This buffer variance request illustrates why.

On June 15, 2006, Steve Hansford, senior code enforcement director for Oconee County, wrote to S&ME Inc., an engineering and environmental services company based in Spartanburg, S.C., in reference to Club Estates subdivision, being developed on Barber Creek road near the intersection with SR53 (Hog Mountain road).

According to Hansford’s letter, the property contained "two lakes which are spring fed and with no outlet structures" other than spillways. Hansford further wrote:

"Based on the fact that the lakes are spring fed and water leaves this property at certain times of the year, and the pond has a defined channel with wrested vegetation in some areas, it is the decision of the Local Issuing Authority that these lakes are considered state waters and therefor must be protected by a 25 ft. buffer." Oconee County is the Local Issuing Authority he was referencing.

The very next day, on June 16, 2006, Julie Mitchell Smoak of S&ME submitted an Application for a 25 Foot Vegetative Buffer Encroachment to the EPD on behalf of A. Fortner Construction Inc. of Loganville.

According to a letter submitted by Ms. Smoak with the application, the two dams on the streams "have large woody vegetation that can undermine the dam integrity." The letter further states: "The dams associated with these ponds have been destabilized and damaged due to age and are in need of repair."

The solution, according to Ms. Smoak, was installation of "outlet structures in both ponds." These structures, a "forebay system," would not allow the ponds to "function in water treatment" but would allow the ponds to hold stormwater. The plan, the letter said, is for the ponds to "function as stormwater detention, as well as amenities" for the subdivision.

"In order to install these outlet structures in the ponds, small portions of the State Water 25-foot buffers...may be disturbed," Ms. Smoak wrote.

The letter indicated that there was an alternative to this action. The developer could install detention ponds "adjacent to the existing ponds." But this would "decrease the developable land within the property, thereby decreasing the number of proposed lots."

In sum, the developer wanted to use the existing ponds for stormwater detention rather than build separate facilities for that purpose in order to generate more money.

The letter does not explain whether the existing ponds could handle the additional water from stormwater without the construction of the "forebay system." Nor does it explain what impact stormwater runoff might have on the quality of the water in the ponds.

On October 26, 2006, Peggy Chambers, environmental specialist with the EPD, wrote to Fortner Construction indicating that it was required to publish a "legal notice in the local newspaper" that contained a "description of the proposed buffer encroachment" as well as the location of the project, where citizens can view site plans, and to whom citizens can send written comments.

The letter was copied to Melvin Davis, chairman of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, and Ms. Melissa Henderson, then head of Oconee County Code Enforcement. Ms. Henderson has since left that post, and Mr. Hansford is in charge of the office.

Here is the Public Notice exactly as it appeared in the November 9 issue of The Oconee Enterprise:

The proposed Barber Creek Road project involves the installation of outlet structures in two ponds. Proposed impacts to the 25-foot buffers associated with these dams include 2,807 square feet (64.32 linear feet) and 1,535 square feet (32.33 linear feet) of the 25-foot buffers adjacent to the open waters. The property is located northeast of the intersection of Barber Creek Road and State Road 53. The public can review site plans at the Oconee County Planning Department, located in Watkinsville, GA. Written comments should be submitted to the Program Manager, NonPoint Source Program, Erosion and Sedimentation Control Unit, 4220 International Parkway, Suite 101, Atlanta, GA 30354.

On November 8, 2006--one day before the public notice appeared in the Enterprise--Bill Noel, senior ecologist at S&ME, wrote to Justin Greer of Beall & Company in Bogart "summarizing the jurisdictional water services that have been performed" by S&ME regarding the Barber Creek road property.

According to that letter, Ms. Smoak and two colleagues of S&ME "carried out a jurisdictional waters determination" on the property on May 25, 2006, that is, about three weeks before Mr. Hansford wrote his letter.

According to the letter, however, at some latter date "subsequent observations were made on the property after both pond dams had been breeched (spelled incorrectly in letter) so that the jurisdictional waters determination could be refined..."

In a letter of November 17, 2006, also to Beall & Company, S&ME sought to "elucidate for you permitting and regulatory guidance for the proposed activities on the Club Estate development." The letter reported that the site had been "observed for the presence of ACE jurisdictional areas" at some unspecified time. ACE stands for Army Corps of Engineers.

According to the November 17 letter, "Two farm ponds were observed onsite. Both pond dams had been breeched (misspelled in original) and drained." The letter states that "jurisdictional wetland areas" were observed near both ponds.

For the record, a "breach" is a gap made in a wall or line of defense, and to "breach" is to make such a gap. "Breech" is either the buttocks or the rear part of a gun. There is no verb, "to breech."

OK. So the misuse of breech isn’t the issue.

I obtained the November 8 and November 17 letters from Krista Gridley, planner at the Oconee County Planning Office. She also showed me a series of maps, many of which show the ponds and a series of lines around them. She said other details would have to come from Code Enforcement.

I have decided to hold off visiting Code Enforcement. Instead I wrote to the EPD and asked it to require Fortner Construction to publish a second Public Notice–one that explains in simple English what it is proposing to do.

I’ve also asked the EPD to explain how it is possible that the two ponds in questions have been breached (I used that word) and drained in advance of issuance of a permit for encroachment on the buffer.

If one needs an encroachment variance permit to install a "forebay" system, it seems to make sense one would need an encroachment variance permit to breach a dam and drain the pond. But I’m no engineer. And I’m not an employee of the EPD.

If you are curious about these things as well, you might write and ask the EPD for clarification. I’ll let you know what I learn if you let me know what you learn.

I don’t think we have to ask where the water went from the ponds when they were drained. It isn’t called Barber Creek road by coincidence.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Written 11/20/06

Public Notices Hard to Decode

The November 9, 2006, issue of The Oconee Enterprise contains a Public Notice about a request for a permit for a stream buffer variance on protected state waters that feed into Barber Creek.

It is unlikely that anyone who saw the notice would have understood that this was the issue. The Public Notice does not use the words "variance" or give a clear indication that what is being proposed is an encroachment of the buffer the state has set up to protect state waters.

Because the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest in Atlanta gets all notices of stream buffer variance requests, recognized that it involved Barber Creek, and knew of the existence of Friends of Barber Creek, Center staff informed me of the request. Through the efforts of the Center, I have obtained the actual variance request.

From what I can tell, this is a very minor matter that actually can help Barber Creek, rather than harm it. Georgia Club Estates, an 81-acre residential development project located on Barber Creek Road in Oconee County, wants to modify dams on two farm ponds on the property. At present, the ponds have spillways but no other drainage systems. Because the ponds are spring-fed, they have been designated state waters. To modify the dams, the developer will have to enter the existing 25-foot buffer around these waters. Thus, the developer needs a buffer variance permit.

The construction could help Barber Creek because the dams are old and this construction could improve them and decrease the chances of erosion.

The problem is that everyone who might be affected should have a chance to know what is being proposed and its consequences. That means all of us concerned about Barber Creek.

Fortner Construction Inc. of Loganville, which submitted the application, was told it had to post a legal notice that provided "A description of the proposed buffer encroachment." Here is what the public notice said:

Public Notice

The proposed Barber Creek Road project involves the installation of outlet structures in two ponds. Proposed impacts to the 25-foot buffers associated with these dams include 2,807 square feet (64.32 linear feet) and 1,535 square feet (32.33 linear feet) of the 25-foot buffers adjacent to the open waters. The property is located northeast of the intersection of Barber Creek Road and State Road 53.

If you can get any sense of what is being proposed by that description, you are way ahead of me.

I will write to the EPD and ask that they require another legal notice. If you know of others who needs to know about this request for a buffer variance, please let them know.

This is not the first time we have seen this problem of public notices that don't give needed information. Oconee County ran two public notices about the March 14, 2006, public hearing on its request to get a permit to begin discharging treated sewage water into Barber Creek. Neither one mentioned Barber Creek!

I have notified the EPD of this problem and will do so again at the public hearing we have been granted before the EPD at 7 p.m. on December 12. That meeting will be at the Oconee County Civic Center on Hog Mountain Road. Please plan to attend.

If you are someone who did not know that the County planned to dump treated sewage water into Barber Creek until after that March 14 hearing, please speak up at that hearing. If you know others in that position, please have them attend and speak up as well.

We're lining up speakers for that hearing, so please let me know if you can speak to this point or others regarding the Oconee County permit request.

If you are willing to write to the EPD to reinforce my point that the notice about the buffer variance request by Fortner Construction is not adequate to inform the public about the issue at hand, please let me know and I'll provide you with the details on how to write.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Written 11/14/06

Oconee Sewage Plants Sometimes Fail

Oconee County has had at least five malfunctions or other problems with its two sewage treatment plants since February of 2003 that were serious enough to require notification of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD).

In one case, involving the Calls Creek plant in Watkinsville, the problem caused die offs in the creek and strong chemical odors. In another case, at the county’s only other sewage treatment plant, on Rocky Branch road, standing sewage was removed from a ditch leading to a creek that feeds to Barber Creek, but 200-300 gallons of sewage may have entered the creek before the sewage was removed from the ditch.

Evidence of these problems comes for an examination of the notices the county files with the EPD as required by law when it has a problem with operation of its plants. The EPD granted me access to those records after I filed an open records request.

For the most part, the five problems resulted from routine failures at plants that process sewage. The amount of contamination was relatively small. The cases illustrate, nonetheless, a simple point. Sewage treatment plants sometimes fail.

Vickie Yarbrough, environmental specialist with the EPD working out of its Northeast District Office in Athens, said she has found Oconee County to be "highly compliant" with EPD regulations. She has responsibility for monitoring the records provided to her by Oconee County as required by its EPD permits.

Oconee County has asked for a permit to expand its Rocky Branch plant from 0.4 million gallons per day (MGD) to 1.0 MGD. At present, the County does not have a permit to discharge water from Rocky Branch into any stream. The treated water is sprayed on hay fields at the facility.

The County wants to discontinue operation of its current system, called a Land Application System (LAS), and begin treating wastewater via a membrane filter system. The treated wastewater will be sprayed on the fields, sold to reuse customers, or discharged into Barber Creek. The permit being sought would allow the county to discharge the full amount into Barber Creek at any time. The County is most likely to actually discharge the full amount to Barber Creek in periods of heavy rain, when the spray fields will be saturated and when reuse customers don’t want any more water. Barber Creek at that time also is likely to be running full of water.

The draft permit spells out what the county must do if there is a malfunction at the plant. In essence, the County has to inform the EPD of the problem and indicate how it is going to fix it. The five reports filed by the County since 2003 illustrate the procedures.

According to one of those reports, the EPD met on March 11, 2004, with representatives of Watkinsville’s Ameripride Uniform Services to discuss evidence of elevated metals concentrations in the wastewater discharge from the Calls Creek plant. The details were in a letter of April 29, 2004, in the EPD files. Calls Creek in Watkinsville treats the discharges from Ameripride.

During February, June and November of 2003, according to the letter, the Calls Creek plant violated its discharge permit by causing "biological die offs" and producing "strong chemical odors."

On January 23, 2004, the Oconee County Utility Department sampled the Ameripride discharge, according to the letter, and test results indicated elevated levels of copper, lead and zinc.

The letter said Oconee County would receive approval from the EPD for a local pretreatment program to deal with the Ameripride discharge in the future.

The Ameripride case illustrates the added problems of treating waste from industrial sites. That is important because Oconee County earlier this year sought to lure a pharmaceutical manufacturer to the Orkin Tract on SR316 and US78 and has indicated it will continue to seek industrial manufacturers of this sort for the site.

Discharge from the sought-after pharmaceutical plant was to be directed to Rocky Branch for treatment. At present, the County has no plans in place for pretreatment of that waste, Chris Thomas, assistant director of the Utility Department, said in an email message to me this year. In fact, he said, at present the County doesn’t even have standards for treatment of industrial waste and relies on the EPD for such regulations.

The second documented problem with sewage treatment in the County occurred on July 2, 2004, when the County informed the EPD that it had experienced a sewer overflow at the Rocky Branch plant due to a "faulty air relief valve on the corner of Rocky Branch road and Malcolm Bridge road." Sewage entered a drainage ditch leading to a creek crossing under Rocky Branch road. An estimated 200-300 gallons of "sewage may have entered" the creek, according to the letter.

The manufacturer of the valve was asked to help determine the cause of the failure, the letter stated.

On March 9, 2005, the County informed the EPD that a sewer line repair on Calls Creek resulted "in leakage entering state waters." The estimated spill was 50 gallons. The problem was caused by erosion surrounding the concrete piers supporting the pipe.

On July 7, 2005, the County informed the EPD that the collection system for the Rocky Branch LAS "has experienced major infiltration due to the rainfall in excess of five inches" that occurred the night before. Three pump stations were underwater, though one continued to operate. The others were shut down until the water could be drained.

On February 14, 2005, the County reported a sewage spill in a pasture off SR316 near McNutt Creek road because of a blockage in the line. The county had to call in a pumper truck to suck up and remove the spillage. The County sampled waters in nearby Barber Creek above and below the site and found a small increase in colliform below the site.

Oconee County is not the only County planning to discharge wastewater in Barber Creek. Barrow County has received a permit to discharge up to 1.5 MGD of treated wastewater into Barber Creek several miles from where the Rocky Branch plant will make its discharge.

In addition, Oconee County has indicated it may eventually expand the Rocky Branch plant to 4.0 MGD of discharge, though it does not yet have a permit for that purpose. The County also is considering discharging from the Rocky Branch plant into the Apalachee. It has received Waste Load Allocations to discharge up to 2.0 MGD into the Apalachee, but it must obtain a permit before it can actually use the allocations.

The Rocky Branch plant is located on Rocky Branch road near the intersection with Hog Mountain road. The treatment plant is just behind the new high school.

The Calls Creek plant, in Watkinsville behind the Fire Station on SR15 near its intersection with US441, has a permit to discharge 0.67 MGD into Calls Creek.

The County is seeking to upgrade the Rocky Branch plant because it has promised sewage capacity to developers it does not currently have. According to a report by the Utility Department earlier this year, as of February 1, 2006, the county had commitments to treat 60,550 gallons per days of sewage beyond what its current plants can handle.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Written on 11/05/06

Candidate Forum a Success

The Candidate Forum on November 1 at the Oconee County Library was quite successful. More than 60 people showed up. The questions asked were excellent.

District 46 Georgia Senate candidates Bill Cowsert and Jane Kidd and District 113 Georgia House candidate Becky Vaughn spent more than two hours taking questions on topics such as education funding, preservation of the county’s natural resources, immigration, transportation and incentives given to businesses wishing to locate in the county.

After promising to either attend the Forum or send a representative, incumbent District 113 representative Bob Smith did neither. His son read an apology from Mr. Smith and then departed. The statement said Mr. Smith had a commitment to attend a meeting in Savannah.

I had spoken personally with Mr. Smith on October 12 when he failed to respond to my email message of October 9 inviting him and the other three candidates to the forum. Mr. Smith said he had received my email, but he had concerns about the open format. Yet he promised to attend the Forum or send a representative, and he said he hoped to attend in person. His campaign manager, Gabriel Sterling, raised additional questions about the format in a series of email messages in the next two weeks. The day before the Forum, Mr. Sterling relayed a message to me through a colleague that two hours was more than Mr. Smith was willing to commit, but he would attend.

In the apology for not attending read by his son, Mr. Smith said the Savannah meeting was of a legislative committee dealing with technical colleges in the state.

The Forum was organized by citizen groups Citizens for Oconee’s Future, Citizens for South Oconee County, Friends of Barber Creek, Friends of the Apalachee and Oconee Citizens for Responsible Growth. Representatives of these five groups posed the first questions.

I’ve listed the question posed by Karen Kimbaris for Friends of Barber Creek below as well as the full responses of the candidates. Karen’s question dealt with the state Environment Protection Division, which is very important for our work.

I’ve also listed a question by Charlie Baugh of Citizens for Oconee’s Future. Charlie’s question dealt with House Bill 218, which the 2005 General Assembly voted on but did not pass. The Bill, roundly attacked by news media and citizen groups around the state, would have allowed governments, including ours in Oconee County, to make secret developmental deals. This is a particularly important issue for us because of County efforts to lure businesses to Oconee. The Orkin tract at SR316 and US78 has been marketed extensively by the state and the County, including this spring when a pharmaceutical company was courted. Only after the fact did we hear what kinds of promises were made. Included in them was a promise of sewage services. The discharge was targeted for Barber Creek!

I wish I could provide a transcript of all of the questions and responses. That would take much more time than I have. I hope these two questions and answers are helpful.

Please vote on Tuesday. As these two questions indicate, it really will make a difference who is elected to represent us at the General Assembly in Atlanta.

Question by Karen Kimbaris from Friends of Barber Creek: Our group has found it very important to work with the state Environmental Protection Division in our efforts to get the stormwater ordinance passed and also to get hearings on a permit to discharge to wastewater into Barber Creek. What can you do as a representative of our county to assist us in working with the Envirommental Protection Division.

Jane Kidd

Well, we can make sure they are responsive. And if that is a problem then that is something you would call a state Senator or a state Rep about and try to make sure that that is taken care of. I think of lot of it is an education process for the community and for all involved. The rivers are so important that to use any river for that kind of intensive wastewater treatment is a very sensitive issue and I think you need to be assured of the technical assistance to make it work well or you need to look at other options and other locations for the wastewater treatment. It is very expensive and costly enterprise but it usually is handled with bonds and that is an option you have to look at and make sure it is done the way you need it to be. And complain. A lot of people don’t complain enough. I know you all have done it at lot and rightly so. I applaud your group for being as active as you have been and showing up at the meetings. Every T needs to be crossed and ever I dotted before you sign on to a plan that is potentially going to leave a river very dirty and maybe irreparable.

Bill Cowsert

I don’t really think from the state legislature level you can micro manage the EPD. There may be certain rules or regulations or laws that we have to pass that they have to live by. I think part of it is your priorities. That is really reflected as much in funding as anything. I don’t believe the EPD has been adequately funded. If you are sitting there voting on the budget and allocation of the resources, we need to fund the EPD so they can do their job and let those experts do their job. We have some very qualified people there that would like to enforce better than they are able to but they just don’t have the resources to do it. You learn when you sit at these forums. This is the sixth or seventh we have sat at. We have heard a lot of these questions before. But you learn a lot from other people’s answers and from the questions. One thing I picked up on last week is that there are certain impact fees paid by the developers that is dedicated to environment protection but doesn’t necessarily get there in the budget. That is something I would like to see and plan to do in the Senate. Let’s make sure that these funds, like trust funds we set aside, go to the EPD, in the case of your question.

Becky Vaughn

I very much agree with Bill on several things. It bothers me in the state legislature and I’ve seen it happen a lot that we pass these laws about what you can and can’t do and it sounds great. Especially when you go back home and you say I supported this and I supported that. But then they don’t fund the enforcement. So it looks good on the books but if there is nobody there to follow up then it might as well not have been passed. I learned a lot about the problems that the EPD in my work in as head of the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse. As many of you know, methamphetamine has gotten to be a huge issue in this state and obviously impacted a lot of the work I do. But it has become a serious environmental problem. They are being called constantly about cleanup and this kind of stuff. They don’t have the workforce they need to do what you are talking about much less jump into a new area. And we have kind of a history of doing that. In education we said what the schools can do and what the schools can’t do and yet we don’t fund the mechanism to make that happen. There are some dynamite, dedicated people at EPD. I mean just very dedicated to what they do but they cannot get to everything they know is out there and it is very frustrating to them too. I cannot micro manage EPD but I do think one of the roles of your representative and your senator is if you are having trouble getting a response as Jane said you do call them and say this is supposed to happen and I cannot get people to response. It is a time sensitive issue. You cannot file a complaint and they get around to it 18 months later. That goes along with the urgency. If we are going say that this is part of the state and say that these are the rules then you’ve got to fund the enforcement or quit and go home.

Question by Charlie Baugh, Citizens for Oconee’s Future: Last year there was a bill introduced in the House, House Bill 218, that would have allowed secret negotiations for development opportunities at the local level. It would have allowed totally secret negotiations to occur to the point of a deal being made before citizens would have had input. I would like to know how you would vote if that comes up again in the future.

Jane Kidd

I voted against 218...I always side on the need for the public to know especially when it is public money and private citizen’s money being spent. 218 went too far and shielded the information way too long and the deal was actually going to be done before the information was disclosed to the public and that was too far and too closed so I would not vote for it again...

Bill Cowsert

I think we need to reach a consensus as a community, as a state, as to what type of incentives we are willing to give to induce businesses to locate here. That is really what 218 was about when the state is offering incentive packages to industries to try to induce them to locate in the state of Georgia...As a general philosophy I believe in open government...In this particular area there has to be some level of privacy or you are tying your hands behind your back to be able to negotiate at all...We will never win in these competition unless we have some level of secrecy...

Becky Vaughn

I would have voted against that bill. It went absolutely too far in terms of keeping from public disclosure things likes records, agreements, impact assessments, those types of things...There is a fine line there, but when you look at other states, the ones that are willing to take it far down the line and keep things secret are ones that don’t have a lot to attract business and so they are trying to play the game this way in terms of making those types of offers...My standard answer is: masks are for Halloween, they are not for government.

Bob Smith voted for HB 218.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Written 10/23/06

County Eyes Apalachee for Wastewater

Oconee County has received a preliminary allocation from the state of Georgia to discharge up to 2 million gallons per day of treated waste water from the Rocky Branch sewage plant into the Apalachee River.

Such a Waste Load Allocation (WLA) is required before the County can seek permission to discharge into the Apalachee. So far, the County appears not to have followed up on the allocation. It has until June 13, 2007, to do so.

The request for the WLA for the Apalachee is one of at least four such requests the County has made of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) since 2003. The County has made two requests for WLAs for the Middle Oconee River and one for Barber Creek. One of the Middle Oconee requests also included a request for Calls Creek.

The County has used the WLA for Barber Creek by requesting an application to begin discharging 1.0 million gallons per day (MGD) of treated sewage water into the creek. The state EPD has drafted a permit for the County and sought public comment. At least 60 letters have been sent to the state asking for a hearing on that draft permit. No decision has yet been announced on the requests for a hearing.

Oconee County has refused to adopt a Waste Water Treatment Master Plan, though it has received two drafts of plans from its consultants, Jordan Jones & Goulding of Atlanta, and it indicated after the first draft was received that a plan would be adopted. The lack of a plan makes it difficult to understand exactly why the County is seeking WLAs for the Apalachee and other streams.

County officials have given conflicting statements about plans for future sewage treatment in the County.

The WLA given to Oconee County is the first given by the state for direct discharge into the Apalachee. Jeffrey Larson, manager of the Permitting, Compliance and Enforcement Program at EPD, wrote to me on August 18, 2006, saying that two permits for discharge into the Apalachee watershed already have been issued by the EPD, and that "two waste load allocations have been granted for direct discharges to the Apalachee River."

Both of the allocations Mr. Larson is referring would seem to be for Oconee County, as the WLA the County received is actually for two separate discharges, one of 1.0 MGD and the other of 2.0 MGD. The County could use one or the other.

The County wrote to the EPD back in April of 2005 requesting "two separate" planning level waste load allocations (PWLA) "for discharges of 1.0 and 2.0 MGD, respectively, into the Apalachee River."

The letter, written on behalf of the County by Jim Sunta of Precision Planning, Inc, of Lawrenceville (PPI), said that discharge into the Apalachee "may also be feasible as an alternate to Barber Creek." But the letter further said that "the County believes that future development may eventually require an ultimate expansion of the Rocky Branch WRF (Water Reclamation Facility) to 2.0 MGD."

In fact, PPI, in the Antidegradation Review it produced for the County in December of 2005, said that "Preliminary studies have indicated that once the proposed project (expansion of Rocky Branch to 1.0 MGD) is completed, the facilities can be upgraded to produce as much as 4.0 MGD of reuse quality effluent without requiring additional land or encroaching on existing buffer areas."

The discharge into the Apalachee would be "approximately 3,000 feet downstream of its crossing by U.S. Highway 78," according to the April 28 letter to the EPD. The waste water would be pumped from the Rocky Branch plant along Hog Mountain Road much of the way to the Apalachee.

Expansion of the Rocky Branch plant to 4.0 MGD is contrary to the recommendation of Jordan Jones & Goulding (JJG). In the March 2004 Draft Report Wastewater System Master Plan, JJG recommended the following:

* Construction of a new Middle Oconee Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) by 2012 that discharges treated flow to the Middle Oconee River. The initial capacity of the plant would be 2.0 MGD, with an expansion to 4.5 MGD by 2017.

* Expand the existing Calls Creek Water Pollution Control Plan to 1.0 MGD in 2009. When this capacity is exceeded around 2012 and the Middle Oconee WPCP is operating, Calls Creek would be decommissioned.

* Expand the Rocky Branch LAS to 0.9 MGD in 2008. By 2015, flows to Rocky Branch would exceed this capacity. At this time, it should be decommissioned or retained as a source of reclaimed water for secondary use in the surrounding area.

In February 2005, JJG released the Final Report Utility Department Long Range Wastewater Strategies. It recommended the following:

* Construction of a new Middle Oconee Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) by 2012 that discharges treated flow to the Middle Oconee River. The initial capacity of the plant would be 2.0 MGD (million gallons per day), with an expansion to 4.5 MGD by 2017.

* Expand the existing Calls Creek Water Pollution Control Plan to 1.0 MGD in 2009. When this capacity is exceeded around 2012 and the Middle Oconee WPCP is operating, Calls Creek would be decommissioned.

* Expand the Rocky Branch LAS to 1.0 MGD in 2008. Continue operation of this plant through 2025. Possibly decommission the Land Application System LAS portion of the facility when other capacity is available.

In a story in The Oconee Enterprise of Sept. 21, 2006, Gary Dodd, Oconee County Utility Department Director, said:

"One suggestion by our consultants was the phasing out of existing plants like Calls Creek. It was not acceptable because EPD will not allow any additional loading on the Middle Oconee."

Assistant Utility Department Director Chris Thomas, in an e-mail message he sent me on March 24 of this year, said:

"...(W)e will continue to pursue a regional wastewater plant on the Oconee River that will handle the needs of Oconee and Athens."

In that same message, Mr. Thomas acknowledged that the Antidegradation Review prepared by PPI for the County does indicate that the Rocky Branch plant could be expanded to 4.0 MGD of discharge. Mr. Thomas added:

"As far as we are aware it (the Review) does not mention that Barber Creek would be capable of receiving an additional 3 MGD of effluent and we have not requested a waste load allocation for the additional 3 MGD."

In late 2003, just before the JJG draft Master Plan was released, the EPD granted Oconee County WLAs of 0.67 MGD, 1.0 MGD and 2.0 MGD for Calls Creek and 1.0 MGD and 2.0 MGD for the Middle Oconee River. All allocations were valid until December 16, 2004. The Calls Creek plant was upgraded in 2004 and currently has a permit to discharge 0.67 MGD of treated water into Calls Creek.

In July of 2004, Oconee County sought WLAs of 2.0 MGD and 4.5 MGD for the Middle Oconee River. On June 15, 2005, the EPD wrote to the County, rejecting the requests. The letter states:

"Water Quality modeling results show that there is no available assimilative capacity for oxygen demanding constituents in the Middle Oconee and Oconee Rivers downstream of the proposed discharge. The results of the WLA indicate that a WLA cannot be granted to this new facility in the Middle Oconee River at this time."

Both the Middle Oconee River and the Oconee River border Oconee County. David Bullard of the EPD has indicated (in an email message of late September that was forwarded to me) that Oconee County’s second request was denied "because the Athens facilities have been allocated the permittable assimilative capacity in this section of the river."

If the EPD grants the request for a hearing on Oconee County’s request for a permit to begin discharging treated wastewater into Barber Creek, we can ask for an explanation of the on-again off-again WLAs for the Middle Oconee. We also should be able to get an answer on how much more treated sewage water the EPD believes Barber Creek can handle.

Barrow County has been granted a permit to discharge 1.5 MGD of treated wastewater into Barber Creek from a plant it is building in Statham.

The WLA for the Apalachee was granted to Oconee County on June 14, 2006, though this has not been discussed openly. I knew that a request had been made because of an open records request made regarding the Rocky Branch facility late last year.

I asked Chris Thomas of the County Utility Department on September 23, 2006, if the state had responded to the County’s request for a waste load allocation. He indicated three days later he would "look into it" for me. On September 29, he wrote back saying I could get a copy of the state’s response if I came to the Utility Department office to pay for the copying ($0.50). I did so a few days later.

In fact, I should have been given this document in response to an open records request I filed with the County for Mr. Dodd on August 11, 2006. In that letter, I wrote:

"Pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Law (O.C.G.A § 50-18-70 et seq.) (the "Law"), you are hereby requested to make available for review and copying all files, records and other documents in your possessions that refer, reflect or relate to the County’s request for a permit to discharge wastewater from the Rocky Branch Waste Treatment Plant into Barber Creek and that were produced after February 24, 2006."

Clearly the WLA for the Apalachee is related to the request for the Barber Creek permit. The documents even say that. Clearly, County officials are not interested in helping citizens understand all the options being considered.

Let’s hope the EPD grants the request for a hearing.

Sunday, September 24, 2006


Written 9/24/06

Confusion Surrounds County Plans

A resident of a nearby subdivision along Barber Creek relayed to me a comment a neighbor had made to her recently. The comment illustrates how much confusion exists in the community about Oconee County’s plans to expand its Rocky Branch sewage plant and begin dumping treated wastewater into Barber Creek.

My friend said her neighbor argued that the County’s plans actually would be a good thing, because the water from the sewage plant would increase the volume of the stream in the summer when the creek has little water.

In fact, the County says it is unlikely to release water into the Creek during summer or other drought periods. At those times, the County says, it will have lots of customers for its "reuse quality water."

The County will be dumping water into Barber Creek when it cannot sell the water for irrigation. When the creek is full because of heavy rains, the county is going to be most in need of the permit is it seeking from the state Environmental Protection Division (EPD) to discharge treated sewage water into Barber Creek.

In sum, my friend’s neighbor misunderstands one of the prime features of the County’s proposed plans for Barber Creek.

Given the complexity of the issue, the inherent uncertainty about how a nonexistent plant actually will operate, the confusing answers given by some county officials, and the poor coverage given the issue by most of the media, such confusion is not so surprising.

Confusion surrounding the key issue of how sewage plant discharge is monitored illustrates these points. I sent Gary Dodd, director of the Oconee County Utility Department, and his assistant, Chris Thomas, an e-mail message on August 20 of this year asking what monitoring is done at the existing Calls Creek plant, and what monitoring would be done at an expanded Rocky Branch facility. The Rocky Branch facility will use the same design as is used at Calls Creek.

The next day, Mr. Thomas, who generally tries to be helpful, wrote me the following reply:

"Most of the sampling of Calls Creek is voluntary. The EPD does not require us to sample the Creek unless there is a potential problem. We sample the creek to establish base lines and to ensure that our effluent is not having any negative effects on the environment. Also, GA EPD samples creeks that receive effluent periodically. This sampling is unannounced and we seldom hear of the results. If the board (Oconee County Board of Commissioners) approves the upgrade (to the Rocky Branch plant), we will begin sampling Barber Creek in the same manner."

I told Mr. Thomas I’d like to review data the County had on Calls Creek, and he wrote me on August 22 saying he had "contacted the wastewater plant and asked them for any sampling info that they have retained. I will let you know when I get a response."

I’ve never heard any more from Mr. Thomas on the topic.

I have subsequently learned through an open records request that the EPD had 20 samples drawn from Calls Creek in 2004 as part of a state-wide study of water quality. The County’s Calls Creek plant was modified and updated in 1995 and given a permit by the EPD to discharge 0.4 million gallons per day (MGD) of water into Calls Creek. In 2004, the plant’s capacity was expanded to 0.67 MGD.

David Wenner, a water scientist in the Department of Geology at the University of Georgia and an active member of Friends of Barber Creek and of the Upper Oconee Watershed Network (UOWN), took a look at the data for 2004. Here’s David’s response:

"I looked over this data as well as that from UOWN and don't off hand see any real numbers that indicate a problem. The only ones of possible concern are some of the bacteria data. They are high on a couple of dates. Elevated values are often seen following a rain event due to storm water runoff into the creeks ( presume this is the case with these data). This is pretty normal for most streams in the area."

Kathy Methier from the EPD subsequently told me that the County is obligated to do self monitoring and to file a report to the state for each permit it has. So the County must have done this for Calls Creek as well as for the existing Land Application System (LAS) the County operates at Rocky Branch. She said this is called a Discharge Monitoring Report, or DMR.

She said, in addition, the state does independent, unannounced facility monitoring to check on the self monitoring data. This is called a Compliance Sampling Inspection, or CSI. There should be reports for Calls Creek and Rocky Branch as well.

I’ll file an open records request for access to these data shortly.

Such monitoring data are important, because plants do not always operated perfectly. James Holland, Altamaha Riverkeeper, made this observation in response to an e-mail message I sent out about the Rocky Branch plant:

"The state of Georgia is doing a lousy job at maintaining water quality discharges from industrial pipes as well as municipality discharges...Some...examples are the waste water treatment plant for Dublin and Brunswick along with most any small town that uses oxidation ponds to treat sewage."

Another person, who has inside knowledge of the operation of the EPD, said:

"The joke is that almost any kind of sewage treatment plant is permitted, there is little monitoring, there are few penalties for misconduct and in the end,... when spills occur, nobody at the EPD will shut down a plant because effluent will back up if they do that."

A story on the front page of the Metro section of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on September 15, 2006, underscored the point. South Fulton residents complain that a sewage treatment plant in their neighborhood stinks frequently and, in the view of some, is creating a health hazard.

Unfortunately, the newspapers serving Oconee County have not explored issues of plant operation and not done a good job generally of covering the story of the proposed Rocky Branch expansion.

The Banner-Herald mostly has ignored the story. The Oconee Leader ran one very good story in its September 7 issue. The Oconee Enterprise has consistently gotten the story wrong.

The Enterprise front-page story on September 21, 2006, was clearly the worst piece of reporting on the topic. It contained the following quote from Oconee County Utility Department Director Gary Dodd about the quality of the water to be discharged from the plant:

"You wouldn’t want to drink it (the water from the proposed Rocky Branch plant) because of the implications, but we are planning dual water lines in new subdivisions that want them, ‘grey’ water suitable for lawns, washing cars and dogs and such benign uses."

Mr. Dodd and the Enterprise reporter should know quite well that the Oconee County ordinance on use of "reuse quality" water recommends against precisely the kinds of uses he was discussing. That ordinance, passed in March of 2005, stipulates that reuse water should NOT be used for the following: "drinking, food preparation, hand washing, automobile washing, or irrigation of fruits and vegetables." The ordinance, available on the county’s web site, is based on state standards for use of the water.

The state standards on use of "reuse quality" water are available on the EPD website and in the Library (5/3/06 entry) on the Friends of Barber Creek web site, www.barbercreek.org. The state documents specifically recommends against any use that brings the water in contact with the skin. The document, on page 13, gives the following guideline for use of the water:

"The customer shall not allow reclaimed water to be used for consumption (human or animal), interconnecting with another water source, sprinkling of edible crops (gardens), body contact recreation, filling of swimming pools, or sharing a common reclaimed service between properties."

The Enterprise article of September 21 also is in error about the nature of the proposed changes for the sewage plant on Rocky Branch Road. The article says that the current Land Application System (LAS) "will be expanded to treat one millions-per-day of reuse quality water." Actually, the current LAS treatment facility is going to be eliminated, and a new plant will be built, if the County gets its permit.

The County currently has a permit to dispose of 0.4 MGD of water at the existing Rocky Branch facility by spraying it on hayfields on the site. The County will retain its current ability to spray water on the hayfields. When the fields are wet due to heavy rains, however, the water will go into Barber Creek, unless some other customer wants the water. That is unlikely to be the case, of course, since these other customers also will not need irrigation water at that time.

The County has no permit to dump treated sewage water into Barber Creek at present. That, rather than the LAS, is what the permit is all about.

The Enterprise also allowed Mr. Dodd to counter argue the recommendation of the consulting firm it hired, Jordan Jones & Goulding (JJ&G), to develop a Wastewater System Master Plan for Oconee County. JJ&G, an engineering and consulting firm based in Atlanta and with offices around the country, recommended phasing out the Rocky Branch and Calls Creek plants over time in favor of a plant on the larger Middle Oconee River.

According to Mr. Dodd, as quoted in the Enterprise, JJ&G made a mistake in not knowing that the state would not grant a permit for a plant on the Middle Oconee River. Yet the County has continued to use JJ&G, most recently for permitting to draw water from the Oconee River for the planned new reservoir on Barnett Shoals Road. The Enterprise did not point out this inconsistency, or ask Mr. Dodd to explain.

There is good reason to doubt Mr. Dodd’s assertion about the EPD’s unwillingness to grant a permit for the Middle Oconee. In a meeting I had with Mr. Dodd on March 22, he claimed that the EPD would not grant a permit for the Apalachee River. Jeffrey Larson, manager of the Permitting, Compliance and Enforcement Program at EPD, wrote to me on August 18, 2006, saying that EPD "has no policy or strategy for not issuing discharge permits to the Apalachee River."

The Enterprise, which has a history of challenging authority in the County, seems to think its job in this case is to promote the County’s plans for sewage treatment rather than ask questions about them. In this way, the paper’s coverage is very close to that of Ms. Kate McDaniel who runs the web site, A Positive Vision for Oconee County. At least Ms. McDaniel does not claim she is providing objective coverage of the issue.

The issue before the county is complex. The County has promised developers sewage treatment capacity it does not have. The County also has no agreed upon plan for how to develop that capacity. It has refused to hold open discussions on the two drafts of a Wastewater System Master Plan prepared for it by JJ&G.

In other words, the County is flying in the dark. It is hardly surprising that citizens in the County are confused about what is being proposed and its consequences.

On September 16, while walking my dog along Barber Creek behind my house, he and I spotted an otter swimming upstream. It has been several years since I’ve seen otter in the creek, and I was pleased to see one again. River otters eat a variety of fish and shellfish, as well as small land mammals and birds. It suggests to me the creek still has some life in it, despite all the development in the County and the poor protection it has been given from stormwater runoff by the County.

The County’s plans for sewage treatment are a potential threat to that otter. How serious the threat is in difficult to know. What I do know is that the otter cannot ask the County and the state to discuss all the options and be clear about them. So we have to do that.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Written 9/22/06

Barber Creek Permit Request Not Likely the Last

Anyone who thinks the current request by Oconee County for a permit to dump 1 million gallons per day of treated wastewater into Barber Creek from the Rocky Branch sewage plant will be the last should read carefully the lengthy article on sewage treatment in the Sept. 21 issue of The Oconee Enterprise.

Oconee County Utility Department Director Gary Dodd is quoted as saying that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division will not give the county a permit to discharge treated water into the Middle Oconee River. So the current sewage plants, including Rocky Branch, will have to be expanded in the future.

There is good reason to doubt Mr. Dodd’s assertion. In a meeting I had with Mr. Dodd on March 22, he claimed that the EPD would not grant a permit for the Apalachee River. Jeffrey Larson, Manager of the Permitting, Compliance and Enforcement Program at EPD, wrote to many of us on August 18, 2006, that EPD "has no policy or strategy for not issuing discharge permits to the Apalachee River."

The County hired Jordan Jones & Goulding to develop a Wastewater System Master Plan. JJ&G recommended phasing out the Rocky Branch and Calls Creek plants over time in favor of a plant on the larger Middle Oconee River.

Mr. Dodd is quoted in the Enterprise as saying this recommendation is not "acceptable" because JJ&G did not take into consideration that the EPD would not grant any permits for the Middle Oconee.

OK. The Enterprise often gets things wrong. The front page headline is pretty silly: "Oconee has traveled a long path from the outhouse." Even if Dodd is misquoted in places in the article, however, the thrust of what he is quoted as saying is consistent with the County’s reluctance to take seriously the advice of its consultants.

We need a hearing on these issues. We have an extension on the deadline for writing to the EPD. We need to generate more letters so we get the hearing and can learn exactly what the EPD is willing to consider in terms of permits.

The alternative is that Rocky Branch is going to be expanded from its current 0.4 MGD of discharge into a spray field to 4.0 MGD. In January 20, 2006, Mr. Dodd informed the Oconee County Board of Commissioners that the Rocky Branch facility "can be upgraded to produce as much as 4.0 MGD of reuse quality effluent without requiring additional land or encroaching on existing buffer areas."

The likelihood is that Barber Creek is going to be targeted for much more than the 1.0 MGD covered by the current permit.

Please write immediately, and send me a note saying you did so. Write a second time if you can. Or print out the letter below and get a neighbor to sign it. Send it in yourself or fax it if necessary.

Thanks

Lee

DATE

Linda MacGregor, Branch Chief
Water Protection Branch
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Environmental Protection Division
4220 International Parkway, Suite 101
Atlanta, GA 30354

FAX 404 675 6247

Dear Ms. MacGregor:

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is seeking NPDES Permit No. GA0038806 for the Rocky Branch Water Reclamation Facility on Rocky Branch Road. The permit is to provide for a discharge flow of 1.0 million gallons per day of treated wastewater to Barber Creek.

In the September 21, 2006, issue of The Oconee Enterprise, Oconee County Utility Director Gary Dodd is quoted as saying the EPD will not grant Oconee County a permit for the Middle Oconee River, making it necessary to expand its existing Calls Creek and Rocky Branch facilities.

INSERT A LINE HERE ABOUT HOW BARBER CREEK AFFECTS YOU.

The Middle Oconee is much larger than Barber Creek. I ask that you hold a public hearing on the pending request so that I can voice my concerns and so that I can learn how the EPD makes its decisions about which streams can handle sewage treatment plant discharge.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Written 9/13/06

Getting Information on County Plans Difficult

Getting information on the County’s efforts to get a permit to discharge treated wastewater from its Rocky Branch sewage treatment into Barber Creek has proven to be quite a challenge.

Back in March, the County ran two public notices in The Oconee Enterprise about a public hearing on the issue to be held March 14. Both of these notices said three documents related to the request were available for review by the public in the Utility Department office.

The second of these notices ran in the paper on the 23rd, and I went to the Utility Department office the next afternoon and asked to see the documents. The receptionist said she had never heard of these documents, was unaware of the public notices, and had no idea where the documents might be.

A few days later I got a call from Utility Department Director Gary Dodd telling me I could see the documents, but only in his and Chris Thomas’ presence. Mr. Thomas is Mr. Dodd’s assistant.

I went back to the Utility Department office on March 3 to review the documents, which, as they said, I was able to review only in their presence. I did make arrangements to copy those I needed. Some of them, it turned out, I had obtained earlier through an open records request.

On August 11, in anticipation of Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) action on the Oconee County permit request, I filed an open records request in the County asking Mr. Dodd for "all files, records and other documents in your possession that refer, reflect or relate to" the county’s permit application.

I went to the courthouse on August 22 to review the documents and make copies of what was available.

Two key documents were not made available: The County’s application for the permit, which was submitted to the EPD on June 29, and the draft of the permit, which the County received from the EPD on August 14.

I e-mailed Mr. Thomas on August 28 after I had reviewed again all the materials I had received and asked him for the application. He wrote me back the next day saying he did not have a copy. He said it was sent in by the engineers (Precision Planning, Inc., of Lawrenceville), and no copy existed in the Utility Department Office. A day later he said he had an electronic copy and would make it available to me.

On September 5, I visited Mr. Thomas’ office to get the application and asked for a copy of the draft permit as well. He made a copy for me, charging me $.25 per page to make the copies, which is the County’s standard charge. (The County also charges for time employees spend in searching records at $16.02 per hour. I was billed for 6 hours and 45 minutes on August 22.)

Ironically, on September 7 the County ran another legal notice in The Enterprise announcing that the EPD is considering issuance of a permit to begin discharging treated wastewater from Rocky Branch into Barber Creek. The notice said that the permit application, draft permit and other information were available for review either in Atlanta at the EPD or at the Office of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners.

The Georgia EPD has not been very helpful either. On August 28 I wrote to Jeffrey Larson, head of the Permitting, Compliance and Enforcement Program, which is handling the Oconee County permit request, asking for a copy of the draft permit. I still have not received it.

On August 30, I called Mr. Larson’s office and left a message on his voice mail asking for a copy of the Oconee County Permit Application, for data on EPD monitoring of Calls Creek, where Oconee County has its second waste treatment plant, and for the draft permit for the Rocky Branch plant.

Stephanie Heath, Georgia Open Records Act Secretary II at the EPD, called me back later that day and left a message on my voice mail. She said she was calling on behalf of Mr. Larson. When I called her back the next morning, however, she said she would not help me obtain any of the documents I requested unless I came to the EPD offices in Atlanta. She told me she had no idea what a Permit Application even looked like.

I called Mr. Larson back shortly after talking to Ms. Heath and left another message asking him once again to call me. I informed him that Ms. Heath has been less than helpful.

Ms. Heath called me back on September 5 and informed me she would send me a copy of the Oconee County Permit Application but would not provide any additional information unless I came to Atlanta. I received the copy of the application from her a few days later.

On September 7, I filed an open records request with Mr. Larson asking for data on Calls Creek. I have heard nothing from him. By law, he is required to respond within three days of receipt of the request.

I guess my view of these documents is different from the view held by most of the officials. I know I paid for them. I think they are mine. I’m willing to be patient in reviewing them, but I feel I should be aided in doing so.

Mr. Thomas generally has gone out of his way to provide information and to answer questions. But I shouldn’t have had to ask for the Application for the Permit, which was produced in the period covered by my open records request, or for the draft permit, which arrived in the County office before my request was fulfilled.

The County should be putting these key documents on its web site so citizens can access them more easily. If the subcontractors are not providing documents in electronic format, the County should find others who will do so. The same goes for the EPD.

If the County and state officials are not willing to be second-guessed by the citizens who pay their salaries, they should find different jobs. Being second guessed goes with public service.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Written 8/30/06

Records Request Reveals Stormwater Negotiations

An open records request I filed earlier this month produced some interesting insights into the behind-the-scenes negotiations regarding the stormwater ordinance Oconee County passed on August 1.

The documents show that the state Environmental Protection Division scolded Oconee County for wanting to weaken its stormwater ordinance to satisfy developers. The County ignored that advice, however, and weakened the ordinance anyway. The EPD used the same arguments we used against the weakened ordinance. Luckily, our pressure resulted in a much stronger ordinance in the end.

Amy Morrison, stormwater/environmental coordinator for the county, indicated in a letter she wrote to the Land Use and Transportation Committee members on April 7, 2006, that she revised the ordinance originally presented to the public in September of 2005, at "the request of the BOC." BOC stands for Board of Commissioners.

The stormwater ordinance presented in 2005 applied state standards for stormwater management to the whole county; the revisions Ms. Morrison made in early 2006 greatly weakened the ordinance and restricted those standards to the already built out part of the county, labeled as "urbanized" by the EPD.

In a telephone conversation I had with Ms. Morrison on July 10, she said that she had been instructed to weaken the ordinance by her boss, Mike Leonas, the public works director. She said she was told by Mr. Leonas that the change was at the request of Melvin Davis, chairman of the BOC.

At the public hearing in October of 2005, no one asked that the stormwater ordinance be weakened. Ms. Morrison said in our telephone conversation, however, that the development community did not want the original stormwater ordinance because it would force builders to spend more money.

Shortly after I spoke with Ms. Morrison on July 10, I telephoned Mr. Leonas, and he confirmed that he had asked Ms. Morrison to make the changes in the original ordinance. He said Mr. Davis told him in a conversation some time after the public hearing on October 24, 2005, to change the ordinance. Mr. Leonas said he remembered that there had been an email message following the verbal request from Mr. Davis.

The open records request shows that Alan Theriault, administrative officer of the county, who, like Ms. Morrison and Mr. Leonas, works for Mr. Davis, sent an email message to Ms. Morrison on November 15, 2005, instructing her to make the changes in the ordinance. It was copied to Mr. Davis and Mr. Leonas.

In that message, Mr. Theriault said: "(Y)ou will begin the process of combining the 3 separate ordinance into a single document that pertains to the urbanized areas of the County only (italics in original)." Ms. Morrison also was told to proceed with a change in the original Notice of Intent that the county had filed with the EPD regarding the stormwater ordinance.

Lisa Perrett, environmental specialist at EPD, wrote to Mr. Davis on November 28, 2005, stating her displeasure with the change requested by Ms. Morrison. "EPD is greatly concerned with the proposed approach," she wrote.

Ms. Perrett said Oconee County, if it did not apply the state standards countywide, "may be allowing potentially inferior stormwater control measures to be utilized." She pointed out that the definition of the urbanized area of the county was based on the 2000 Census and that "the County has recently been experiencing a tremendous amount of growth." She continued: "(T)he majority of the currently defined urban area is already developed."

In sum, Ms. Perrett made all the same arguments with Mr. Davis that citizens did. Unfortunately, we didn’t know the letter existed until now.

The Perrett letter, in its entirety, is in the "library" on the web site of Friends of Barber Creek, www.barbercreek.org.

Lee
Written 9/4/06

Rocky Branch to Treat Industrial Waste

We still need letters sent to the state Environment Protection Division if we are going to get a public hearing on the County’s request to begin dumping treated wastewater from the Rocky Branch Waste Treatment Plant into Barber Creek.

Here’s another reason to want that hearing: The Rocky Branch Waste Treatment Plant will treat INDUSTRIAL waste as well as residential waste.

In July the pharmaceutical company Novartis announced that it was bypassing Georgia and building its influenza vaccine plant in North Carolina instead.

The Georgia location that Novartis was considering was at Georgia Highway 316 and U.S. Highway 78. The land is referred to as the Orkin Tract. It lies in Oconee and Clarke Counties.

The Rocky Branch Waste Treatment Plant in Oconee County would have treated the waste from Novartis had it located here. The treated water would have gone into Barber Creek. The County has said it will seek other pharmaceuticals for the site.

During the speculation before Novartis announced its decision, I started an email exchange with Chris Thomas in the Oconee County Utility Department about special procedures that would be in place to protect citizens who live along Barber Creek should a vaccine manufacturer locate at the Orkin Tract.

That exchange is posted on the Friends of Barber Creek web site, in the library. The exact URL is http://www.barbercreek.org./barbercreek/library.html. The item was posted on 7/15/06. You can see for yourself what would happen.

Clearly, some safeguards are in place. But they depend on a lot of monitoring, which we need to insist is in place should the EPD grant a permit to Oconee County. Here’s a summary of what Mr. Thomas said.

First, the federal Environmental Protection Agency requires pharmaceuticals to pretreat their waste before discharging into sewer systems.

Second, the County also sets limits on what can be put into its sewage system, Mr. Thomas said.

Third, the plants can "handle higher loadings than their influent flows would normally bring." In other words, the plant should be able to handle the inflow even if it didn’t meet the pretreatment standards.

Finally, Mr. Thomas wrote, "These safeguards along with stringent effluent monitoring and
limits at the wastewater plants insure consistently safe discharges into streams and rivers as required under the rules of NPDES permitting."

NPDES refers to the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, the permit program that requires all those discharging pollutants into waters of the United States to obtain a permit.

Mr. Thomas subsequently explained that Oconee County’s pretreatment limits "mimic" the federal standards, and, in fact, at present the Georgia Environmental Protection Division "regulates all significant industrial users for the County due to our small number of users...Oconee is in the process of implementing it's own pretreatment program, but it will be some time before we complete all of the requirements necessary."

Mr. Thomas also said "I may have been confusing when I referred to the stringent monitoring of the plants effluent. Although all treatment plants are closely monitored to ensure protection of the environment and public health, I was referring to the reuse limits. Reuse limits are more stringent than most plants in the state operate under."

In other words, the plant will be following state standards for production of "reuse" quality water.

How closely this is going to be monitored is something that we all should be concerned about, particularly if the Orkin Tract is developed as planned. The state has made it clear it would love to have another company such as Novartis locate here.

This is the kind of question we can pose at a public hearing on the Oconee County permit request if the EPD grants us a hearing. But we have to write and ask. Here is a draft letter:

DATE

Linda MacGregor, Branch Chief
Water Protection Branch
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Environmental Protection Division
4220 International Parkway, Suite 101Atlanta, GA 30354

Dear Ms. MacGregor:

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is seeking NPDES Permit No. GA0038806 for the Rocky Branch Water Reclamation Facility on Rocky Branch Road. The permit is to provide for a discharge flow of 1.0 million gallons per day of treated wastewater to Barber Creek.

TELL HOW BARBER CREEK AFFECTS YOU AND YOUR PROPERTY.

I am aware that the state and local officials have tried to get a major pharmaceutical manufacturer to locate at the Orkin Tract in the county in the past and have said they will continue to do so. I also know that the Rocky Branch facility would be the treatment plant for effluent from the manufacturer.

I ask that you hold a public hearing on this request so that I can learn about state standards on pretreatment of industrial waste and monitoring procedures that will guarantee the safety of the water flowing into Barber Creek, should you grant a permit to Oconee County.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS

Please let me know when you write. I am keeping a tally.

Thanks

Lee
Written 8/21/06

Rocky Branch Request Up For Review

The Oconee County request to be allowed to dump 1.0 Million Gallons Per Day of treated wastewater from an expanded Rocky Branch Waste Treatment Plant into Barber Creek is now up for review before the state Environment Protection Division.

Please write to the EPD and ask for a hearing. Reference Permit No. GA0038806. Here is the address:

Linda MacGregor, Branch Chief
Water Protection Branch
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Environmental Protection Division
4220 International Parkway, Suite 101Atlanta, GA 30354

Tell the EPD how important the stream is to you. Contrast what you do with the creek with the following advise on use of reuse quality water, which is what will be dumped into the creek if the permit is granted.

Reuse water should not be allowed into dwelling units, should not be used for swimming, should not be used on edible crops, and should not be used to wash a car. Persons should limit body contact with the water.

You also can mention the following:

Experts from the firm of Jordan, Jones & Goulding, in a draft report presented to Oconee County in March of 2004, stated on Page 3-5:

"For Oconee County the surface streams with large enough flows to receive treated discharges are considered to be the Apalachee, Middle Oconee, and Oconee Rivers. The other streams, such as Barber Creek and Calls Creek, are considered to be too small to receive a substantial quantity of treated flow."

Remember, there is an alternative. The JJ&G experts told the county to phase out this plant and to build a new one on the Oconee River. That has never been openly discussed.

Lee

DATE
Linda MacGregor, Branch Chief
Water Protection Branch
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Environmental Protection Division
4220 International Parkway, Suite 101Atlanta, GA 30354

Dear Ms. MacGregor:

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is seeking NPDES Permit No. GA0038806 for the Rocky Branch Water Reclamation Facility on Rocky Branch Road. The permit is to provide for a discharge flow of 1.0 million gallons per day of treated wastewater to Barber Creek.

TELL HOW BARBER CREEK AFFECTS YOU AND YOUR PROPERTY.

I ask that you hold a public hearing on this request so that I can voice my concerns and so that I can learn what steps the EPD and Oconee County are going to take to protect my interests should such a permit be issued.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS