April 16, 2012

Commission passes sewage ordinance; enforcement next

By SCOTT WRIGHT

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CENTRE — For all the drama, handwringing and uncertainty that has swirled around its establishment for years, the April 9, 2012 passage of a historic sewage ordinance by the Cherokee County Commission was anything but climactic.

Midway through last week's otherwise uneventful meeting, Commissioner Wade Sprouse read through a resolution that, upon passage by he and the other commissioners, created Alabama's first-ever attempt to enforce sewage rules and regulations that would otherwise wind their way through the state's slow-moving, cash-strapped court system.

After Sprouse finished reading, Commission Chairman Melvyn Salter asked commissioners Sprouse, Kimball Parker, Elbert St. Clair and Carlton Teague for a yes or no.

“Yes.” “Yes.” “Yeah.” “Yes.”

Salter thanked the commissioners for their willingness to pass the ordinance, which has been in the works since at least 2009.

The ordinance underwent several major edits and rewrites along the way to last week's unanimous vote. Commissioners at times expressed concerns about taking over a process they felt the Health Department was better equipped to handle. Supporters of the ordinance feared that if the Commission didn't act, the long-neglected problem of raw sewage being dumped into Weiss Lake would reach a tipping point and destroy the county's primary economic engine.

A crowd of around 40 proponents of the ordinance in attendance at the meeting broke into applause after the historic vote. As the clapping faded, Spouse said he hoped that, with the ordinance passed, people would “get back to saying positive things about our lake.”

But the Alabama Department of Public Health attorney who penned the ordinance said its passage marks the beginning of a long process, not an ending.

“We have already developed a bit of a timeline for the next three months,” Greg Locklier told The Post on Thursday. “If everything goes without a hitch, we're looking at July 9 to begin enforcement.”

Locklier said the 90-day run-up to implementation will include coming to agreement with the County Commission on exactly how the health officers hired and paid by the state will enforce the ordinance; publication of the proposed fees and rules; a chance for the public to comment on those rules; and a public education campaign to increase awareness and share information.

“We're planning a public hearing on May 7 at 10 a.m. at the First Baptist ROC in Centre,” Locklier said. “The final date for comments to be turned in will be May 14.”

On Thursday, Commissioner Kimball Parker said he had already heard from a couple of disgruntled county residents who feel the ordinance does too little to address the sewage issue in Weiss Lake.

He said their irritation comes from a lack of understanding.

“The whole purpose was to try and get the lake cleaned up and the majority of the sewage going into the lake is from campers inside the flood easement, in my opinion,” Parker said. “No one had jurisdiction there, which is why the state Health Department needed us to pass an ordinance to give them some tools to be able to go into those areas and take care of those problems.”

Parker said the laws the Health Department had to rely on before weren't strong enough to have a positive effect on Weiss Lake.

“What was in place before allowed the Health Department to take people to court, where the matter stayed tied up for years,” Parker said. “That wasn't solving anything. This ordinance helps them. We're the first county in Alabama to do this.”

Parker said he understands that there were people who became impatient with the County Commission over what they considered the snail's pace of the process of completing the ordinance. But Parker insisted the protracted deliberations were necessary.

“We wanted to make sure it was done the right way, in a fair way, so we won't have to go back in the future and make a lot of changes,” Parker said. “We've got something in place now to get something started, to get something done, to clean up Weiss Lake. That was our whole purpose and I feel like we accomplished that.”