CENTRE — Whenever their attention focused on Weiss Lake, local and state officials spent much of the past few years talking about the best way to begin the gargantuan task of stopping the dumping of sewage into the 30,000-acre reservoir.

While they talked, the problem continued unchecked in hundreds of places around Cherokee County. Make that thousands, potentially.

“We have issued between two thousand and three thousand notices,” said Environmentalist John Davis, Jr., a Calhoun County native who has been working out of the Centre office since November and received his official assignment to Cherokee County last month. “We've probably already had two hundred or more who have already complied and are good for a year.”

Davis said he and his fellow staffers are making their way through a stack of applications and are willing to work with anyone who wants to do the right thing regarding sewage disposal.

The Health Department even extended an olive branch to recreation lot owners last week, announcing a plan to reduce the size of holding tanks from 1,000 gallons to 250 gallons to ease the financial burden for compliance with the new sewage ordinance. (Public comments on the proposed change may be submitted at the Health Department office through 5 p.m. on May 6, 2013.)

Davis was keen to point out that Health Department notices affixed to travel trailers and other structures sitting in unincorporated areas of the county within the Alabama Power flood easement aren't necessarily an indication of a sewage violation.

“I am asking our people not to think, I'm asking them to walk out in the flood easement and if they stub their toe on something that isn't vegetation, put a notice on it and we'll figure it out,” Davis said. “Portable toilets, campers, any type of structure—we're telling people that have to account for everything on their property. If they get a notice we want them to come to us and justify that structure.”

Davis said the process of scouring the county looking for potential violations is far from over. However, the second step on the Health Department's action list is coming this month.

“Now is the time to begin issuing citations and we're hoping to get that started by the end of April,” Davis said. “We've been working with the commissioners, the probate judge, to make sure we don't have a false start. If we can get a few big judgments in our favor early on, we feel like getting the word out in the press about those judgments will go a long way.”

Davis explained that someone found in violation of the sewage ordinance, which carries a fine of $150 per day, could rack up thousands of dollars in fines before being given the chance to appeal to the Cherokee County Commission. Because of that, Davis said it is vital that everyone with an interest in cleaning up Weiss Lake be on the same page when it comes time to stand tall and enforce the new rules.

“We want to feel comfortable with the process, and we want the Commission to be comfortable,” Davis said. “We want to make sure we follow the ordinance, because someone who is hit with a fine of thousands of dollars is going to be upset about it.”

Davis said it seems clear to him by the number of employees on the job that the state's commitment to cleaning up Weiss Lake is genuine.

“We've got three other full-time environmentalists, besides me,” Davis said, “and four or five part-timers helping with the notices. That's more than we had in Calhoun County for 120,000 people. Cherokee County only has about 26,000 people so no one had to tell me there was an emphasis, that something is different about this county.”