New Court Order Forthcoming In Wilbros Civil Suit

The two sides in the Wilbros civil suit in Stephens County Superior Court will propose new court orders to present to the judge for a new court order in connection to the case.

Attorneys on both sides appeared before Judge Robert Adamson in a hearing Friday morning in Stephens County Superior Court.

Stephens County and other plaintiffs are suing Wilbros over what the plaintiffs say is a nuisance of odor coming from the Rose Lane facility.

The two sides spent about two hours debating before the judge what he should do next in light of an administrative law judge’s ruling in January upholding the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s administrative order revoking Wilbros’ waste water discharge and solid waste permits.

Attorneys for Wilbros said they are complying with the EPD’s administrative order and working to negotiate with the EPD on issues pertaining to that administrative order pending the appeal, for which Wilbros’ attorneys say they feel their arguments are strong.

Wilbros’ attorneys also said that they have already essentially closed the composting operation and referred to its waste water treatment operation as being on “life support” and simply keeping biological processes going.

However, plaintiffs’ attorney Don Stack called on Judge Adamson to force Wilbros to completely cease operations.

“Enough is enough,” said Stack.

Stack said Wilbros has continued to violate EPD rules and regulations even after the administrative order was upheld and says that in fact, Wilbros, since the administrative order was upheld, should not even be allowed to operate since its permits were revoked.

He said Wilbros cannot be trusted when they say they have stopped operating.

Meanwhile, Judge Adamson said he is concerned in making sure there is an exit strategy that if Wilbros closes, it does so in an orderly manner, expressing concern about what would happen if he did just “slap a padlock” on the door.

Stack asked Judge Adamson to require a bond of Wilbros that would be in place to use to pay for clean-up costs if Wilbros is shut down and the clean-up is not done properly.

Also during the hearing, Adamson spoke about his time monitoring odor from Wilbros over the last year.

He says he was ready to shut Wilbros down a year ago, but did not observe significant odors that would have justified shutting Wilbros down, calling the odors he smelled a “2 or 3” on a 1 to 10 scale.

However, Stack told the judge he was only hear two-tenths of a percent of the last year and was not here to monitor the other 99.8 percent of the time.

“You got a snapshot while the people of Stephens County live in a horror movie,” said Stack.

Stack said he has no faith in the EPD to do its job and asked Judge Adamson to finish this.

However, Adamson said he does not expect Wilbros to win its appeal of the EPD administrative order in Fulton County Superior Court and expects that administrative order to remain in place.

In the meantime, Judge Adamson said he will issue a new order that will include a mandate for Wilbros to close down its composting operation and post a $150,000 bond.

Stack said that the hearing was a step in the right direction.

“It is much slower than the community would want and it is much slower than the community deserves, but we are getting there,” said Stack. “The end is in sight.”

Adamson asked both sides to take a couple of weeks to craft their proposed orders and then he would use those to issue his final order.