Wilbros Mediation Nearing End – Ruling Expected Soon

By Charlie Bauder, WNEG Radio, Toccoa

In Stephens County, a new court order is expected in the next couple of weeks in the Wilbros civil suit.

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

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

The two sides spent about two hours last week debating before the judge what should be done next now that a State Administrative Law Judge has upheld the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s decision to revoke the composting plant’s waste water discharge and solid waste permits.

Attorneys for Wilbros say they are complying with the EPD’S administrative order pending the appeal, for which Wilbros’ attorneys say they feel their arguments are strong.

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

However, plaintiffs’ attorney Don Stack called on Judge Adamson to force Wilbros to completely cease operations, telling the court quote, “Enough is enough.” End quote

Stack asked Adamson to require Wilbros pay a bond to use to pay for clean-up costs should Wilbros shut down and the clean-up is not done properly.

Judge Adamson agreed and 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.

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.