County gives Mayfield ownership of pre-treatment plant
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
The final details have yet to be worked out, but it appears that the Jackson County Water and Sewerage Authority will turn ownership and management of the Mayfield Dairy industrial waste pre-treatment plant over to Mayfield.
The plant treats raw wastes from the dairy to the point that they can be dumped into the Braselton sewerage system for final treatment.
The agreement in process stems from the Dec. 11, 2005, discharge by Mayfield of 15,000 gallons of “raw milk product” from the dairy into the pre-treatment facility, which discharged it into the Braselton sewer system. The discharge resulted in violations of EPD permits by both the authority and Braselton and, months of discussion and finger-pointing and, finally, a consent order issued by the authority to Mayfield, part of which requires transfer of ownership and operations responsibility.
The plant was originally owned by Jackson County, which built it in 1997 with a Georgia Environmental Facilities Administration (GEFA) loan as part of the package to locate Mayfield. Upon completion, the county transferred ownership to the authority, which has operated the plant ever since under contract with Mayfield – which is paying Jackson County to retire the GEFA loan.
In the aftermath of the spill, relations between the authority and Mayfield became strained enough that at one point the authority threatened to not renew the permit for Mayfield’s pre-treatment facility because Mayfield would not agree to a “consent order” proposed by the authority.
The basis for resolution occurred in an Oct. 3 meeting attended by representatives of and consultants for Mayfield, Dean Foods, which owns Mayfield; the authority, board of commissioners and Braselton.
“The meeting did go well,” explained authority chairman Hunter Bicknell at the authority’s Oct. 12 meeting. “The first hour was kind of a complaint session. There was a lot of antagonism and the air was a little bit thick.”
The group eventually got to the crux of the problem, however, which was ownership and management of the pre-treatment facility.
“Everybody was pretty much in agreement that Mayfield Dairy own and operate the plant,” Bicknell reported.
As far as the authority is concerned, the transfer of ownership is welcome because it removes the authority from the conflict of interest created because it was supposed to regulate the dairy, but at the same time was being paid by Mayfield to operate the plant.
“It is further untenable for the JCWSA to be the legal owners and operators of the facility while at the same time serving as the regulating and enforcement entity under the JCWSA Pre-treatment Program,” declared a memo stating the authority’s position.
The consent order spells out what Mayfiled Dairy must do to come into compliance and sets a $500 per day fine if it does not get into compliance by April 30.
Under the new arrangement, Mayfield will own the plant and Braselton will administer the pre-treatment program.
