By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
The City of Parsons appears to be in the final stretches of its woes with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection over issues with the sewer plant. The City was struck with numerous violations during their annual inspection earlier in the year, but have been working diligently to bring things back to compliance since the violations were discovered. City Administrator Michael Simmons updated the Parsons City Council October 15th on the progress during the Council’s regular meeting.
Simmons discussed the purchase of chemicals for the Water and Sewer plant that was intended as a final step to bring the plant back into compliance. The chemicals, according to Simmons, are intended to bring the water at the plant back to the level the DEP requires within three weeks time. “The chemicals were ordered, which we’ve talked about a couple of times, that could possibly bring us into compliance inside of three weeks,” Simmons said.
With the purchase of the chemicals, Simmons said the City has done everything it can to come to compliance with the DEP. “So we’ve got everything done on the list we can get done possibly that was within our control,” Simmons said.
Simmons said he anticipated the chemicals to be delivered within the week. “The chemicals should be here later this week,” Simmons said.
Simmons said he anticipated that the chemicals would be fully effective by the time the City had their final mediation meeting with the DEP in the coming weeks. Simmons said he is hopeful that the City will have a strong case at mediation and be close to compliant by the time of the meeting. “We are going to dump that in and hopefully in two, two and a half weeks we are going to take another sample and be real close to compliant and when we have our rescheduled mediation meeting with DEP we can present, ‘Hey, these are 8 of the 10 items you penalized us for, they’ve been addressed’. As a matter of fact, our water sample said we’re back in compliance.”
The City has retained an Environmental Attorney in the matter, according to Simmons. “Our Environmental Attorney is working with DEP for us,” Simmons said.