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| Setters applies for land application septage permit |
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2/12/2016
By Tom Marshall
Senior Advocate writer
The Montgomery County Health Dept. has confirmed that Brent Setters of Setters Septic Tank Service and Portable Rest Rooms has applied for a permit to land apply septage waste on property located on Turley Road.
Setters had previously applied to have septage lagoons placed on the property. That permit was denied because the lagoons were considered experimental for that purpose.
The project met with considerable opposition from a group of local residents calling themselves Montgomery County Citizens for a Clean Environment.
“Since this is the first land application permit we’ve had in Montgomery County, we’re working closely with the Kentucky Dept. of Public Health to ensure that the documentation and site evaluation are in order,” public health director Jan Chamness told the Advocate.
Land application, she explained, is a process whereby sewage/septage waste mixed with lime is sprayed evenly across a defined area of land.
“We have not conducted the site evaluation, therefore the permit has not yet been granted,” Chamness said. “Land application is not an experimental system and there are many land application sites across the state. This system is not related to the lagoons in any way.”
While the lagoon plan has seemingly been dumped for now, residents in the Turley Road area are still quite upset, said Dena Fawns, leader of the citizens group.
Much of the concern is the same as it was with the lagoons, Fawns said.
She said residents fear leaching of the waste into groundwater through runoff and karsts, or sinkholes, as well as vector control, the method to limit or eradicate the mammals, birds, insects or other arthropods that transmit disease pathogens.
“The land hasn’t changed,” Fawns said.
In wake of the current spread of the mosquito-driven Zika virus, she claims everyone in Montgomery County should be concerned.
Residents are also worried about the smell the waste will produce.
James Davis, a Mt. Sterling attorney representing the citizens group, says state law should prevent officials from granting Setters a permit for the latest project.
He cites state statute 211.981 that says sewage or sewage sludge “shall be disposed of by landspreading at an approved site or in a publicly-owned sewage treatment plant, unless it is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the cabinet that a publicly-owned sewage treatment plant does not exist within a reasonable hauling distance from the site at which the sewage or sewage sludge is received, or the publicly-owned sewage treatment plant refuses to accept the sewage or sewage sludge.”
With a sewage treatment location in central Montgomery County that would demonstrate that such a plant is located within “reasonable hauling distance,” Davis claims and the permit should be denied.
He said he has already pointed out this stipulation in the law to Buddy Wilson with the Montgomery County Health Dept.
Setters did not return a telephone message seeking comment on the latest permit request.
A stink concerning use of the Turley Road property first surfaced last April when the citizens group went to the fiscal court to oppose the development. About 100 people attended the meeting.
The group alleged that Setters planned to take in commercial waste. Residents expressed concern that Setters may ship in animal waste from CTI, an Owingsville meat plant.
The Montgomery County Health Dept. initially granted Setters a permit for the project, but later suspended it after consulting the state.
A state expert subsequently found that the technology being proposed for the project was experimental and would require greater regulation than a typical domestic septage disposal site.
Construction on the project came to halt after suspension of the permit.
The citizens group returned to the fiscal court asking it to consider enacting an ordinance to prohibit these types of lagoons in the county.
County attorney Kevin Cockrell said countywide zoning would be needed to block the lagoons, but it cannot be applied retroactively.
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