Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Farmington Agrees To Join County In Lawsuit Against Valley View Sewer System
OTHER PLAINTIFFS ARE PRAIRIE GROVE, RAUSCH COLEMAN, POA
FARMINGTON — Farmington City Council unanimously voted Monday night, at the request of Washington County attorney Steve Zega, to join in a lawsuit against the Valley View sewer system.
Zega addressed council members, giving what he described as a “long, long” history of the Washington County Property Owners Association No. 5. It provides sewer service to residents of Valley View subdivision.
Zega had a copy of the proposed suit that he said he plans to file in Washington County Circuit Court on Tuesday afternoon (March 15) against the Improvement District, Valley View Golf and the District’s three commissioners — Joe Stewart, his wife Jennifer Stewart, and Stewart’s father-in-law John Lipsmeyer. The same three people also own and operate Valley View Golf.
Plaintiffs listed on the proposed suit are Washington County, city of Farmington, city of Prairie Grove, Rausch Coleman and Valley View Estates Subdivision Property Owners Association. Zega said he is still trying to find an attorney for the property owners association.
The Improvement District is a community-base sewer system that goes back before 2004, before the areas were annexed by the city of Farmington and Prairie Grove, Zega said. The plant is in Prairie Grove, but most of the homes served by the Improvement District are in Farmington.
County officials are interested in the system, Zega said, because they believe the wastewater is not being properly treated, flows out, runs out into the county and — at some point — it falls into the Illinois River.
Complaints from people about the wastewater system go back to at least 2012 on the website for Arkansas Department of Environmental Control. Zega said he wanted to give council members a Cliff-Notes version of problems the past two years.
At least 14 complaints are currently listed on the ADEQ website, many having to do with odor but others with much more serious matters, Zega said.
ADEQ inspectors, on numerous occasions, have found evidence of overflow from the system’s four-acre aerator pond, which is used to break up solids through moving oxygen.
The way the system works, in simple terms, is that sewage goes from homes to the aerator pond where solids are broken up through 30 aerator pumps that add oxygen to the wastewater. When the level of the pond reaches a specific level, wastewater goes through an exit pipe into the sewer plant to be treated. From there, the treated water — called gray water — is pumped through pipes to two holding ponds near the golf course. Water from this pond is used to irrigate the golf course.
“It’s my belief it never has worked that way at least in the last five years,” Zega said.
On April 1, 2015, after 10 days of finding sewage overflow at the aerator pond, ADEQ issued an emergency order against the district to cease and desist any overflow and to clean up and mitigate the overflow. ADEQ inspectors also found equipment either cracked or not working.
ADEQ states that Joe Stewart did not comply with all requirements of the emergency order. In July 2015, inspectors found an overflow from a manhole on Giles Road.
In August 2015, ADEQ filed a lawsuit in Washington County Circuit Court seeking $420,000 in civil penalties against the district
and asking the court to compel the district to address problems that had been ongoing since 2012.
Zega said he became involved in January 2014, when he became county attorney. He said he was encouraged to go out to Valley View and see what was going on.
“I did. I saw raw sewage on cart path number 12 and saw it running out of the four-acre (aeration) pond,” Zega said.
He was part of a group of county, state and Prairie Grove officials who met with ADEQ inspectors at the sewer plant on April 8, 2015, to discuss the system. An employee of the golf course told officials that cracked pipes had been repaired and a part on order should be received in two weeks and it would be working at that time. “We let it go,” Zega said. The latest problems on the ADEQ website, Zega said, are that raw sewage and overflows were found outside one of the holding ponds near the golf clubhouse. ADEQ inspectors found dead grass, dead fish and saw evidence that the sprinkler heads for the golf course had been used.
This means that raw sewage was used to water the golf course, Zega said.
Zega said the county has several concerns about the sewer system, but the first concern is public health. He said he is surprised no one has gotten ill from raw sewage on the course.
Other concerns are environmental and business, he said.
On the business side, he noted the commission sets its own rates. Current sewer charge is $40 per household. Considering the number of houses in Valley View, that means the Improvement District is taking in $20,000 per month in revenue.
He gave out examples of customers trying to talk to Joe Stewart about problems, saying he did not return phone calls or was very rude to people. In many cases, customers who have paid on time are being charged late fees, Zega said.
By state law, Washington Water Authority is allowed to shut off water if sewer bills are not paid. Customers are receiving shut-off notices even though they have paid their sewer bills, Zega said.
“People are getting yelled at and cussed at,” he added.
He pointed out the ADEQ permit for the system expired Jan. 31 and has not been renewed.
The system is now an “unpermitted, unlicensed, illegally operating system,” Zega said.
The county’s proposed lawsuit asks the court for a temporary restraining order against the district, temporary and permanent injunctions and the immediate appointment of a receiver to take over the system.
The suit also asks that the commissioner offices be declared vacant and that the contract for the district be declared null and void.
Zega said it is a “violation of oath” that the same three people who own and operate Valley View golf course also are commissioners for the Property Owners Improvement District No. 5. Both the golf course and district entered into a management contract where the golf course would manage the sewer system for an unspecified fee.
The proposed lawsuit states that the three commissioners did not obtain the approval of all the owners of real property in the district before entering into the management contract.
Zega said the management contract is a self-dealing agreement in that it directly or indirectly benefits the three commissioners. The oath of commissioners signed as part of the contract “expressly prohibits self-dealing contracts,” Zega states in the proposed lawsuit.
A receiver should be appointed to take immediate possession of all books and records related to the district with a court-ordered mandate to manage the financial affairs of the district to bring it into full compliance with ADEQ and federal laws, the proposed suit states.
Farmington Mayor Ernie Penn and City Attorney Steven Tennant said they asked Zega to address the council about the lawsuit because they didn’t think they had the authority to join the suit without council approval.
“We would join it as a goodfaith measure for our citizens who live in Valley View,” Penn said in recommending the action.
City Council member Diane Bryant, who lives in Valley View, made the motion to join the lawsuit.
“I would love to make that motion,” Bryant said.
Joe Stewart could not be reached Tuesday morning. In a past interview, Stewart has stated that the overflows are not an emergency or a reason to panic and that overflows have been cleaned up and mitigated.
The Improvement District’s sewer facility is a decentralized system that Stewart describes as a reclamation-and-reuse system. He said it is the only one of its kind in Arkansas and asserts the main problem is ADEQ staff members are not familiar with how the system is designed and is supposed to work.