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The story behind a fire earlier this month at a waste-processing facility in the Jackson County town of Talmo is about a lot
more than chicken waste-, it reveals a great deal about the changing landscape of Northeast Georgia.
Up In Smoke
Lessons From Talmo
Take Highway 129 north out of Athens, cross
1-85, and in a few minutes you find yourself in
Talmo. The town can't be seen from the highway,
but you can tell it's there thanks to an unavoid
able stink. It smells like rotting carcasses have
been burned, and with good reason: they have.
Beyond the lingering stench is one of the most
pressing conflicts facing the landscape of North
Georgia: with the swift suburbanization of the
countryside, what's the fate of local agriculture?
On Sept. 5, a two-acre wastewater lagoon
at Agri-Cycle in Talmo caught fire, sending up
100-foot flames and a gigantic column of black
smoke. The first emergency responders arriving
on the scene found themselves mostly useless.
Being incinerated was a sludge of grease and
chicken fat—waste products from local poultry
processing plants—that couldn't be attacked
with water. By the next day, firefighters had
finally put out the flames with a chemical foam
solution.
The first reports indicated suspicions of arson.
According to a Sept. 6 article in the Gainesville
Times, a neighbor claimed the fire started soon
after someone on an all-terrain vehicle drove to
the lagoon and then departed. In the same ar
ticle, allegations were made by another neighbor
that Agri-Cycle was getting rid of its evidence.
Talmo residents have been complaining about
the environmental impact of Agri-Cycle since
2005. A subsidiary of Zurix Water in Thomaston,
GA, the company moved into the old Valley Farms
facility to utilize the site's wastewater treatment
capacities along with its transferable wastewa
ter-processing license. In 2004, Agri-Cycle began
to receive organic waste from poultry producers,
treat it in anaerobic lagoons, and then spray
the liquid effluent onto the land for final filtra
tion. Sprayfields are standard procedure in the
poultry industry. Agri-Cycle's innovation was to
turn them into a horticultural enterprise, using
the wastewater to fertilize wholesale landscaping
plants growing on the property.
But on Aug. 21 of this year, the
Environmental Protection Division (EPD) shut the
company down for a host of violations. Among
other things, Agri-Cycle had constructed two
lagoons without state approval, overloaded the
sprayfields, received domestic waste, and con
taminated Allen Creek with fecal coliform bac
teria. (Attention Athens: Allen Creek runs snug
against Agri-Cycle's burned lagoon and eventually
into the Middle Oconee River.)
Agri-Cycle had appealed the decision on Aug.
30 and was still allowed to operate. By Sept. 7,
the EPD Director and the Attorney General filed
a restraining order, closing the plant and giv
ing it 30 days to comply. On that same day, the
office of the Georgia Insurance and Fire Safety
Commissioner ruled the fire an accident: a short-
circuit on an electrical pump used to irrigate
from the lagoon sparked the blaze. For the citi
zens of Talmo, it was all curious timing.
The day after the blaze, Richard Harville, Agri-
Cycle's owner, told 11 Alive News that the EPD
action was "politically motivated." He pointed a
finger at the neighboring homeowners in Cedar
Hollow subdivision, who had lodged the bulk of
odor complaints, and the anonymous horde of
eager land developers.
It's difficult for most observers not to sympa
thize with homeowners whose houses smell like
sustained putrescence,
and simply dismiss
Harville's statements.
It was clear from EPD's
citations that the com
pany was taking on
more waste than its facility could process. On the
other hand, and in the broad sense—regardless
of whether his company is guilty of its many ap
parent violations—Harville's position reveals that
the Agri-Cycle story has been, in part, another
in a swelling body of local conflicts between the
agricultural industry and new residential develop
ment in North Georgia.
Along those lines, it is to some degree per
tinent to ask if the neighbors in Cedar Hollow
would be happy if Valley Farms was still process
ing chickens on the site. Or, what if the old
McEver meat-packing company that preceded it
were still operating out of the building? There
may still have been as many complaints about
foul odors and flies. The poultry industry, mean
while, is big business in Georgia, and its huge
volume of waste has to go somewhere. That
Agri-Cycle stinks is unfortunate (and perhaps less
unfortunate than its other problems), but the
economics of an agricultural industry necessitate
unappetizing after-effects.
Those exact effects are encroaching upon
Northeast Georgia in general. In the past decade,
pushed by rampant development from Atlanta,
poultry companies have begun to migrate from
Cherokee, Forsyth and Hall Counties east toward
the South Carolina
line. Crystal Farms, the
largest commercial egg
producer in Georgia, has
almost totally relocated
to Royston. Others, like
Chestnut Mountain Eggs, have contracted with
growers in the less populated (for now) north
eastern counties. Coming with them are critical
land-use issues and potential threats to the
health of the local environment.
The fire is long put out and the sensational
ism of the incident has passed. Agri-Cycle is
facing increased pressure from the top levels of
state government against its surviving in Talmo,
and it looks like the neighborhood will finally be
cleaned up. North Georgia, though, is still in an
identity—and environmental—crisis.
Donn Cooper
New Sewer
Commish Skeptical
Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Commissioners
got a look at plans for a new sewer line at
their work session Sept. 11, and at least a few
of them didn't like what they saw. The sewer
line construction being considered is already in
county plans as a small part of a longer line to
be built beginning in 2015. That's according to
the "service delivery plan" maintained by the
ACC Department of Public Utilities. The plan calls
for sewer service to be provided at that point
HOMELAND SECURITY
. The U.S. Department of Homeland
Security will hold a public meeting at the
Georgia Center for Continuing Education on
Thursday, Sept. 20, 6-10 p.m. to receive
comments about the proposed National Bio *
and Agro-Defense Facility. Athens is one of
five locations being considered. For more
info: www.uga.edu/nbaf or www.dhs.gov.
to the eastern half of the Sandy Creek basin in
the north-central part of the county: land east
of that creek and along neighborhoods off of
Nowhere and Smokey roads, all the way over to
Danielsville Road, Public Utilities Director Gary
Duck told commissioners last week.
Ahead-of-schedule construction of a small
portion of the Sandy Creek line is being dis
cussed now because a private developer has said
he's willing to pay for it. Typical ACC policy is to
accept such offers to build infrastructure that's
already in its plans. At last week's meeting, how
ever, some commissioners and Mayor Davison ex
pressed doubts about following through with the
service delivery plan insofar as running a sewer
line northward along Sandy Creek.
The line's most vocal critic at the meeting
was District 8 Commissioner Andy Herod, who
said flatly, "I've got no personal interest in
bringing this forward ahead of time." Part of
some commissioners' (and some of the staffs)
issue with the line is very specific: it might have
to built to follow a section of the North Oconee
River Greenway (just inside the 10 Loop), and
might have to be exposed aboveground for parts
of a 100-foot-long stretch. The section which the
ueveloper has proposed to build (a cost to him of
a million dollars was mentioned) would run along
the east side of the river from an area opposite
Athens' drinking water treatment plant northward
to an area near Sandy Creek Drive on the north
side of the Loop. From there, the developer could
hook in his own connection that would serve a
proposed multi-family development to be called
High Point, planned for a largely kudzu-covered
area north of the Loop and east of Commerce
Road. Duck presented commissioners with four
options involving varying impact on tree canopy,
grading and the greenway itself—as well as
varying costs—and said his department would
contact the Oconee Rivers Greenway Commission
for an opinion before bringing the matter back to
commissioners. (Full disclosure: this writer is a
member of the greenway commission.)
Wider concerns about the impact of running
sewer through the Sandy Craek basin, however,
played a large role in discussion at the work
session. "If you put sewer in, you invite develop
ment," Mayor Davison said. Commissioner David
Lynn added, "Zoning's very transitional, and
once you throw a big piece of infrastructure like
this in, typically the zoning's going to fall into
place." Two proposed development projects—the
People of Hope mobile home park and an adja
cent subdivision on Freeman Drive—have been
granted permission to build their own sewer lift
station to serve them temporarily until the Sandy
Creek line is built.
Commissioner Kelly Girtz had concerns about
impacts on water quality in wetlands along Sandy
Creek if the full sewer line is built. "I'm not sure
that, A, I'm interested in moving this ahead, or
B, in looking at it long-term," Girtz said.
Ben Emanuel benOllagpole com
Rdoim Me
ACC ANIMAL CONTROL
45 Beaverdam Rd. • 706-613-3540
She’s small and
beautiful, black Spitz
with auburn highlights.
Very quiet, young dog,
sweet but reserved aw
too refined for this
loud, concrete place.
These two pups came in together and
are both of a happy-go-lucky let’s ptay
attitude. The vmite and brindle is a
Cattle Dog mix and doesn't walk so
much as stop everywhere. The black
and tan lowrider is a fun and friendly
Dachshund mix. Hilarious when they
play together, but it would be ok to
separate them if necessary.
VERY gentle and
submissive young
golden dog. He’s a
mystery mutt of a
docile nature and
would grow to be
averyaevoted
companion.
The prettiest Chocolate Lab
I've ever seen. Bi£ copper
colored eyes. Hes a friendly
and calm fella, weighs in at
just under 80 pounds. He’s
been here too long. Please
hurry!
A
It’s 0” ! 24/7 outdoor watering ban
More ■info at wvv.v athensclarkecmtoty om
SEPTEMBER 19.2007 • FLAGPOLE.COM 5
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