Over the last few months, residents of Madill are never sure just what they will wake up to as they welcome each day. The odor that is prevalent mainly on the northeast side of town is here one day and then gone the next, leaving residents with an uneasy feeling and asking what is really happening in their town.
As reported by The Madill Record in October and then again in November of 2023, the waste products that are being flushed through the city’s sewer system by ESRO is wreaking havoc at the city waste treatment plant. At the most recent city council meeting held on February 13, resident Nancy Carter spoke about the odor in the city.
“I have made calls to the EPA and the USDA about the smell and ESRO,” Carter said. “They are investigating the company. I have letters from the EPA and the USDA about the odor, and I will continue to work with the EPA and the USDA until the matter is resolved.”
Carter then asked if the City of Madill had fined ESRO and Madill City Manager James Fullinghim stated yes.
“Our city court and the amount of money that we can charge through there is meaningless to large corporations,” Fullighim said. “Even if we fine them every day, it is not going to matter. What can we do against a company like that?”
City Attorney Kristen Speer,whowasinattendance at the city council meeting, was asked by Fullinghim to look into possibly “having a strongerfiningpoweragainst companies like this”. He also wanted Speer to look into the city ordinances that are currently in place to see if ESRO was required by the city to have a system in place to dispose of the waste in a proper manner.
In the November 2023 city council meeting, a representative fromESRO,H.R. manager Toni O’Brien, was present to talk about the situation and how it is going to be remedied. ESRO stated that a temporary Dissolved Air Flotation (DAFT) system would be in place within a few weeks, and then a more permanent DAFT system would be put in place within six months from then.
This is how ESRO said they will treat the waste before being sent to the city treatment plant. The temporary DAFT system is in place and is currently being usedaccordingtoFullinghim. However, the company is not always using the system to dispose of the waste therefore causing issues at the city waste treatment plant that takes days to work out.
The residents are concerned, not only about the odor but the toxins that are in the air and even making its way into homes and businesses. There have also been photos and videos circulating showing the pollution in Little Glasses Creek, where the city waste treatment plant is permitted by DEQ to discharge treated wastewater in the creek.
While the city itself is trying to take steps to alleviate the problem, residents have continued to grow impatient about the situation and the handling of the matter. On February 20, at 3:00 p.m. Fullinghim, a representative from ESRO, and an engineer had a closed-door meeting about the current situation and what can and needs to be done to correct the problem.
When residents heard about the meeting, there were several who were concerned as to why the meeting wasclosedandnotopentothe public. Willa Dean Caldwell expressed her concerns in a phone call to The Madill Record.
“Why is it a closed-door meeting,” Caldwell asked. “I havetalkedtoothercitycouncil members, and they were not aware of the meeting. We havetournamentscomingup and people coming into town, whatwilltheythinkwhenthe town smells?”
With so much at stake for the City of Madill as it continues to grow and invite new businesses into the area, one must ask will the smell drive them away?
The Madill Record was able to speak with Fullingim about the results of the meeting on February 20 with officials from ESRO, and if ESRO is any closer to putting in a more permanent DAFT system in place within the six-month timeline quoted in November of 2023. Fullingim was also asked to clear up a misconception in the community of Madill, that the wastewater in question coming from ESRO and the city’s waste treatment plant is being treated and recycled for public consumption through the city’s drinking water. Fullingim was eager to clear the matter up. He said the city’s drinking water supply was not coming from the wastewater.
“Ourwatersupplysystem, the way it works is we have three city lakes,” Fullingim said. “We use two of them for our drinking water. We haveLakeHuani,whichisoff Bethel Road. We have Carter Lake which is north of town, and we’ve got City Lake.”
“All three are linked to our public water supply system,” he continued. “We do not use City Lake because it is really shallow and the water is harder to treat but we use it primarily for recreation, to fish and walk around it. It is a really pretty lake. Our primary water source comes from Lake Huani and second from Carter Lake. That lake isnowherenearthedischarge of our waste treatment plant. So no, we are not recycling water. We pump water from Lake Huani, which is way west of town. Then we gravity flow Carter Lake. The safety of our drinking water, I take that very seriously and our operator, which is Ray Gamble, is a wonderful operator of that plant and he takes extreme pride in his work. We have very good employees out there running our water and the two are not connected.”
Fullingim said that he learned in the meeting with ESRO that the company has the DAFT system in place, and they were working to be in compliance with DEQ.
“I’m not going to speak to their results with DEQ, but I know they were headed in the right direction to get in compliance with DEQ, but now the problem is the DEQ has their standards, and we have standards that are more strict than DEQ’s,” he said. “So, I felt like as long as DEQ is giving them timelines, whether it be their consent order, that the city of Madill should respect those guidelines, as far as giving them time to get into compliance. Now, even if they get into compliance with DEQ standards, we still have city standards, they must meet and they are aware of those.”
Fullingimcontinuedtosay that ESRO recently had a change of management, and he gave the new manager, Dan Strobelo, a copy of the city ordinance for sewer service.
“I gave him a copy and I said I don’t know what information you have been passed from previous management, but they were aware of the standards,” he said. “They were aware of what they were supposed to be doing and they just kept telling us they were going to meet these standards and they are going to get it right.”
Fullingim stated that the new management team wanted to be given a week or two to look at what they are going to have to do to be compliant with the ordinances. He added that the DAFTsystemwaspurchased and since then, the city has not yet received water that has affected the city waste treatment plant.
“I spoke to him [Dan] again this morning and he has already got something to add to this system, that is supposed to filter down to where it is completely clean water,” Fulingim said. “Once that is in place, we should be invited out for this thing to be demonstrated to make sure this thing really works before it is presented to the city council. I don’t want him to present something that is a failure, I want them to present something that is a success, and then let the city council make the decision about approving the pre-treatment site.”