Madill City Manager James Fullingim, along with city employees, are now fighting an uphill battle after learning about false water samples and untreated wastewater.
Madill City Manager James Fullingim, along with city employees, are now fighting an uphill battle after learning about false water samples and untreated wastewater.
The city’s wastewater is supposed to go through the Madill Water Treatment Plant, then discharge into a stream that feeds into Lake Texoma. Fullingim recently learned that the wastewater may not have been treated as thoroughly as the numbers proclaim. He said he learned this during a recent trip to the plant.
“I was actually at our wastewater treatment plant meeting with the superintendent of the plant whenever he just abruptly told me he’s been reporting wrong numbers to DEQ whenever he runs his tests,” said Fullingim.
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) discovered that untreated wastewater has been pumped into the lake. George Andrews, the now former supervisor of the Madill Wastewater Treatment Plant, has been keeping that fact a secret and falsifying records for quite some time.
Fullingim said the news surprised him, and he thinks it was a relief for the former supervisor.
“I was very surprised,” Fullingim said. “I didn’t see him as someone who would do this to someone. I don’t want to say relieved, but I think he’s just been holding this in and holding this secret that’s been eating him up, and I thought he had a sense of relief when he told me what he had been doing.”
Fullingim reported Andrews’ actions to the Department of Environmental Quality, because he didn’t know what kind of risk it had on the community. The DEQ is now investigating to find out just how much wastewater has gone untreated.
“We’re just now starting to get real numbers on what our discharge is, so that’s kind of where we’re at right now,” Fullingim said.
DEQ is working with Madill to bring the system back in compliance, but with the sample results falsified, they are unsure of the amount of untreated wastewater.
Fullingim said with the uncertainty looming, it might mean trouble in the future.