Sewer plant change aimed at public and worker safety

Policymakers for Oconee’s wastewater treatment plant are pursuing a project to switch from a potentially dangerous gas to a safer method of dis-infecting chlorine. A committee of the Joint Regional Sewer Authority yesterday agreed to recommend to the full board a $20 thousand contract with the company W-K Dickson to engineer the switch. According to the company, the current method is gas chlorine dis-infection using sulfur as de-chlorination. The urgency, as explained by Chris Eleazer, the JRSA executive director, is that an accident could jeopardize plant workers and up to 239 identified residences within a one-mile radius—including those who live in the adjoining Cross Creek Plantation.