Bauxite Slapped With Dozens of Waste Water Violations
By: Lauren Trager, KARK 4 News
Updated: May 16, 2012
The city of Bauxite has been slapped with more than 100 waste water violations.
Now, leaders there could need upwards of $100,000 to get out of their mess.
Built in 2003, Bauxite's waste water treatment facility isn't all that old. In fact, it's quite state of the art.
In just 4 hours, chemicals and organisms clean the flushed water of 250 customers.
Eventually, the tens of thousands of gallons of waste water treated at the facility end up in the taps of Saline County residents.
"You don't want to get it wrong, definitely," William Bayles of Bauxite Utilities.
But according to the Department of Environmental Quality, previous managers did get it wrong.
Discharge tests showed some bacteria levels were too high to comply with state standards.
One reason for the errors: Bayles says in the past constant adjustments required for this system didn't get done.
"You can't just set something and let it dose itself, you gotta do work on it," Bayles said.
Recently, too, this facility started treating landfill water which Bayles says also threw off their chemical requirements.
"We want to make sure these facilities are doing their jobs and treating waste water properly and keeping with their standards," said Katherine Benenati with ADEQ.
A spokesperson for ADEQ says the state, for now, is satisfied with the facility's commitment to clean-up their act.
But Bayles says to get all the way up to snuff, they need tens of thousands of dollars in updates.
Like getting water to flow uphill, raising the money won't be easy, but in the long-run, Bayles says, it's worth it.
"The better I can make it here, the better I can make our drinking water and our rivers and streams," he said.
Bauxite's money woes are already well-known. They've been in trouble with the IRS recently for not paying taxes.
The mayor says they can't raise water or sewer rates because customers already pay too much. They'll brainstorm at a city council meeting Monday on how to make the repairs.
If they can't the state could fine them thousands.
