County asks ACWA to speed sewer complaints
The Anderson County Commission unanimously passed a resolution asking the Anderson County Water Authority to develop a system that will handle customers’ sewer complaints more quickly.
The resolution asks the ACWA to establish a contact system for customers to make complaints about sewers and for the ACWA to address them.
County Commissioner Tim Isbel made the motion, and Commissioner Chad McNabb seconded. It passed unanimously at the commission’s Jan. 20 meeting.
The item came from the commission’s Operations Committee.
McNabb, who is on that committee, said customers in Mountain View Park had been complaining about sewer smells in their area “for quite some time.”
A new system for receiving complaints, he said, would make it easier for customers to get faster responses.
McNabb said the commission did not, however, have much oversight concerning ACWA, and that the suggestion was general for that reason.
“This is just asking them to take that into consideration,” he said.
In an interview with The Courier News, McNabb said that customers can give feedback to ACWA online, but he did not feel like it was handling those comments “in real time.”
In contrast, he said, people who call the Clinton Utilities Board often hear about a specific window of time in which CUB will handle their issues.
“We want to see the water authority start being more responsive to citizens when they have an issue,” said Commissioner Tracy Wandell, who represents Mountain View Park’s district along with McNabb.
County Mayor Terry Frank, who appoints ACWA board members, was not at the meeting.
However, commission Chairwoman Denise Palmer read a statement from Frank.
Frank had, in turn, been in contact with ACWA General Manager Jeff Elrod, who said he’d figured out the conditions that had made odor issues more likely.
“Our staff have made adjustments and repairs that may take a couple of days to travel the system to make a noticeable difference,” Elrod said in the statement shared by Palmer by way of Frank.
He said ACWA would replace the media used to filter the air from the station and would monitor the processes that caused the issue.
“It’s been going on a long time, before Commissioner McNabb even got on commission, and it’s still continuing,” said Wandell, regarding the sewer issues.
“The issue revolves around too much sewage coming from the north end of the county on too small of lines,” Wandell said.
“What that letter says is they’re going to put some deodorant on it. And the deodorant doesn’t last very long.”
In response to a question by Commissioner Michael Foster, Wandell said the contact system would be up to ACWA to decide, but he did not feel the current system for complaints worked.
He said that even McNabb, elected to represent the district, hadn’t gotten the response from ACWA that Frank did.
“When the people call in, they don’t get feedback, typically,” Wandell said.
Instead, he said, they left messages for the ACWA to possibly address later.
He, like McNabb, said there needs to be a process by which citizens could get feedback from ACWA.
