Sewer Service takes Gulf Shores to court over Fort Morgan pond, treatment plant

Sewer Service takes Gulf Shores to court over Fort Morgan pond, treatment plant
Baldwin County Sewer Service is claiming it did not receive the appropriate permit from the City of Gulf Shores to build a sewage treatment holding pond about 100 ft. behind Little Lagoon Mobile Home Park in 2021 and has fild an appeal to a cease and desist notice from the City of Gulf Shores over its treatment plant in Fort Morgan, according to a recent report from al.com.
Residents of the park as well as the Little Lagoon Preservation Society have been vocal and active in trying to prevent the treatment plant.
“I’m almost livid that Baldwin County Sewer Service does not care about people,” said Dennis Hatfield, president of the Little Lagoon Preservation Society, which has been vocal and active in trying to prevent the treatment plant. “They built the sludge lagoon adjacent to homeowners.”
BCSS constructed an unpermitted sludge pond at the plant before applying for a permit to build the sewage treatment plant. The G.S. Planning Commission recommended requiring the utility to limit its capacity to 1.2 million gallons and fill in the sludge pond in its review of its conditional use permit, noting that the majority of the sewage treated at the Fort Morgan plant comes from outside of Gulf Shores. Gulf Shores City Council decided not to consider it at all, according to al.com.
BCSS sued the city after the Gulf Shores Board of Zoning Adjustment argued that it did not have jurisdiction in the case. BCSS filed an appeal of that decision in Baldwin County Circuit Court.
In 2022, ADEM denied a request from BCSS to increase capacity at the plant to two million gallons per day after a heated public hearing at which LLPS presented documentation that BCSS exceeded its daily permitted volume 256 times over a five year period.
Gulf Shores argued that the sludge pond site was zoned for residential use.
City of Gulf Shores legal council has taken the positiion that the city or neighboring residents, not the Board of Adjustment, must be named for the court to have jurisdiction. Both cases are still pending.
The Little Lagoon Preservation Society has long argued that the plant poses an environmental threat to the ecosystem. The group wants ADEM to monitor the discharge coming from the plant, Hatfield said.
LLPS also argues that the treated effluent from the plant contains high levels of phosphorous that seeps into the groundwater and eventually flows into Little Lagoon and Oyster Bay.
Elevated phosphorous is a crucial ingredient in causing harmful algal blooms in water.