http://chronicle.augusta.com:80/stories/030208/cit_189463.shtml
If there's one thing governments and their agencies are consistent about, other than decreasing your
purchasing power and increasing theirs, it's secrecy. And the more they say, "We have nothing to hide," the
more they're hiding.
City Ink
By Sylvia Cooper| Columnist
Sunday, March 02, 2008
If there's one thing governments and their agencies are consistent about, other than decreasing your purchasing power
and increasing theirs, it's secrecy. And the more they say, "We have nothing to hide," the more they're hiding.
Governments are not above hiding, destroying and manufacturing records. I have even known officials who have
literally, and I do mean literally, sat on federal court orders to buy time.
Take the McElmurrays' case to recoup losses caused by their land being poisoned by sludge from the city's wastewater
treatment plant.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Anthony A. Alaimo blasted the city, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the
Environmental Protection Agency for the city's falsification of documents and the two federal agencies for buying into it.
We quote briefly from Judge Alaimo's ruling in the McElmurrays' favor.
"... Augusta manipulated its data by averaging lab results over several months in an attempt to reduce the levels of
metals present in the sludge. A former supervisor of the Messerly Wastewater Treatment Plant, Allen Saxon , confirmed
that this was the case.
"There is also evidence that the city fabricated data from its computer records in an attempt to distort its past sewage
sludge applications. In January 1999, the city rehired Saxon to create a record of sludge applications that did not exist
previously. Saxon prepared sludge spreadsheets in 1999 which showed cumulative loading calculations for the first time
in the 20-year history of the city's land application program.
"Other evidence indicates that city officials altered the spreadsheets in 1999 in an attempt to remove any record of the
application of hundreds of thousands of gallons of sludge to hundreds of acres on the McElmurrays' farm."
This happened before City Administrator Fred Russell , Mayor Deke Copenhaver or any of the current commissioners
came on the scene. But Mr. Saxon is an assistant director in the city's utilities department.