Dear Editor:

First, I would like to thank Kelli Dugan for her diligent and continued reporting on the sewer issue in Spanish Fort. 

This is an issue of critical importance to me as Baldwin County Sewer Company is rapidly moving their service down my road. Each day, I watch with complete and utter dread as the flags are set in the right-of-way and utilities are marked.

My many reasons for this dread have been documented with the City of Spanish Fort via emails for which anyone may read by just making a public-records request from the city clerk.

Not so long ago, an article about politicians debating technical standards for private sewer companies would make me put a towel over my head and run for cover. It seemed like a matter better addressed by engineers than mothers with children to shuttle between football and dance or a single woman with way too many hobbies. Now, I feel this article has everything to do with mothers and anyone spending money on “organic” groceries and gardens, exercise or preventive health measures.

After all, why would anyone spend money on protecting their health of their children or family and then not want a municipality to pass technical standards in an effort to protect the water supply from waterborne diseases? 

Technical standards could potentially prevent weird accidental problems like sewer tapping into water-supply lines, sewer inadvertently being routed to open detention ponds and the like.  These are not unrealistic scenarios, as the local papers have reported on it! These are issues that occurred in the Baldwin County area over many years.

Technical standards seem like a no-brainer decision for me. So one suggestion I might make would be to re-frame the title of your article to read, “If the city moves forward with private sewer without technical sewer standards, what is the potential for exposure for contaminated drinking water for local families?”

Now you have my undivided attention because the impact of this decision is in layman’s terms that I can understand. Your paper may even increase your readership, particularly among women and mothers because this would be something we would want to know and read about.

Further, I applaud City Councilman Dennis Dismuke for his continued efforts to raise the issue about technical standards. The paper has previously reported he has some background in plumbing. Who better to understand the issue of installing sewers without standards than someone with plumbing experience? The article gave me some glimmer of optimism that someone is looking out for the health and well-being of the citizens.

It strikes me as highly unusual why any municipality would not immediately pass technical standards, if only for their own liability issues for protecting citizens. How is it possible that Councilwoman Mary Brabner considers requesting technical standards to protect drinking water “grandstanding”? A more balanced political approach might be to get Mr. Dismuke’s opinion on the issue, since he would have the greater expertise and has obviously done some research on the subject. Also, with a background in plumbing, wouldn’t it be somewhat negligent on his part to say the city should proceed without technical sewer standards when he seems to understand the risk involved and especially when so many other municipalities have standards.

Again, it seems like a no-brainer question.

A municipality would have everything to win and nothing to lose by having such standards in place. Have city leaders ever asked “What is the cost of liability to the city by not having technical standards”?

Why city leaders don’t want these standards is a question that I plan to spend time pondering.

I also can relate somewhat to Mr. Dismuke’s dilemma about being called out of order on this issue. When I raised questions relating to the city not passing a moratorium to look more carefully into the need for technical standards, I was also told, by the mayor prior to a council meeting, that I would be called out of order. The mayor’s and council’s responses in the article indicated that Mr. Dismuke was alone in his concerns about this subject, but at one time not so long ago many residents from one of the local neighborhoods openly objected to the direction of the city leaders with regards to the sewer issues. Many of these citizens and I have given up voicing our opinion on the sewer issue, because we feel powerless against this political engine that continues to plunge forward at breakneck speed without slow and methodical consideration of appropriate and sound questioning. I, one small voice, am one of those that feel powerless. Now, I sit in anxious dread of the arriving system, feeling completely unprotected. So each day, I wait for another flag to be placed and another utility to be marked until the system passes my front door.

Like Moses during Passover, I am considering placing a mark on my door to let this sewer entity just move on by. I ask for God’s protection of the water I will drink in the future, because the government system has failed to provide adequate protection to make me feel safe. 

Please continue your vital reporting on this subject and don’t let it go until some positive action has occurred to adequately protect the drinking water in Spanish Fort. The citizens will be ever so grateful.