The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 43, Ed. 1 Friday, October 24, 1986 Page: 1 of 4
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SULPHUR SPRINGS, TEXAS-, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1986.
4 PAGES - 25 CENTS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
UJ a
X & j
Tooley says city
facing EPA fine
Youth escapes serious injuries
An 11-year-old Sulphur Springs youth was
taken by ambulance to Hopkins County
Memorial Hospital where he was treated for
injuries sustained when the bicycle he was
riding struck a pickup, according to hospital
officials. Charles Lee Marsek sustained
minor injuries when his northbound bicycle
struck a pickup driven by Rickey Lee
Townsend, 21, of Sulphur Springs, as it was
coming out of ^driveway on South League
Street, according to police reports.
—Staff Photo by Ann McAdams
By MICHAEL PELRINE
The city will be fined for discharge
violations at the wastewater plant,
City Manager David Tooley told the
City Council Thursday, and what
remains for the city is to do whatever
possible to appease the En-
vironmental Protection Agency and
reduce the penalty.
•‘At stake, very simply, is the
economic future of this city," Tooley
said at a special meeting Thursday
night. "The city will be fined.”
Thus the council gave Tooley and
the city’s consultants the "green
light” to pursue the necessary steps
to investigate the problems at the
plant and make design changes that
will be "most cost efficient and most
efficient in terms of what EPA
desires.”
"Plant expansion definitely has to
be a part of what we bring to the table
(the package presented to the
EPA),” Tooley said.
Rural-Urban event
honors W. S. Long
Robert Smith, an environmental
consultant and former employee of
EPA, informed the council of it§
options and obligations regarding an
upgrade of the city’s wastewater
treatment facilities, as well as what it
might expect from the EPA.
He said he was made aware of
problems at the Sulphur Springs
plant when he worked for the EPA
several years ago. “The finger has
been on the trigger,” he said.
"About a year ago, the city came
very close to an enforcement action,”
Smith said. "Through some very
prompt action by Bill Farler (the
city’s public works director), this city
very narrowly escaped an en-
forcement action of the sort you face
right now.”
As a result of the city reporting
violations at the plant, the EPA
issued a "show cause order,” whiclj
is an order to appear before the EF*A
and show cause why an enforcement
action should not take place.
On June 19, 1986, EPA and Texas
Water Commission officials in-
Bv BOBBY BURNEY
Bo Pilgrim couldn’t make it to the
senn-annual Hopkins County Rural-
Urban Banquet Thursday night, but
more than 300 count) residents did
show up to see W S. "Pete" Long
honored for his lifelong contributions
to Hopkins County
Pilgrim, chairman of the board of
Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation in
Pittsburg, is currently on an in-
ternational business trip to find
stockholders for 30 percent of his
company, which recently went
public In his absence, Pilgrim sent
Bob Hendricks, president of
Pilgrim's Pride , who talked about the
company's operations
Before Hendricks presented his
message. Ixing was given the
Community Service Award and a
testimonial by another lifetime
Hopkins County resident, Freeman
Parish.
lxmg is a resident of North Hopkins
and taught in that community for 50
years, but Parish said the first time
he heard of Ixmg was in 1929 as a
banker.
"He's been a daddy, a granddaddy,
and I imagine a grandmother — and
he’s been mighty good to me," Parish
said. "He's been a daddy to me a loL
of times."
Besides being a teacher, coach and
superintendent at North Hopkins.
Long has distinguished himself as a
leader in the church, Parish added.
"I've known him since before he
was married," Parish said, men-
tioning ling's wife, Eva Ruth. "And
every once in awhile I’ll drive by a
little house over here.. his
honeymoon house is still over there.
Tw o rooms.
"So. he started where we did, and
he has really become a fixture in this
community Now, he's retired, and he
keeps going. I'm a few years younger
than him, but I can t keep up."
It was fitting that Long was
honored at the new North Hopkins
School, the me west school budding m
the county.
Although Pilgrim was not able to
attend, he did send enough fryers to
feed more than 300 county residents
who showed up, Rural-Urban
Chairman Billy Penn said the turnout
was the biggest in years.
The banquet was made successful
by the donations of several area
businesses, including Bartley's Bar-
B-Q, which cooked the chicken free of
charge, Associated Milk Producers,
Inc., Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper, and
Quick' Foods.
The next Rural-Urban Banquet will
be in the spring at Como-Pickton
School.
• ■ ■'Vs'
•,
Long-time service
W.S. (Pete) Long, left, receives the semi-
annual Community Service Award Thursday
night from Freeman Parish at The Hopkins
County Rural-Urban Banquet. Long, a
teacher, coach and superintendent at North
Hopkins School for 50 years, was honored in
the new North Hopkins School, the newest
school building in the county. In the
background fs Jimmy Day, principal at
North HopkinS. -SUM Photo by Richard Hail
Hospital raises
ambulance fees
By ANN McADAMS
A $20 base rate increase for ambulance services was approved
Thursday night by the Hopkins County Memorial Hospital board of
directors.
The emergency base charge of the ambulance service was raised from
the current $50 to $70 which is still significantly lower than Greenville’s
Jgise charge of $125, but higher than Paris which has a $60 base charge.
By raising the costs of ambulance services, across the board, the
hospital could reasonably expect a cash increase of $26,383 per year
when figured at a 69.25 percent collection rate, according to a report
given by Dan Noteware, assistant hospital administrator.
However, that increase will not prevent the service from operating at
a loss. The ambulance service operating loss for September was
$17,359.06, according to Noteware.
The transfer base for patients was raised $15 to the recommended
charge of $55 while the charge per mile was raisetHo $2.
The waiting time rate was raised to $10 per 4 hour. Patients will also
be pay ing more if an additional attendant is required during a transfer
with the new cost at $10 per hour. The cost for oxygen setup was raised to
$10 while oxygen use per hour remains at $8.
In other 'business, the board approved two new emergency room
physicians - Dr. William E. St. Clair and Dr Royal B Lea, approved
the list of bad debts, totaling $102,905.90, which will be turned over to a
collection agency; approved an amendment to the rules and regulations
of the medical staff bylaw; approved the financial report, the minutes
and the monthly bills
City's newest industry
gets real Texas welcome
By KAREN TURPEN
HON Industries executives and
Chamber of Commerce represen-
tatives mingled and discussed the
cooperative future of the two entities
Monday at an opening reception for
HON Company's new distribution
center in Sulphur Springs.
Approximately 40 people gathered
in the unfinished, empty front office
of the facility to meet HON
executive? and enjoy a lavish hors
d'oeuvre spread before trekking to
the back of the plant for a traditional
ribbon cutting.
Plant manager Dennis Boyle led
the ceremony in which he'mrst in-
troduced the skeleton crew that has
worked to prepare the distribution
center for operation and then in-
troduced HON executives from the
Muscatine, Iowa, headquarters who
had flown in for the occasion.
"Since this is the first official day
we are open and are receiving orders
and planning shipments,” Boyle said,
"we certainly wanted both HON and
Sulphur Springs to participate
“We feel Sulphur Springs has the
kind of people who have given us the
nucleus of a team that can go head to
head with any body or anything,” he
said, adding that he sees a bright
future for the local office furniture
distribution center and manufac-
turing plant.
HON Industries executives at-
tending the ceremony included
company president Ron Jones, who
Boyle credited as being instrumental
in selecting the Sulphur Springs site.
"We wouldn’t be here if it wasn't for
him,” Boyle said.
Standing amid rows of packaged
HON products in the 91,000-square-
foot distribution warehouse, Jones
reminded the crowd of a statement he
made earlier at a Sulphur Springs
meeting: "I talked about building a
bridge between HOJjLand the Sulphur
Springs community.
“I think we have not only built a
bridge, but a super highway," he
said, citing community leaders'
cooperation and assistance in
establishing the plant as ojie of the
reasons for the successful beginning
of its operations.
Jones said it was "quite by ac-
cident” that Sulphur Springs was
added to a list of six potential
southwest distribution points, but
that "it was unanimous that we chose
Sulphur Springs.”
Ike Harper. Chamber of Commerce
president, closed the ceremony with a
few words before he and Jones cut a
ribbon stretched across a warehouse
aisle. "We feel Sulphur Springs and
HON will continue to grow together,
and we’re looking forward to a great
partnership in the years to come,”
Harper said.
Following the ribbon cutting, tours
of the 150,000-square-foot building
were conducted by local plant of-
ficials.
Boyle showed one group a blueprint
of the production line that is expected
to be producing vertical suspension
files early next year and employ
about 90 people.
New TIDI
pact means
lower rates
Beginning Jan. 1, trash collection in
Sulphur Springs will be 5 percent
cheaper since the city has approved a
new contract with Texas Industrial
Disposal Inc.
According to the five-year contract,
TIDI will reduce its rates by 5 percent
for residential, commercial and
industrial customers for one year
beginning Jan. 1,1987
spected the wastewater plant in
preparation of a show cause hearing.
The hearing was held July 28 in
Dallas.
“We requested time to prepare a
formal compliance plan,” Smith said,
“but they (the EPA) elected to
commence a referral action (a
lawsuit),”
Since the EPA is an agency of the
federal government, it refers any
legal action to the U.S. Justice
Department for prosecution.
Several steps are taken in an en-
forcement action, Smith said. The
first, a referral recommendation,
was filed by the Region VI office of
the EPA in Dallas and sent to the
Justice Department for review.
Phase two, a review of and con-
currence with the recommendation
by the Justice Department, is
presently under way and should be
completed by Nov. 1, Smith said
After the review, the recom-
mendation will be sent back to the
Region VI office.
The Region VI attorney will then
contact the city to set up a negotiation
meeting.
Smith said potential penalties for
past violations could amount to
"hundreds and hundreds and hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars.”
"They have all the high cards,” he
said.
To avoid a lawsuit, the city and
EPA must negotiate what is known as
a consent decree, which consists of
upfront penalties (fines) for past
violations, a plan to bring the plant
into permanent compliance with
federal environmental regulations,
and an agreement to pay further
penalties for future violations.
“The EPA acts as judge, jury and
plaintiff in this process," Smith said.
If a satisfactory agreement cannot
be worked out, the EPA will send its
referral recommendation back to the
Justice Department to initiate legal
proceedings.
To help the city's case, the council
agreed to secure the services of Art
Busch, a specialist in wastewater
treatment and environmental
engineering, who would bring with
him 30 years of experience, including
three years as administrator of the
very EPA office —Region VI— which
is bringing action against the city.
At earlier council meetings, the
city’s consulting engineer, Bill
Ratliff, outlined the circumstances
surrounding violations at the
wastewater treatment plant. Those
circumstances pointed primarily to
the facility being overloaded during
periods of heavy rain due to problems
6f inflow and infiltration of rain water
into the city’s sewer system.
In addition. Smith pointed out that
the city has a higher than normal
contribution of industrial waste,
despite an active industrial pre-
treatment policy.
All of these factors, added to the
fact that the gity is now under an EPA
enforcement action, will contribute to
EPA engineers bringing their full
scrutiny to bear on any steps taken by
the city to correct the problems at the
plant.
What is needed, Smith said, are
plant improvements that are
realistic, that function properly, and
are as acceptable to EPA as possible.
“There is absolutely no future in
challenging the EPA,” Smith said.
“If you think these guys are-just a
bunch of paper-pushing bureaucrats,
you are wrong. They are graduate
specialists and scientists with years
of experience in evironmental
matters.”
"On the other hand,” Smith said,
' You'11 gain by letting them know
you recognize a problem exists, and
you're taking the lead in solving the
problem.”
Smith added that the city must be
willing to spend money. "Compliance
is the bottom line,” he said
If the plans for plant improvement
are done well. Smith said, the EPA
may reuuce the penalties. If they are
done poorly, the penalties will be
increased, and the EPA will tack on
any amount the city thought it would
save by cutting comers
Also, he said, if the EPA feels the
city is not conducting itself in a
timely manner, or is doing only the
bare minimum, the upfront penalties
will be greater
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Keys, Clarke & Hillsamer, Dave. The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 43, Ed. 1 Friday, October 24, 1986, newspaper, October 24, 1986; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth775658/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.