May 18, 2001

By Fred Mramor of the Desert Journal

    Village of Williamsburg officials have contacted an attorney after the City of Truth or Consequences connected its shop-recycling center to the village’s sewer system.

Williamsburg Mayor Glenna Dvorak this week said the city illegally hooked up to the village’s sewer system by not first obtaining required permission from the village nor the State Highway Department who paid for the sewer line the city connected its recycling center to.

Dvorak said she won’t know what action village officials will take against the city until they are advised by their attorney.

“It’s unfortunate that it came to this but at no time did (City Manager) Sam Isom or anyone from the city say they are in danger of losing their grant and ask if we could help them out. A city utilities representative attended our March and April meetings to discuss the situation and at no time did he say the city was in a critical situation and needed this resolved,” Dvorak said.

Isom, according to last week’s Sierra County Sentinel, said he ordered the hook-up because the city was at risk of losing its recycling center construction grant.

But Haywood Martin, Construction Programs Bureau Chief for the State Environment Department, from whom the city derived its grant, this week said the city is in no immediate danger of losing its solid waste grant for the recycling center.

Martin said there is no enforcement order or specific termination date at this point. He said no immediate action is being taken by the Environment Department to recover the grant funds.

Martin said the State Environment Department already disbursed the full amount of the $230,000 solid waste grant to the city, though Sam Isom was quoted as saying $400,000 in federal funding could be withdrawn from the project.

Former City Manager Evelyn Renfro, under whose term the recycling center project began, said this week that as far as she knows the city was funded only by the State Environment Department for the amount of $230,000 with the balance of the project to be provided by the city.

The State Highway Department in November 2000 informed city officials that they would need permission from SHD and from the village of Williamsburg before connecting the recycling center to the sewer line, according to SHD Assistant District Engineer Paul Grey.

“They did not get that permission. They tied on without it,” Grey said.

Grey said however the Highway Department probably won’t take any action against the city unless there is an interruption in service to the sewer line.

“If we have any interruption in our service then we’ll take whatever action we need to make sure our service is restored,” Gray said.

Though village officials and residents opposed construction of a maintenance shop and recycling center at the village’s border and in a residential area (over 200 village residents signed a petition opposing the location, according to Mayor Dvorak), village officials have requested infrastructural assistance from the city before permitting hook-up to the village’s sewer system.

Dvorak in a January 2000 letter to Sam Isom requested the city’s assistance with maintaining the village’s Sunset and Michigan Streets where the recycling center is located. The village has asked also for the city’s help in maintaining the village’s lift stations and with increasing a four-inch force main sewer line running below Broadway to six inches.

The village’s engineer said the larger force main will be necessary to accommodate the shop/recycling center and other industrial uses the city may have in mind for the site, Dvorak said.

Williamsburg Mayor Pro-tem Sue Jackson said this week the city has yet to meet or respond to any of the village’s requests for assistance.

Sam Isom reportedly is out of town for three weeks and was unavailable for comment.

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