August 5, 2007 Koch Appeal: Still Not on the City Agenda

When will Koch Foods' appeal of Morristown's December 2006 demand that it pay fines and costs of sewer cleanups be heard?

A Roe Junction resident was told recently that the Koch Foods' appeal would likely be on the August 7 City Council agenda.

That same resident has since talked with a City official and has been told that the appeal that was filed in January 2007 will NOT be on the August 7 agenda after all.

More sewer odors, two sewage overflows, and more cleanup costs, but no discussion or hearing on the Koch appeal.

It's no wonder that the residents of that area---after 2-1/2 years of the City and Koch going back and forth with letters, deadlines, extensions of "deadlines," hearings, orders, and an appeal---finally filed a lawsuit.

Morristown is starting a cleanup program for neighborhoods in the city (which is good) while a small community outside of the City has endured raw sewage and the stench of sewer odors for over 2-1/2 years (not good).

The city blames Koch Foods publicly (and in piles of correspondence) for sewer problems and at least one hundred-fifty thousand dollars of cleanup costs, but the City won't go ahead and hear the Koch appeal.

According to Koch, they have worked, and are still working, on pre-treatment efforts. That's good, and perhaps that will eventually address the problem in the future.

The city's fines and charges, however, are for what happened through November 2006, and the Koch appeal is about fines and costs through November 2006.

Residents of the area are understandably upset and frustrated by the odors and overflows that have been a way of life for 2-1/2 years now.

Some of them are also beginning to wonder if the city council's refusal to hear the Koch appeal is simply a stalling tactic, with the city putting off hearing the appeal in order to buy more time for Koch to come up with something.

Then the council can just "forget" about all the fines and all the sewer odors and all the overflows and all the extra cleanup costs that the taxpayers paid for through December 2006. Plus, the council can even forget about the cleanup costs paid out after December 2006.