Staff Reporter

Guide Corp. has asked a Madison County court to review a city administrative order demanding that Guide pay costs and a fine for allegedly violating the terms of its wastewater discharge permit in December.

On Jan. 7, the city of Anderson ordered Guide Corp. to fork over $7,514 for expenses incurred by the city and for failing to immediately report a Dec. 18 discharge of 50,000 gallons of treated water from one of Guide's cooling towers.

On March 8, Guide Corp. filed a petition in Madison Superior Court 1, claiming that the discharge was reported within 24 hours and that the 50,000 gallons of water posed no threat to the city's wastewater treatment facility.

"Most of that water discharged was plain old tap water," said Jeff Hutson, spokesman for Guide Corp. "Most of it had not been treated yet. We're saying that we at no time exceeded our permit with the city.

"And I wouldn't want it to be construed that we had no dialogue with the city before our petition was filed. Our preference would have been to resolve this with the city."

Steve Fultz, executive director of the city's economic development office, said Tuesday that he believed this to be a matter the city and Guide can resolve amicably.

"We are planning to meet with them this week or next week, but they had 60 days to respond," Fultz said. "It just happened that our wastewater people and legal counsel and Guide's legal counsel couldn't arrange a meeting until day 59. Guide's petition just extends the time."

The city's administrative order -- signed by Randy Hamilton, superintendent of the Anderson Water Pollution Utility -- said that on Dec. 19, "an employee at the city's wastewater treatment plant received an anonymous call" claiming that Guide released 50,000 gallons of chemically treated water into the city's treatment plant.

Hamilton then contacted Mike McFall at Guide who "assured him there was no unusual discharge," according to the administrative order.

Two city inspectors were sent to Guide to check and found nothing unusual. However, after one inspector left Guide Corp., McFall informed the other inspector that he had just learned about an overflow from the company's No. 7 cooling tower.

The tower normally discharges 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of water a day into the city system.

On Dec. 20, inspectors from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management conducted tests at the cooling tower, the administrative order stated.

Tim Coulom, spokesman for IDEM, said Tuesday that the water in Guide's No. 7 cooling tower is treated with bleach, liquid bromide and a rust inhibitor. The chemicals soften the water and inhibit the growth of algae and the formation of rust.

"The maximum amount that you'd find in 50,000 gallons would be 15 gallons of bleach, one gallon of liquid bromide and five gallons of the rust inhibitor," Coulom said. "I'm told that in the actual water discharged, a gallon of bleach would be added each Wednesday, so the chemicals were not at the maximum level."

Coulom said IDEM found that the discharge had "minimal impact" on the environment although a small amount of foaming was noted at the wastewater treatment plant.

"We took no action since the impact was minimal and caused no damage to the environment," Coulom said. "The water in the cooling tower did not contain the chemicals linked to the fish kill."

The city seeks from Guide $5,014 for biomonitoring tests, organic compound testing, inorganic testing and overtime pay for city employees. The remainder, $2,500, is a fine for failure to report immediately the accidental discharge.



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