Daphne Utilities will allow an independent agency to help with water quality testing in the area, according to an announcement made by Daphne Mayor Dane Haygood at the Dec. 3 Daphne City Council meeting.
Haygood, who serves on the utility board, said the process is still ongoing but it is a step in the right direction for the utility.
“Daphne Utilities have taken a lot of PR hits over the last year, and I and others haven’t been happy with how they have responded to those issues,” Haygood said. “In the court of public opinion, they haven’t won that battle.”
Earlier this year, Mobile Baykeeper accused Daphne Utilities of ongoing violations of fraudulently reporting and failing to report sewage spills being discharged into Mobile Bay, violating the Clean Water Act and Alabama Water Pollution Control Act.
According to a report released by Baykeeper in April 2018, allegedly showed that Daphne Utilities released nearly three million gallons of partially treated sewage every day in January 2018, amounting to approximately 4.6 trillion colonies of bacteria above the legal limit being released into Mobile Bay during the entire month.
Baykeeper had filed suit against the utility in Dec. 2017 alleging similar acts, which Daphne Utilities denied.
“We take any and all violations very seriously, which is why we reported them to the proper authorities,” an April Daphne Utilities release said. “We are working with the governmental body charged with overseeing our operations and we are complying with all of their requests. We will continue to work with ADEM to identify any issues which might require remediation and we look forward to getting back on track for another decade of award-winning environmental service for our growing community.”
Haygood said four locations have been selected as testing sites and he hoped goals would be set to help make sure citizens get accurate, up-to-date information about water quality in the area.
“The goal is to hopefully get it to a green, yellow, red indicator system to know the quality of water in and around the Bay,” Haygood said. “If the findings are good or bad, we need to be sure we’re letting the people know what is going on.”
Councilman Robin LeJeune, the city council’s liaison to the utility board, said he was pleased to see some action being taken on the water quality issue, but said more action was definitely needed.
“The quality of the water in and around our city is of the utmost importance to all of Daphne’s residents, so we need to to continue to be vigilant on this issue,” LeJeune said. “Bringing in an independent agency to help conduct water studies is a great first step and Daphne Utilities has made strides to correct some of the issues that it has been accused of in the past, but there certainly needs to be more done to make certain that Daphne Utilities is doing what it is supposed to be doing.”
