Some Forsyth County homeowners were shocked last week when they discovered county officials were planning on installing a sewage treatment plant adjacent to their neighborhood – without their knowledge.
Earlier this month Forsyth County residents living along Fourmile Creek discovered a surveyor cutting across private property. When pressed he admitted that he was looking at land for a possible sewage treatment plan, a plan that local homeowners knew nothing about.
Said homeowners demanded and subsequently flooded a town hall meeting last Wednesday, infuriated that a massive plant, encompassing some 99 acres, could be built with limited to no public input.
Hundreds of local residents would suddenly find their properties adjacent to the plant, and they were eager to voice their concerns over possible noise, smell, spills, and traffic concerns that go alongside any major construction, much less one built to deal in raw sewage.
Local officials, including Forsyth Commissioner Cindy Mills, whose district encompasses the proposed plant, claim they have done nothing wrong.
“It wasn’t a secret it’s just like every land purchase made in county government. You can’t disclose a land sale until the county attorney tells you that you can,” Mills told Fox 5.
The proposal currently is still in its planning phase, a phase which figures to get much tougher with residents now well aware of the county’s plans. Mills says the plant is still undergoing “due diligence.” Forsyth residents may be wondering whether they need to do some ‘due diligence’ of their own if their elected officials are trying to pull moves like these over on them.
