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King to cough up cash for violations
FISH KILL
In this taken in May, Ogeechee Riverkeeper director Dianna Wedincamp collects a dead fish on the Ogeechee River near Hwy. 301 while investigating the mass fish kill. (Statesboro Herald file photo)

King America Finishing will fund $1 million in environmental improvements to the Ogeechee River after a finding that the plant violated discharge permits to dump toxins into the river.
Following an investigation that lasted more than three months, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division found the Screven County textiles plant in violation of discharge permits as well as the state’s Clean Water Act, said Georgia EPD Assistant Director Jim Ussery.
Ogeechee Riverkeeper Dianna Wedincamp expressed approval of the EPD’s order.
“The pollution from King America Finishing is a serious threat to the health and safety of local families and river wildlife. We are grateful to EPD for acting on this situation,” she said. “We like the $1 million figure. It’s a warning bell that every other polluter along the Ogeechee River should hear loud and clear.”
King America CEO Mike Beasley declined to comment on the order, referring callers with questions to spokesman Lee Dehines, who did not return phone calls Wednesday.
EPD communications director Kevin Chambers said the agency executed a consent order Wednesday with King America Finishing “to address violations of the Georgia Water Quality Control Act that were discovered during EPD’s investigation of the fish kill on the Ogeechee River that occurred in May of this year.”
Almost 39,000 fish were killed on or around May 23, when the kill was reported. Thousands of fish were left rotting on the banks, and the river was closed for fishing and swimming. Some people reported illnesses including nausea, respiratory problems and blisters following excursions in the river at that time, but no illnesses were ever proven to be linked to any substance in the waters.
The fish were found to have been killed by the columnaris bacteria, caused by environmental stress, and it was suggested by some that chemicals from the effluent discharged into the Ogeechee by King America was the cause.
The EPD’s investigation revealed the plant did indeed violate discharge permits by releasing chemicals in unacceptable levels of concentration; by not conducting testing and reporting as required; and by not having adequate wastewater treatment procedures, he said.
Read more in the Sept. 24 edition of the News.

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Later yall, its been fun
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This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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