AUGUSTA, GA – Augustans, hold your noses because something stinks out at the wastewater treatment plant and it’s not the poo.

The Augusta Commission’s decision last week to award Duluth, Ga.-based ESG Operations, Inc. the five-year operating contract for the city’s wastewater treatment plant may have just set Augusta back years.

Whether Augustans agree with the politics that surrounded the initial hiring of the Colorado firm Operations Management International back in 1999, few people can argue that the company hasn’t done an outstanding job.

Prior to Augusta commissioners agreeing to bring in OMI to manage the treatment plant in 1999, the city’s waste-management system was a disaster.

In 1998, Dr. Gene Eidson, the former president and CEO of the Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy, wrote a letter to the city stating its wastewater treatment plant was in a state of disrepair.

“It is my professional opinion that Augusta is facing a regulatory crisis,” Eidson wrote in 1998. “This is not an overstatement. There are severe equipment failures. Every segment of the operation is in jeopardy.”

This was devastating news to city officials because Augusta was under a federal court order to reduce the discharge amounts from the treatment facility in order protect the Savannah River’s water quality.

Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division had issued an order requiring Augusta to pay $184,000 in fines for several sewage spills and other environmental violations.

Less than five years later, under OMI’s direction, the Messerly plant was recognized nationally for its innovations and was named the best plant in the state by the Georgia Water & Pollution Control Association.

OMI has continued to vastly improve the city’s system.

But there has always been a lot of politics involved in OMI receiving the city’s contract that allocated the company almost $6 million a year.

In the late 1990s, when the bids were being considered for the wastewater treatment contract, OMI officials lobbied hard for the deal. They took commissioners to dinner in Atlanta, they spent moneyadvertising their company on former Augusta Commissioner Lee Beard’s radio station and buddied up toformer Commissioner (now state Sen.) J.B. Powell.

Suddenly, Powell became OMI’s biggest cheerleader.

When the bids for the contract were discussed, then-commissioners Bill Kuhlke and Powell had a serious difference of opinion over how to begin contract negotiations.
Powell thought that, since the commission’s selection committee clearly identified OMI as the best candidate for the job, it should be a done deal.

But Kuhlke believed Powell’s method would limit the county’s ability to negotiate the best possible deal. He felt that the county should speak to both OMI and the subcommittee’s second choice, U.S. Filter.

“Mr. Powell and I want the same thing for this county,” Kuhlke said, speaking to representatives from the two companies in 1999. “But I want to ask both of you gentlemen a question: If you were sitting where I am and you had the opportunity to negotiate with more than one person and thendetermine which person you wanted to do business with, would you take that opportunity?”

A representative from U.S. Filter said they offer the same benefits as OMI. He also stated that, while OMI may be the largest company in Georgia, U.S. Filter is the biggest firm in the United States with over 600 certified operators nationwide.

Powell said Kuhlke’s question was unfair because each representative would obviously provide an opinion that was going to favor his company.

It was clear that the county should begin negotiations with OMI, Powell said, adding that it should also keep U.S. Filter as an option.

“If we cannot strike a contract with OMI, then we are going to back off and go to the second choice,” Powell said in 1999. “Then, if we can’t negotiate a contract with U.S. Filter we are going to back off and go somewhere else.”

The commission voted 9-1 to begin contract negotiations with OMI. Only Kuhlke voted against the motion. OMI was eventually awarded the contract.

Now, fast forward to when the commission renegotiated its contract with OMI in 2004.

By that time, Powell’s company, Total Maintenance Solutions, had won a contract worth $600,000 from the city to do work on the city’s sewer system and was awarded more than $2 million in subcontract work for OMI.

Coincidence? Come on.

But, having said all of that, the question remains: Has OMI done a good job with the city’s wastewater treatment plant?

The answer is no. They have done an excellent job.

Augusta is going to miss them. Let’s just hope ESG Operations can continue to keep Augusta clean and out of trouble with the EPD.