As most of you know, there was a sewage leak from the home at 517 Macy into Bishop Creek. City testing from the site in early March has now established that Bishop Creek was contaminated by fecal material. As many of you also know, the home at 517 Macy is owned by William and Shelly Hickman (this information is available on the County Assessor’s website). Mr. Hickman is a Candidate for the Ward 4 City Council seat. Mr. Hickman’s sewage leak has not been an issue in the City Council race up to now. This is true for a couple of very good reasons: (1) it hasnt been clear whether Mr. Hickman was culpable for the leak and (2) neither of Mr. Hickmans opponents has any interest in raising an issue unless it has a public policy angle. Regretfully, however, the situation has changed. First, new evidence (from a public records request) has emerged that is germane to the Hickmans’ accountability their sewage leak (its duration at the very least). Second, Mr. Hickman’s campaign has raised the issue of accountability for all events and omissions that occur ‘on the watch’ of a candidate. (E.g., if it is relevant that Jungman was on the City Council when the storm shelters closed, it is surely relevant that Mr. Hickman was the owner of a house with a sewage leak.) [The following comes from City documents - mostly emails - obtained by Casey Holcomb by way of an open records request.] Citizens have been reporting discharges from 517 Macy since at least July 14, 2012. (According to the County Assessor, the Hickmans purchases the property on July 19, 2012.) Concerns were expressed to the City in July 2012, September 2013, November 2013 (from 2 sources), January 2014, February 2014, and March 2014. All of these concerns were expressed in terms of illegal discharges - sewage smell, detergent smell, discharge that looked like toilet paper, etc. The City contacted the Hickmans as early as July 22, 2012. The Hickmans, however, told City staff that the discharge was from a sump pump that removed groundwater from around their foundation. This hypothesis - now known to be inaccurate - was adopted by the City and cited several times in response to citizen concerns (as late as early March 2014). The Hickmans had plumbing work done in the area of the discharge sometime before mid-November 2013. I am not lawyer and so I am not competent to comment on legal issues; epistemically and morally, however, it is clear that the Hickman’s *should have known* that the groundwater hypothesis was false from *at least* that point on. The City seems to have discovered that the groundwater hypothesis was false on February 28, 2014 when a City worker “noticed a check valve inside the manhole that line [sic] up with the cleanouts. After talking to the resident; [sic] it was discovered that he had a pump station in his backyard to pump his sewer to our main.” It is unclear why anyone was ever persuaded by the groundwater-sump-pump hypothesis. According to Scott Sturtz, City Engineer (3/6/14) “There was never a pipeline discharging directly to the Bishop Creek channel. Instead, there is a conventional 2-inch sewer service line originating from a sump pump (grinder pump) located in the lower elevation of the home and leading to the Citys sanitary sewer mainline located north of the Bishop Creek channel. The discharge that city staff and others were observing was on the surface of the ground in the grassy area.” (The City’s response to this problem was pretty disappointing, but I’ll save that for another post.) Mr. Hickman has not met his own standard for accountability. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 06:55:47 +0000