Sludge Watch ==> Augusta Georgia settles award on farmer with dead sludged cows

[Maureen Reilly]

Settlement ends suit over sludge

Insurers will pay family, take care of legal fees

By Sandy Hodson| Staff Writer

Thursday, September 20, 2007


A settlement agreement approved by Augusta commissioners this week means the 
end of lengthy and costly litigation over sewage sludge and dying dairy 
cows.



Former city attorney James W. Ellison said Wednesday that the settlement 
means insurance carriers will pay the city's legal costs in defending a 
lawsuit filed by the Boyceland Dairy and pay R.A. McElmurray & Sons to 
settle its lawsuit against the city.

"No costs to the taxpayers," Mr. Ellison said.

The McElmurray and Boyce families - dairy farmers in south Augusta and Burke 
County - initially sued the city in 1998.

They contend that sludge from the Messerly Wastewater Plant that the city 
offered as free fertilizer contained dangerous amounts of heavy metals that 
poisoned their land and cattle, according to reports in The Augusta 
Chronicle.

The Boyce family lawsuit was filed in Richmond County Superior Court, and a 
jury awarded the family $550,000 in 2003. The family had asked for $12.5 
million.

Judge J. Carlisle Overstreet, who presided over the Boyce trial, threw out 
the McElmurray lawsuit. Higher courts, however, reinstated the lawsuit, and 
it had gone all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court and was pending trial.

The settlement ends all of the litigation, Mr. Ellison said.

Lloyds of London, National Union Insurance Co., Coregis Insurance Co. and 
St. Paul Insurance Co. agreed to pay $1.3 million for the cost of defending 
the city in the Boyce lawsuit. The companies will pay the McElmurray family 
$1.5 million to settle their case.

The city filed suit against the insurance companies in federal court in 
2004.

Though the consolidated government doesn't have outside insurance, the city 
had policies before the 1995 consolidation, Mr. Ellison said.

The city contended that the insurance companies should pay for the cost 
because the sludge was applied before consolidation, Mr. Ellison said.