Kilgore Penalized for Industrial Wastewater

KILGORE — A state environmental mandate gives Kilgore 315 days to put a waste-water review process in place to ensure industrial companies clean what they flush into the sewage treatment plant. That’s according to KETK and the Longview News-Journal. City council members agreed Tuesday to comply with a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality enforcement order to put a pretreatment oversight system in place. The order came with a $3,980 fine for failing to ensure industrial plants remove oil and grease before bringing it to the wastewater treatment plant that discharges into Rabbit Creek.

“You cannot design a municipal (wastewater) treatment plant to treat anything and everything that comes to it,” Utilities Director David said, explaining the need to have industry clean its worst waste before putting it into the city sewer system. Hackley told council members the state agency first told Kilgore to enact such a program in 2003 but withdrew the requirement three years later. Regulators renewed the requirement on Kilgore after an environmental audit last summer, he added. “Basically, they are saying we should have been more proactive, not reactive,” Hackley said. The council agreed to pay the fine, and Hackley and Public Works Director Seth Sorenson said they would return with recommendations on how to implement, and staff, an oversight system.