By Leanne Cloudman

Staff Reporter

lcloudman@yadkinripple.com

Yadkin resident, Garry Lassiter is worried about the septic systems in the Mountain Crest Subdivision. This is not a new problem, it’s been going on for over 10 years, and that has Lassiter frustrated with attempts to find help locally. Over the past few weeks, he has called the county commissioners and spoken at multiple commissioner’s meetings requesting help. He has called both state and federal representatives, the governor’s office and even the White House. He’s not going to stop until someone fixes the problems.

It began shortly after Lassiter purchased his home and the adjacent lot in 1987. Then-county manager Ron Niland told him when he began to make plans to build a home on the lot that it wasn’t necessary to put in a septic tank, that the area was scheduled to get water and sewer through a project being undertaken by the Town of Jonesville.

In a letter from the Town of Jonesville to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, it stated as follows:

“The Town of Jonesville respectfully requests funding assistance from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund to install a gravity sewer line that will allow for the elimination of 21 septic systems, many of which are failing, in the Mountain Crest community south of town.”

This letter, dated Feb. 28, 2007, asked for funding for a sewer line the Town of Jonesville planned to install and admits many of the 21 septic systems in Mountain Crest are failing. That was over two years ago.

The Town of Jonesville received a grant in the amount of $150,000. This amount fell short of the expected cost of the project by around $50,000, and because Mountain Crest is outside of Jonesville’s city limits and their ETJ, they requested the money from the county. The county refused.

It should be noted that the Jonesville Town manager when this project was initiated was Ron Niland and he was the one, according to Lassiter who made the promises of water and sewer to Mountain Crest. He is no longer employed in that capacity.

Jonesville’s current position is that because the community is not in their jurisdiction and because they are only looking at a sewer line now and not water and sewer, billing is an issue. They believe this is the county’s responsibility and they plan to return the $150,000 grant obtained for this project.

At the commissioners meeting on Monday, Chuck Wood, Environmental Health Program Specialist for the Yadkin County Health Department, spoke in answer to questions of possible health concerns due to failing septic systems in Mountain Crest. He assured the commissioners that only two systems had failed since 2002 and that he had never seen sewage standing on top of the ground in that area. Lassiter disagreed.

“There have been two in the last month,” Lassiter said.

Wood says that only four complaints have been filed about septic problems in the area, which were all filed by Lassiter. Wood suggested that the matter be to referred to the state for soil testing. This upset Lassiter again.

“The state has already been here and so has the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources, soil people and water people,” he said. “It’s been tested. I have copies of the reports. I don’t know what else they could want.”

County manager, Stan Kiser is trying to find a solution that all can agree to. Randy Darden, current consulting engineer, has been asked by the commissioners to look into the problem to see if there might be a grant available for water as well as sewer for the area.

Engineers’ plans for the sewer line have been completed previously as well as soil and water samples. Lassiter has copies of all the documentation as well as photographs to prove all that he has said.

“They don’t want to see my paperwork,” he said on Monday. “They just don’t want to listen to what is really going on.”

Both Wooten and Austin suggested that having the new report from the state might go a long way toward obtaining a grant to complete the work that needs to be done.