Wastewater project scrapped after Watchdog reader balks
“Ginger Harry of Knoxville was so happy about the news she received Friday that she dashed home to start baking Christmas cookies.
The news: The Central Iowa Water Association had lost its authority to take part of her farmland to build a new wastewater treatment facility.
“Words have meaning,” Harry’s lawyer Steve Wandro told me Friday. “Marion County scrapped the project.”
The water association had indicated it would use powers of eminent domain, if necessary, to take part of Harry’s family land to build the new facility to stop human waste and sewage from being discharged between the unincorporated communities of Attica and Pershing. The association was given those powers under an agreement with Marion County.
I wrote about Harry’s plight on Nov. 29, after she had already tried to convince the nonprofit water association, county supervisors, the county attorney and others that her farm, Cee Cee Farms, was too valuable to take and other alternatives were available. She contended she was being bullied to give in, noting that a lawyer for the association had threatened her in writing with a $4.1 million civil lawsuit for jeopardizing the public money earmarked for the project.”
The Des moines Register 19 December 2014.