Effingham County commissioners have agreed to have a Savannah law firm try to get damages for the county from King America Finishing for a May 2011 fish kill on the Ogeechee River.
Commissioners voted unanimously on June 18 to allow Commission Chairman Wendall Kessler to execute a contract with Oliver Maner LLP for their engagement in the matter.
The deal calls for the county to invest no money in the effort. The law firm will be paid only if a settlement is reached.
Kessler said he heard that some people who own property on the Ogeechee River in Effingham County were receiving settlement payments from the plant, which is in Screven County.
In May 2011, the Ogeechee was the site of a fish kill that left 38,000 fish dead, one of the largest fish kills in state history. The 70-mile kill zone began just below King America Finishing’s discharge pipe.
An investigation by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division officially linked the dead fish to a bacterial infection but also revealed the company’s fire retardant processing line had been operating without a pollution permit since its inception in 2006.
Kessler said he knows someone who had a new Ford pickup truck and when Kessler asked him about the vehicle, the man said King America paid for it.
Kessler said one landowner reportedly got $34,000 in a settlement from the manufacturing plant. Kessler said he thinks the county should receive damages, too.
The county owns Steel Bridge Landing, off of Ga. 119 at the crossing of the Ogeechee River, said Adam Kobek, the county’s director of community relations.
Kobek said the property is a little over 2 acres and has a pavilion and boat landing.
The boat landing was closed during the fish kill, Kessler said. “The county shut it down,” he said. “People couldn’t go tubing.”
“If anybody’s got a claim, it’s the county,” he said. “If everyone else can get money, the county should be able to.”
Kessler said he doesn’t have any guess about how much money the county might collect or when it might collect. He said the money could be used to improve the site.
Paul H. Threlkeld, an attorney with Oliver Maner, had no comment about which court or location the firm might use.