The Georgia Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling that gives class-action status to a lawsuit against a Georgia-Pacific unit accused of repeatedly releasing noxious fumes near residential properties in Effingham County.
Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products argued Superior Court Chief Judge William Woodrum Jr. abused his discretion in July 2012 when he gave class status to the case, which was initially filed by four Effingham property owners in 2010.
The plaintiffs accuse G-P of allowing hydrogen sulfide gas to escape from sludge pits at G-P’s Savannah River Mill in Rincon, causing illness and corrosion to property in the area surrounding the plant.
A spokeswoman said Atlanta-based G-P was “disappointed” in the court’s decision but will continue to work to be a good neighbor.
“As we’ve shared with our neighbors and our community leaders, we have been completing a project to close the three sludge cells that we believe are most responsible for the odors,” spokeswoman Karen Cole told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We are currently working through the last few items of this project.”
The G-P operation in the east Georgia county includes a paper mill, a power plant, a waste water treatment facility, a landfill and sludge fields. The Rincon plant has been in operation since 1986 and first began getting complaints about egg-like smells from noxious gases in 1992, the Court of Appeals wrote in its decision.
After successfully dealing with initial complaints, the mill received more complaints in 2006 from a new subdivision across the street, Mallard Pointe. At least 107 odor-related complaints were made through 2012, the Court of Appeals said.
Homeowners said fumes from the mill have caused eye, skin and lung irritations, left air-conditioning units with corrosion, and affected property values.
Georgia-Pacific identified the noxious gas as hydrogen sulfide fumes and said it was “created by the biological breakdown of living organisms necessary to [the mill’s] wastewater treatment process,” the Court of Appeals said in its decision. The fumes come from pits containing sludge produced by that process.
The court said the properties in the area have been exposed to the hydrogen sulfide gas to varying degrees or are at risk of exposure given the proximity to the mill.
The property owners sought class-action status for their suit in January 2012, asking that it include 67 residential and industrial property owners in the area.
“Although Georgia-Pacific challenges each of the court’s legal findings and contends the trial court abused its discretion in certifying the class, it did not enumerate as error any specific factual finding made by the superior court,” the appeals court said in its ruling.
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