DOVER -- Larry Brown walks a visitor to the edge of his property in southeast Georgia where the Ogeechee River curls slow and silent through Spanish-moss-draped oaks and towering virgin cypress.
He points to bubbles stirring the surface of the glass-smooth water about 20 yards from the bank. "That's the discharge point, " he says. "It doesn't look like much, does it?"
For years, it didn't look like much to locals who swam in the river, fished in it, canoed and kayaked on it. Then environmental disaster struck: 38,634 fish were killed along a 70-mile stretch of the river starting about 50 yards downstream of the discharge pipe of the King America Finishing textile plant, which makes treated fabrics. No dead fish were counted above the pipe.
That was 10 months ago. An investigation by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency produced a theory that high heat and low water levels so weakened the fish they died of the bacterial disease columnaris. They never linked the kill to King America, which denies it caused the problem but agreed to some operating changes.
"It may be impossible to ever know for certain exactly what happened, " wrote an EPA scientist.
That's not good enough for some people along the river.
Several are suing the company claiming they had sores or other ailments from swimming in the water downstream of the plant. The suits contend the company released "an unknown quantity of caustic chemical agents and other contaminants, " though no direct evidence is included in the suit.
They say the effects "were observed, and continue to be observed, " in five counties, and that the release "killed virtually all aquatic life downstream (from the plant) . . . including, but not limited to, all species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, including alligators.
Ogeechee Riverkeeper, a nonprofit that seeks to protect the waterway, challenged the consent order that allowed King America to resume operations after the investigation.
In it the company agreed to change certain procedures and limit its discharge to a percentage of water flow, a move aimed at holding down the concentration of pollutants during low-water periods. But the order essentially absolved the company of blame.
An administrative judge last week dismissed the group's suit, but it plans to appeal.
Don Stack, the Atlanta attorney representing the group, said the consent order shows "a lack of political will at the EPD to do the job they're empowered to do."
EPD director Jud Turner defended his agency's handling of the matter.
Turner, in an email response to questions, said the agency has been vigilant in monitoring King America Finishing's testing of its own discharge and water quality in the Ogeechee since the kill. All companies in the state monitor their own discharges, according to law.
"King America Finishing's wastewater discharge has been thoroughly analyzed and is being monitored extensively and continuously, " wrote Turner.
"The current discharge is not causing a violation of federal or state in-stream water quality standards, and routine testing confirms that the discharge is not a stressor to fish in the Ogeechee River. EPD worked with the company to ensure the discharge would be improved and not to make it worse."
EPD didn't discover until the fish kill that King America had been discharging pollutants from a fire retardant fabric line into the Ogeechee for five years without a permit. Inspectors visited the plant several times during that period and in 2006 issued the company an air permit for the line.
Turner said the company never sought a water permit for the line, adding it is a company's responsibility to get all required permits.
King America's Atlanta attorney, Lee DeHihns, dismissed talk that the company is responsible for the fish kill or for discharging without a permit as "allegations ... and none of it has been proven anywhere, nor is it written in any document that King America Finishing caused the fish kill."
The fish kill has infuriated many people who live along the Ogeechee. Brown, a retired game warden, remembers when the plant was built in the 1960s.
"They promised [the discharge] would be clean and clear, " said Brown, adding that he no longer eats fish from the river. "We didn't like it but we needed the jobs."
Ben Anderson owns land across the river from Brown and downstream and next door to the King America plant. He and two others are suing the company. Anderson said the discharge "killed virtually all aquatic life" downstream and ruined his ability to enjoy his more than one mile of riverfront.
Anderson, a former Screven County commissioner, said he was harassed after filing the suit last June because the plant employs about 450 people.
"I had to get the sheriff to park the deputy car out in front of my house for three weeks it got so bad here, " he said. "People were driving by with their hands out the windows making gestures."
The state restocked the river with about 400,000 fingerling size fish (1-3 inches) last fall. Some fisherman say they don't see them below the King America discharge, while above it fish continue to flourish.
"I've tried fishing in it below the pipe five or six times since the kill and I ain't caught nothing yet, " one angler, Alton Carlisle, said.
Sen. Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, introduced a bill this session that would have required third-party monitoring of plant discharges after a fish kill. The bill, opposed by the textile industry, never made it out of committee.
Hill said he's been troubled that the EPD allowed the plant to discharge from the fire retardant line without a permit for five years.
"Clearly somebody dropped the ball, " he said.
An Auburn University professor working with Ogeechee Riverkeeper to monitor the water near the company's discharge found that ammonia levels jumped four times on Sept. 15, the same day an Effingham County man reported he got sores after swimming in the river downstream of the King America discharge. Ammonia level is one of the things the company is adjusting since the fish kill, according to EPD.
Bulloch County advised people to stay out of the Ogeechee. That advisory still stands, said Ted Wynn, chief of Bulloch County Public Safety/EMA.
"As far as I'm concerned the conditions of that river haven't changed, and I'm going to err on the side of a caution until somebody tells me different."
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