HAL WRIGHT, ESQ., P.C.

ATTORNEYS AT LAW 3781 PARIAN RIDGE ROAD ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30327 HOWELL F. WRIGHT (404) 694-7789 hwrightlaw@bellsouth.net

August 27, 2012

Via First Class Mail and Electronic Mail Mayor Kasim Reed 55 Trinity Avenue, Suite 2400 Atlanta, Georgia 30303 Re: Atlantas continued failure to acknowledge the Safe Drinking Water Act and Underground Injection Control regulations threatens the Areas water resources. Dear Mayor Reed, This letter is written on behalf of NOCRAP (Newly Organized Citizens Requesting Aquifer Protection); the Little Mountain Water Association, Inc.; and the South River Watershed Alliance, Inc. The concerns expressed herein apply equally to all citizens of the Greater Metro Atlanta Area. The matter demanding your attention is the contamination of Atlantas water resources. Approximately 15 years ago, federal District Court Judge Thomas W. Thrash wrote in his summary judgment opinion in favor of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper that Atlantas CSO treatment facilities are dumping massive amounts of proscribed metals and fecal coliform bacteria into tributaries of the Chattahoochee River in violation of the [Clean Water Act] Permits. Today, Judge Thrash could just as easily write: Atlantas underground wastewater tunnels are endangering Atlantas subsurface waters with proscribed metals and fecal coliform bacteria in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Underground Injection Control program regulations. So what does this mean? Mayor Reed, it simply means that the Citys construction and operation of storage and conveyance tunnels necessarily involves sending wastewater through a shaft (injection well) into subsurface excavated tunnels or caverns, an activity which is otherwise known as underground injection. Underground injection requires a permit under the Safe Drinking Water Act/Underground Injection Control program (SDWA/UIC). Atlantas tunnels (and the shafts that fill them) are not permitted under the SDWA/UIC. The Safe Drinking Water Act, the UIC program, Georgias Water Quality Control Act, and Georgias various implementing rules and regulations, are all intended to guarantee that the citizens interests in Georgias surface and ground water resources are restored,
August 27, 2012 - Notification Letter to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed

maintained, and protected, in part, by assuring water quality for the present and future needs of the state. By disregarding the SDWA, and the clear policies embodied in Georgias implementing laws and rules, your administration is unnecessarily placing Atlantas present and future water resources at risk, which risk is also shared by my clients. As you are well aware, the City has adamantly attempted to justify its untenable position regarding the SDWA by deferring to the position held by the EPA. In a nutshell, the EPAs position holds that the SDWA/UIC program does not apply to the emplacement of wastewater in storage and conveyance tunnels because the tunnels themselves are not intended to emplace wastewater beneath the surface. However, as you are also aware, the EPAs interpretation would very likely not withstand the scrutiny of judicial review, having largely been addressed and discredited by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in their decision commonly known as LEAF-I, 1997 (Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation v. EPA). Details surrounding the legal issues involved with Atlantas Consent Decrees were submitted to the Department of Justice by my clients and can be viewed online at < http://www.nocrapgeorgia.blogspot.com/ >. See Posting [9], July 6, 2012, Public Comment to Atlanta's proposed amendment for the First Amended Consent Decree". Mayor Reed, the Citys underground injection activities have placed hundreds of millions of gallons of un-permitted untreated wastewater into the Atlanta Area aquifers. In the aftermath of the Atlanta voters overwhelming rejection of the transportation tax you were quoted as stating: "We have to get at the issue of why so many good, decent, honest women and men don't trust their government enough to take on a big problem." Should a people trust a government which knowingly constructs an un-permitted wastewater infrastructure system which threatens the regions water resources? Is it not understandable that the people of Atlanta dont trust you, as the leader of this great City, when you fail to take whatever measures are necessary to assure the Citys water resources are protected? Doing the right thing is simple, assure that the regulatory protection of the Safe Drinking Water Act/UIC program is afforded to all living in the Atlanta area. Do not defer to a regulatory agency where such deference serves to negate a law meant to safeguard the well-being of the very community that you, as Mayor, are sworn to serve and protect. My clients and this City are requesting that you, as the representative of all Atlanta, demand regulatory clarity from the Court (Judge Thrash) as to whether the Safe Drinking Water Act/UIC program applies to the emplacement of wastewater through a shaft (injection well) into subsurface excavated tunnels or caverns.

Respectfully submitted,
/s/Howell Franklin Wright

Howell Franklin Wright

August 27, 2012 - Notification Letter to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed