LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The sleepy town of Hunters Hollow is usually quiet and calm, but these days its residents are in danger and the mayor is angry.
“I’m past disturbed,” Mayor Linda Parker said. “This is ridiculous.”
What Parker calls “ridiculous” is the gallons of unfiltered, untreated sewer water flowing into a Bullitt County creek. It’s a pool of hazardous, toxic waste that’s been flowing into fresh water for more than 500 days now.
“The smell is just so strong, it was terrible,” said Hunters Hollow resident Curt Rexroat.
The sewage treatment plant across from Rexroat's home exploded in March 2014. Reports from the Kentucky Division of Water show approximately 1.5 million gallons of unfiltered sewer water spewed into the creek over the course of four days. That’s enough to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools.
“The EPA, in my opinion, should have been on this,” Mayor Parker said. “That’s a health hazard.”
The Hunters Hollow site serves approximately 700 homes in the area and in the surrounding communities of Foxchase, Hillview and Pioneer Village. Meaning at least 700 toilets flushing straight into the creek where the water flows from Brooks run to Floyds Fork and eventually the Salt River.
“They just brought in temporary treatment centers and set them up temporarily and I would see them every day because they were so small, waste would dump over the top edges and literally drop onto the ground,” Rexroat said.
Roughly 17 months later, the rusted shell of that blown out plant sits overgrown in weeds, surrounded by a cesspool, with sewage still leaking from the site.
Rexroat said it never got completely fixed and Mayor Parker doesn’t know who dropped the ball.
But WDRB combed through more than 400 pages of public records looking for the answer, unraveling the truth and finding blame on many hands.
The failure
The Hunters Hollow treatment plant belongs to Carrol Cogan.
Chris Cogan runs Bullitt Utilities Inc. for his father, Carrol, who we're told is seriously ill. Bullitt Utilities pays Covered Bridge Utilities to operate the Hunters Hollow site. According to Secretary of State records, Martin Cogan started the company.
Chris Cogan wouldn't speak to WDRB or an interview but he couldn't dodge questions on the explosion in Frankfort.
“Despite the fact that the utility had no money for repairs a number of years ago, my father loaned the utility money and went to Louisiana to acquire a used treatment plant, bought it, delivered it to the site and was refused permits to install it,” Chris Cogan said in a Public Services Commission hearing in June.
“We never wanted to be in this business,” he said then.
These private companies work separately from Bullitt Sanitation, the county's sewer system. It runs under a license from Kentucky’s Energy and Environmental cabinet. After the explosion the cabinet pushed the private and public parties together to get the leaking sewage to a working plant.
A signed order dated November 24th, 2014 between the cabinet and Bullitt Utilities washed away $155,000 in fines. Instead, the state told the utility company to use the money for needed improvements and broker a deal with Bullitt Sanitation.
Nine months later the water still rushes into the creek yet the county won't fix the problems at the Hunters Hollow site. County workers said it's not on their end of the agreement.
Bullitt Sanitation’s maintenance supervisor Charles Raisor showed up at the failed plant in the middle of our investigation. He said his crews visit a couple times a day just to see if anything's changed.
Raisor told us we’d have to contact the owners to find out more, and we asked him if there was passing of the buck going on and what the fix would be.
“I do not know," Raisor said. "I guess if somebody gave them some money they would fix it."
In the meantime…“Leave it like it is I guess,” Raisor said. “It's not up to me.”
WDRB also took samples to a lab to find out exactly what's in this water. The results show E-coli levels in the creek three times higher than the legal limit.
“I think it's inhumane,” Rexroat said. “They're giving people diseases that they don't even know they're giving them.”
It's not just a danger for humans; the water is so filthy even the fish swim the opposite direction. Lab results show ammonia levels are so high it burns their gills.
“It is upsetting, upsetting for us in this County,” said Bullitt County Health department environmental manager Chad Lynch.
Lynch said the toxic water poses a risk to vegetation and livestock as well but that he can't act because the health department doesn't regulate commercial sewers.
We took our findings to Kentucky Senator and Minority Caucus Chair Dan Seum.
“Lock them up,” Seum said. “Put somebody in jail, I bet it gets cleaned up then.”
We even took Sen. Seum out to the site to see for himself.
“I assumed that the connection with Bullitt Sanitation was complete and underway,” he said. “It was also my understanding that MSD was trying to connect a line into this as well…It's a failure.”
The Kentucky Division of water now confirms Bullitt Utilities is in violation of a state order and we're told it faces another $125,000 fine that should not be forgiven.
The sanctioning may be in vain. Bullitt Utilities is broke and bordering bankruptcy. Chris Cogan admits to more than $3 million in debt.
So who will pay?
Hunters Hollow customers will pay, if the company gets its way. Chris Cogan is asking the state to approve a 120 percent spike on their bills.
Testifying before the Public Service Commission Chris Cogan told state officials he needs the increase approved to secure more loans.
“I think it's horrible,” Chris Cogan said at the June hearing. “It's a tragedy and I feel for those customers but that doesn't change the fact that there was a natural disaster that cost a tremendous amount of money that needs to be paid for.”
When pressed by attorneys Chris Cogan confesses that there is no long-term solution in place or the failure at Hunters Hollow.
Mayor Parker sat in the same hearing disgusted, not as much by the mess but that Chris Cogan would ask the customers who have been dumped on for a year-and-a-half to pay for it.
“I think somebody needs to be punished for this,” Mayor Parker said.
The sleepy town of Hunters Hollow is trapped in a nightmare with no end in sight.
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