As citizens, we hear the term "consent decree" tossed around like a boogie-man in a M. Night Shyamalan movie...we know something is there, we just don't ever get to see it until the very end.
A particularly frustrating aspect of this almost-decade long boondoggle is trying to explain the situation to newcomers and those who continually bury their heads in the sands of apathy and just accept the inability of the current city administration to make any measurable dent in the process.
So here's the Clift Nites version of the ongoing fiasco:
In 2015, the City of Fort Smith, Arkansas, entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to address long-standing violations of the Clean Water Act.
The consent decree has been a source of frustration for many Fort Smith residents. The extensive and costly sewer upgrades have led to significant increases in utility rates, placing a financial burden on households, especially those with lower incomes.
The City of Fort Smith reached an $800,000 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over penalties related to a federal consent decree. The city faced a penalty demand of $2.5 million for hundreds of SSOs and other violations between January 2015 and June 20211.
City Administrator Carl Geffken has told media outlets that the city had no defense for many of the overflows but cited "force majeure" circumstances, including the wettest year on record, the 2019 flood, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed some of the required work. After extensive negotiations, the DOJ reduced the penalty demand to approximately $2.342 million, and the city eventually settled for $800,000.
It's like the city of Fort Smith is on welfare begging for a second monthly check and an increase on their EBT card.
Citizens have expressed their dissatisfaction with the situation, feeling that the city could have been more proactive in maintaining its infrastructure to avoid such drastic measures. The ongoing financial strain and the perception of mismanagement have fueled public discontent
In the latest move. the City has "kicked the can" farther down the road and has apparently renegotiated a deal for a 12-year extension of the consent decree pushing the end date on making the mandated repairs to 2036.
While this last second Hail Mary pass will delay the inevitable, the current structure of the city--both financially and administratively--does nothing to lend confidence the situation will be broached with anything other than handwringing, wishful thinking and passing on the problem to the next generations of Fort Smithian's...if there are any.
There is reasons Fort Smith fell to the third most populous city in the state in the last census, and many of those reasons can be tied to the stranglehold that a handful of families and individuals have on this community. The elected officials and the people those elected officials hire are allowed to remain in place because they can be controlled.
Those of us who have made Fort Smith our homes our entire lives should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing things to get to this point. I doubt that I will live long enough to see the "burning of the mortgage" that represents the end of this "consent decree" fiasco.
The city keeps taking a knee in an attempt to run out the clock, and the clock just keeps ticking.
But then again, isn't that the point?
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