Hydro-Vac Sued by Jack McDonald for Lost Profits

Chattanooga Fax, Aug. 7, 2000

Longtime Chattanooga developer Jack McDonald has filed suit in Catoosa County against waste treatment company Hydro-Vac services. Inc.

McDonald and his two businesses, Green Acres of America and Holiday Trav-L-Park (a campground and mobile home park), claim the company owned by Bill Foxworth 'creates and maintains noxious odors and vapors, foul excrements and airborne pathogenic wastes and is a nuisance on the property'.

These odors are believed to be dangerous the lawsuit states, and harm the area residents.

McDonald is seeking an injunction against the Hydro-Vac plant in Fort Oglethorpe which borders his properties. He also has claimed lost profits and seeks 'special, general, and punitive damages'.

McDonald also wants Hydro-Vac ordered to 'provide immediate biological and sanitary treatment to the wastes under its care and control, and for such treatment to be in conformity with the recommendation of a licensed professional engineer qualified to render opinions, designs, and specifications in the field of sanitary sewer disposal, treatment, and transportation'.

McDonald, who ran for congress here in 1970 and lost the GOP nomination by less than one percent, has developed a number of office buildings downtown and served on the initial task forces for the Aquarium and for the RiverWalk. 

McDonald told Chattanooga Fax he has received a call from the EPA's criminal department. "Where there's smoke, usually there's fire," he said. "Environmental violations are difficult to prosecute, but I think they certainly should be prosecuted."

McDonald said the damages he and others have suffered are "impossible to assess" because the foul odor has damaged the reputation of his parks.

Hydro-Vac has a second plant on Broad Street near Wheland Foundry which the paper reported recently as shut down. But a source very familiar with that operation, who asked to remain anonymous, told Chattanooga Fax that BFI trucks bring 400 tons of garbage to the site each day and overloaded trucks then take the waste and haul it to Alabama on roads that avoid truck scale facilities.

The source also said Hydro-Vac continues to dump contaminated water into the Chattanooga sewer discharge.
Calls to Hydro-Vac owner Bill Foxworth were not returned.