It was a packed house at Valley Grande’s City Hall council chambers Tuesday evening with all members present and residents of the Overlook Hills housing complex ready for answers.

Angry grunts and grimaces permeated from the crowd as the reality of how the city would fix residents’ ongoing sewage problems, hit them in the face. After a meeting in June with the housing community’s waste water operating system Phoenix Water Resources LLC, residents assumed they could put pressure on the city to hand them more than $250,000 to fix their sewer problems.

Valley Grande Mayor Tom Lee said he wants to clear up the confusion.

“There’s been a significant amount of misinformation about what’s possible and what’s not possible,” Lee said. “I and our engineer Ray Hogg have been working on this issue since February and the problem is not new to us. We’re sensitive to what’s going on in Overlook Hills and we’ve (the council) proposed a plan.”

The comprehensive plan, Lee said, will cost a little more than $1.1 million. The plan, which he said is “fairly controversial,” will include placing a pump station in and around the operating lagoon, then place a force beam around Merrifield Drive until it intersects with Ala. Hwy. 22, then moving to County Road 81 meeting the sewage of the middle schools. Lee said the plan would provide treatment for schools and future development, making property extremely valuable.

“We’ll bring schools onto our line and we’ll come back to 81 and go to the backside of the (Valley Grande) walking trail into the woods and place a treatment plant there,” Lee said. “It doesn’t answer all questions but it addresses the situation across the board, not just in Overlook Hills. It may not be the best thing in the world but it’s a plan and it’s legal.”

Lee said in 2005, the Overlook Hills waste water system, which is nonexistent, requested the state and federally funded STAG grant, or state and tribal assistance funds of $96,000. Lee said because no public agency was present to receive the money, the grant, which is furnished by the Environmental Protection Agency to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management for distribution, has since been recalled. Lee said the additional $250,000 state legislative grant is a part of ADEM’s line-item budget specifically earmarked for Valley Grande’s waste water improvements, not solely for the Overlook community as previously believed by the community.

“The city has requested information from U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions and U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell to see if those funds are still available,” Lee said. “If so, what are the steps required to have it renamed to an agency in Valley Grande that’s legal to receive that money. The odds of money still being available are slim. The asking agency was not a public agency and it’s illegal for the money to be sent to someone who is not representative of the public.

“Phoenix Water Resources LLC made an application to ADEM for the funds but it was denied,” Lee said. “It’s not eligible to receive public money in any form and we’ve had that verified by a legal staff at ADEM and attorneys here.”

In addition, because Phoenix is a private company Lee said, it can do as it pleases.

Lee said after sending a plan to ADEM for how to use the money, the agency will send the city a check.

“We feel very confident we’ll put the check in the bank,” Lee said. “The city of Valley Grande is the only public agency to receive money. We want the plan to be a significant improvement for all of us. Time is of the essence but we can’t act overnight and the council must decide if this is the route we will go. We’ve got to do it right. ”

Economic development, Lee said, is the route the council is proposing to take.

Overlook resident Pauline Bryant believes the proposal is a good thing.

“If they can do it without spending a whole lot of money and (Phoenix) doesn’t charge us more than its fine with me,” Bryant said.