Gulf Shores, Ala. – (OBA) – Baldwin County Sewer Service (BCSS) will go before the Gulf Shores City Council tonight to ask for a conditional use permit to add a second sludge pond at its facility on Fort Morgan Road.

The company has been before the council and planning commission several times since it was discovered BCSS added and was using a second sludge already despite not asking for or receiving the proper permitting. BCSS is in Gulf Shores, but most of its service areas are in other parts of south Baldwin County.

With around 20,000 accounts and growing, BCSS is the largest privately owned sewer utility in the state. The Fort Morgan treatment plant is the southernmost of five plants operated by BCSS and if the sludge pond is approved, it will be the company’s largest.

Filing as an “essential services facility” the company hopes the council will allow for the treatment plant’s expansion. It has been denied by the planning commission, board of zoning adjustment and the council.

BCSS will appear before the council in a work session tonight, March 18th, and will have a public hearing before the board of zoning adjustment on April 2nd requesting the board “reverse the order, requirement, decision and determination of the Zoning Administrator Andy Bauer.”

In January of 2022, BCSS filed an application with ADEM to increase the capacity of the Fort Morgan Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) by 65 percent, from 1.2 million gallons per day to 2 million.

During the work session, the council will also discuss:

Hiring Police Facility Design Group to perform professional services for the construction on the Gulf Shores Justice Center for $1.4 million. There is a total of $19 million budgeted for the project including retrofitting the former Sacred Heart building to be part of a plan to put the police department, jail and municipal courts under one roof.

Buying three VMS signs for the Public Works for $54,552 from Prologic ITS. Public Works Director Noel Hand said in a memo to the council four of the boards are nonoperational, one needs repairs leaving the city with two working signs. The signs are used to provide information to drivers regarding traffic, events or safety concerns.