by Robin Kemp
Forest Park Mayor Angelyne Butler and Ward 3 Councilman Héctor Gutierrez are scheduled to meet with residents of the Park at Fort Gillem Apartments at 5 p.m. today, Wednesday, March 24. The city has issued a flyer inviting people from other areas around Fort Gillem, as well.
In a face-to-face meeting with Gutierrez last week, some residents said not everyone in the complex has Internet access and that they have been showing people news items on their own cellphones to let people know about pollution at nearby Fort Gillem. Gutierrez promised to bring flyers to spread the word. He later said he and Butler would bring a computer to the complex so residents could speak directly with PLanning, Building, and Zoning Director James Shelby.
On Wednesday morning, a resident sent The Clayton Crescent a photo of a flyer the city sent out, inviting people to an “Environment Community Meeting” via Zoom.
The flyer reads: “You are invited to a community meeting to voice your concerns about the environmental concerns in the Fort Gillem and surrounding community area. Join us to hear from our City’s environmental specialist on the conditions in the area!”
The meeting comes less than two days before a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers public comment period closes on a proposed bioremediation plan for the FTG-01 site on the north side of the base. The required public notice was published last month in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which residents say few people in the local area would have seen. The notice did not appear in the county paper of record, the Clayton News.
To access the meeting online via Zoom, go to tiny.cc/EnviroMtg
To take part by phone, call (929)-205-6099, then enter the meeting ID and passcode when prompted.
The meeting ID is 846-1549-7886 and the passcode is 677700.
In addition, the “Fort Gillem Remediation” Facebook page posted on Sunday, March 21, that it would be taking groundwater samples in Conley this week and “should be finished before April”:
If you live in Conley and notice any groundwater testing going on, please let us know. (Pictures are welcome.) E-mail KempWrites@gmail.com and tell us where and when you saw any groundwater testing activity. An address, cross street, landmark, or GPS coordinates can help narrow down the location.
Read The Clayton Crescent’s previous coverage about longtime contamination affecting residents near Fort Gillem, some of whom say no one ever told them about the problem:
