A few years ago, the wife and I bought an 18 acre place just outside a town of about 1500 people (maybe three miles out of city limits) which had a house and shop on what was a rock quarry 60 years ago. Perfect for a guy like me as it is wooded and rolling and the nearest house is at least a half mile away. Across the county road is a 30 acre tract with a construction company office on it and nothing else, to our direct west a guy has a hunting cabin and woods (he's not there much) the rest is farmed all around us, particularly right across the road to our north which I learned is a 200 acre + place owned by a man and his wife in their '80s or thereabouts who've had it forever.
About two weeks ago, the fella who owns the construction company next door drove up and let me know the city needed to build a new sewage lagoon (apparently the current one is inadequate for some reason) and is planning to force the old guy to the north to give up 56 acres to build this thing maybe a half mile from me. This is going to involve running pipe out from the town along Highway 40 then north along my side of the minimally maintained county road I live off of which just from what I've discerned will be a big mess and encroach on a bunch of my property (not sure what the county has as easement for this) and will block my driveway while it's going on (500 feet from the road to the house).
They had a quick town hall meeting which I missed most of due to a work commitment which apparently got rather heated. My wife did attend and it apparently did get ugly and they tabled the discussion for a while. When I got there, I met the father of the guy who told me about this, their family has been around here forever and knows everybody. He was in a heated conversation with the mayor, but it came to light that he knew someone who successfully fought a gas pipeline that was going to similarly run right next to their rural house and he was going to discuss it with them when they got back from traveling. I need to get back in touch with him.
Bottom line, it's wrong all around, I can't see where piping sewage out three miles and building a new lagoon could possibly be cheaper than fixing what they have. I know I need to get more information, but where do I start to fight this? I'm at least in touch with the other affected people now, I'm new to this town/area and work in another town and county, so I don't have the connections they do.
Anybody been through something like this? Seems like an awfully sneaky and under handed way they went about it, I was never notified by any city or county government about this plan and been living here with a mailing address for three years now, they could have sent something out, apparently, I was expected to find out when the back hoes showed up on my property. This is obviously gonna raise my property taxes since they'll have to upgrade the gravel road from what it is and no doubt will kill property values. Thoughts?