Ontwa Township has once again been fined by the Elkhart Board of Public Works.

At its June 17 meeting, the Elkhart Board of Public Works approved a recommendation that the Ontwa Township Sewer District be fined $5,000 — a fine of $2,500 for each of two excessive readings of hydrogen sulfide between May 12 and May 14.

Ontwa Township has been previously fined $11,750, $10,000 and $1,000 as a result of the same situation. Overall, the township has now been fined $27,750.

Several Ontwa Township board members attended the meeting and explained their efforts to resolve the problem, including trustee Jerry Duck.

“We keep learning a little bit more every time,” he said. “Mr. (David) Taylor made the comment that there is not any language in the contract about fines. I’m going to have him show me. If that’s true, why are we paying the fines? Why isn’t our waste water committee, our supervisor and our attorney going to those meetings finding this out?”

Duck said that he was not sure if the frequency of testing has stepped up.

“Why are we not testing?” he said. “They tell me that Severn Trent is testing and they come up with one reading and the city (Elkhart) is coming up with another reading. The question is, why aren’t the people together at the same time reading their machines and seeing who is right and who is wrong if that is the case? Why are they not doing it?

“These are questions now that I hope our new sewer board asks. I hope the proper people have been elected to this sewer board and they can start researching some of this stuff and going in and finding our the answers.”

Tom Miller, from Severn Trent, the firm that manages the system for Ontwa Township, said that one of two companies in the township suspected of emitting the waste, is now treating its own waste, while the other has started a pretreatment process.

So far, Ontwa Township has spent $52,218 to address the issue, according to Miller.

Elkhart also voted to approve a cease and desist order calling for Ontwa to stop violating its waste treatment agreement by emitting excessive hydrogen sulfide.