Telephone Pretrial Conference Held For AquaBounty vs. Williams County Case

By: Jacob Kessler
THE VILLAGE REPORTER

A telephone pretrial conference took place on Friday, July 21^st. According to court documents, following the conference, a set of orders were handed down to both parties. These are as follows.

1. Defendant-Appellee shall file a complete transcript on or before August 2^nd, 2023.
2. Plaintiff-Appellant’s brief shall be filed within thirty days after the complete transcript is filed.
3. Defendant-Appellee’s brief shall be filed within fourteen days service of appellant’s brief.
4. Plaintiff-Appellant’s reply brief shall be filed within seven days after service of appellee’s brief.

It was also ordered that an additional case titled Village of Pioneer vs. Williams County Board of Commissioners should be consolidated with the current case.

The case was first brought to the court on April 4^th, 2023, following the Williams County Board of Commissioners decision to deny the Village of Pioneer’s February 15^th, 2023, request to permit work within the County Right-Of-Way limits decision.

This decision was made by the commissioners during their March 6^th meeting. The request that was denied was for the installation of waterlines.

Commissioners denied the request due to the legality of the issue, and after discussing whether or not it would be considered a public or private utility. Due to the pending legal action, Commissioner Lew Hilkert declined to comment on the issue.

A statement was received from AquaBounty on the issue and is as follows. “The Village of Pioneer submitted an application on February 15, 2023, to Williams County for a permit to install transmission facilities in the County Right of Way that would carry raw water from AquaBounty’s permitted well to the company’s farm location on Kexon Drive and a wastewater/stormwater line that would return fully treated water from the farm to a discharge location in the east branch of the St. Joseph’s River.”

“The county denied that request on March 6, 2023, and appeals were filed by each of the village and AquaBounty on April 4, 2023. The hearing is a pretrial conference related to the appeals that were filed back in April.”

Jacob can be reached at jacob@thevillagereporter.com