Opponents of a proposed power

plant on the south Fulton-north Fayette border are hoping that discovery

of strict covenants concerning an old family cemetery on the plant site

will be "the final nail in the coffin" of the proposal.

"It is a huge problem

for them," said Fayette County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn.

A large network of area residents

has banned together to fight the power plant proposal, and the Williams

Company, which hopes to build the plant, has delayed its rezoning requests

in Fulton County and Union City to provide more time to allay the residents'

fears. The company is asking for industrial zoning for 288 acres on Peters

Road to allow a 1,230-megawatt, gas-driven plant.

Company officials have invited

Dunn and other officials to fly to Maine and view an existing Williams

Company plant to help in that regard, Dunn said.

But Dunn wrote to the company

Aug. 20 to say that its plan to move the Peters family cemetery from the

plant site would not be legal.

"The Peters cemetery was

established by the Peters family in a way which prohibits you, or anyone

else, from removing graves from the Peters cemetery," he wrote.

In its environmental impact

report, the company mentions the cemetery but treats it as a minor problem.

"The applicant intends to relocate this cemetery to a more suitable

location," says the report.

The cemetery, which has about

a dozen graves, is on a half acre within the footprint of the proposed

plant.

Dunn said the Peters family

conveyed the cemetery to the ordinary of Campbell County (former name

of south Fulton) in 1924, and attached a covenant that runs with the land,

restricting its use to a cemetery and directing the ordinary, as trustee

of the tract, "to see that cemetery is not disturbed in any way and

remains intact, and the two roads remain open so that no person can ever

disturb the remains of the persons who sleep here, and who may sleep here

in the future."

The family felt so strongly

about its desire that the cemetery never be disturbed, Dunn told The Citizen

Tuesday, that they dug the graves into stone and covered them with concrete.

When Campbell County became

part of Fulton County, the property was conveyed to Fulton, and later

to Michael Scharko, owner of the proposed power plant site. In conveying

the land to Scharko, the county included the original covenant in the

deed, Dunn said.

Since writing the letter, Dunn

said he has met with four great-great grandchildren of the first person

buried in the cemetery. "They've been approached by Williams"

in attempts to convince them to allow the cemetery to be moved, he said,

but added, "I don't think the descendants could break the covenants

even if they wanted to."

And they don't, he added. "They

want the covenants ... to stay in place," he said.

Further, Dunn said, the Old

Campbell County Historical Society has discovered that one of the graves

holds a Civil War veteran, Hosea "Horsey" Peters, 27th Georgia

Infantry, Bethsaida Rifle Guard, Company E. The Sons of Confederate Veterans

organization also is interested in making sure that grave in particular

is not moved, Dunn said.

With wetlands covering much

of the 288-acre property for the proposed power plant, Dunn said he doesn't

think the Williams Company will be able to simply move the 30-acre plant

site to another part of the property.

He said he had not received

a reply to his letter as of Tuesday.

Williams Company officials

did not return phone calls from The Citizen by press time.

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