Gloria Martello received lots of praise last weekend from Ferriday citizens thanking her for filing the class action suit eight years ago to fix the town’s water plant.

“People have called me and thanked me at church saying ‘Thanks for my Christmas present’,” Martello said. They said ‘you had the guts to do it.’ Then I’d say ‘you bet I did’.”

Martello, 71, said people also sent her Christmas cards, thanking her for the $325 check that was mailed out last Tuesday to citizens who filed suit against the town.

On Aug. 25, 1999, Martello filed suit against the town of Ferriday after a 124-day boil water notice caused problems in running her old restaurant, Brocato’s.

“It was horrible,” Martello said Tuesday. “We’d have to boil (water) to cook with and it was a hassle.

In 1988, the engineering firm Owen and White designed the town’s water plant, which gets its water from the Old River.

Not only was the water affecting her business, Martello said the water was bad at home.

“In the summer, whenever the river would go down, it was terrible,” Martello said. “(You) couldn’t hardly brush your teeth because of the odor.”

In June 2001, the town filed a cross-claim, or complaint, against Owen and White and U.S. Filter in Seventh Judicial District Court in Vidalia.

The complaint claimed Owen and White and U.S. Filter are liable for “any costs and judgments incurred in the (Martello) matter” as well as design and installation costs of the water plant and costs incurred by the town in running the plant.

Tuesday Martello said she did not blame the previous administrations, but the engineers and builders, for the condition of the water plant.

“They should have advised our mayors what to do,” Martello said.

Last Wednesday Mayor Gene Allen held a press conference so the town’s attorney Derrick Carson could present him with two checks to pay off the loan from USDA for the existing water plant and unlock a $1,137,000 grant from USDA to upgrade or replace it.

“I think that is good and I hope he (Allen) will do what he says he’s going to do,” Martello said.