NCD980602163_19820907_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_Press clip and editorial submissions-OCR

~. 0FFICE OF THE GOVERNOR ~~pt. 7, 1982 Bo Haskins: Would you get someone in your shop to address this problem of PCB contam±mation in NC? Why Warren Co., etc? Just a couple of paragraphs or so •.•• 1111 take care of the rest of the letter. Thanks so much for any help you can give me. Send all this back. Wanda
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· October 12, 1982
De~r Editor:
Your August 23, 1982 editorial, "Fairly Disposed," was brought to my
~-
attention by one of your readers, and I feel· the record should be set straight
as to why Warren County was selected for a landfill to di spose of this state's
pressing PCB problem.
The county was not selected "right off the bat," nor by Governor James B.
Hunt. The Warren County site was chosen only after a riqorous, technical
examination of more than 100 sites in North Carolina for suitability to place
a landfill for PCB-contaminated soil.
The sites had to meet a number of criteria, includirtg suitability of soil
to construct a safe landfill, topography, level of the water table, size of
site, isolation, and other factors. When all the criteri a were taken into
consideration, the Warren County site was superior to all others analyzed.
The landfill incorporates the latest and best techniques for construction
of landfills. It has multiple layers of defense to prec]ude PCB from getting
out of the landfill--a five-foot thick layer of compacted clay of brick-like
consistency plus a 30-mil thick plastic liner separates the PCB-contaminated
soil from the surrounding environment. Two leachate detection and collection
systems are incorporated into the landfill, and monitoring wells surround the
facility. The landfill is a safe and secure facility fan interring the some
40,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil.
The North Carolina PCB problem is not a civil rights issue, nor a
discrimination issue. It's a health issue. More than 200 miles of our
roadsides were contaminated by the illegal dumping of th~ PCB. The thousands
Page 2
of residents who live on those roads, and those who must use the roads everyday
must be protected from the PCB.
The safest and most efficient way to do that, and the only way sanctioned
by EPA, is to remove this contaminated soil from our roadways and place it in
a secure landfill.
Naturally, the citizens of Warren County_ don't want the PCB in their
community, and the state shares their concerns. But the simple fact is that
the PCB contaminated soil must be handled safely and properly in order to
protect the health of all North Carolinians. The only EPA approved method for
handling the PCB is the one the state is presently undertaking.
In closing, one more point should be made. Warren County was not without
PCB before the decision was made to locate a specially designed and monitored
landfill within its borders. More than 25 miles of roadside in Warren were
contaminated by PCB during the illegal dumping, ranking the county second
out of the 14 counties in total area affected by the PCB spill.
...
6A THE LEDGER/Monday, August 23, 1982
;
LAKELAND, FLORIDA
EDITORIALS
\
I ' -' -,
John R. Harrison, Preslder,t
Elven Grubbs, Publisher _
· i1u1s Michael Perez, Executive Editor
r Mark Mathes, Managing Editor
._ _ _ -Dave Schultz, Editorial Page Editor ·
~es Fuller, Production Director Jm Johnson, Clrculation Director
El. Walter Garris, Controller .
don Whitworth, Advertising Manager i' :~:~,:~~::~::::~~ -·· SINCE 1924
. Fairly disposed
If you have 50,000 tons of soil contaminated
with the toxic chemical PCB, where do you put it? . .
Now come on, the answer demands no great
mental agility. Where do you permit cement
plants to locate? Where do you locate sports
complexes and other big traffic nuisances?
_ Where do you route urban expressways'?
If you're groping, revisit North Carolina's big
problem. A few years ago the Burns family, _fa-
ther and two sons, were being paid to dispose of
31 ,000 gallons of contaminated oil. They did it
the easy way, by spraying it alongside 200 miles
of North Carolina· highways -which brought
upon them and various associates the wrath of
the law and suits for recovery of damages.
Meanwhile, North Carolina has this little
problem of scraping up a volume of soil measur-
ing three inches deep, three ,feet wide, ar-1 200
miles long ....:... all told, 50,000 torts. And it has to
· be disposed of. •
Right off the bat, N.C. Gov. James B. Hunt
Jr. selected Warren ~ounty. Naturally, this upset
the good folks in Warren. They fear the PCB
dump will 1t ak and harm their own health. They
fear their ~roperty values will plummet. They
fear that in?ustry will be frightened away. They
fear that their county, once committed to PCBs,
will be dedib ted to disposal of just any hazard-
ous waste. In other words, they fear their chil'-l . dren and their economy will be stunted.
So conc1erned· were they that the County
Commission\ brought suit, won a tiny concession
of a buffer ione, and then knuckled under. Other
groups and individuals filed yet another suit,
which they lost with appeal unlikely. After the
expected fe~eral approval, the PCBs will be
coming into Warren County later this month.
I So why 1arren County? Well, why not? It
has a small populatioQ, 16,232 souls, 64 percent
of them black, the highest minority percentage in .
Nortl) Carolina. -
State officials, the judiciary and the federal
government ~11 say the choice of Warren County
is not political and not discriminatory. Of course
not. This na~ion is fa irly disposed although, like
PCB, the disposal is thicker in some places than
others.
-----
To : Governor James 'B. · Hunt
Office of the Governor
State Capital Building
Raleigh, N.C.
From: Mr. James Jackson
Route 6, Box 238 A.
Plant City, Fl 33566
RE: Lakeland Ledger Newspaper Article
As a native IT Tar Heel IT from Clinton, N.G. --now residing
in Central Florida I thought the enclosed editjorial might be of
interest to you.
I asked myself what this article had to dd with Central
Florida, seeing no value, I assumed it was a dir~ct effort to
sensationalize on a situation not relevant to th~s area.
I decided to bring this article to your a~tention in case
you wanted to respond to the editor.
I am the brother of Astrodia Adams --sec~etary to Lot Faircloth
in his Clinton Office.
s · erely
~/V-,-A-,.
s Ja
1
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