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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNCD980602163_19820929_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_Press clippings, 16 - 29 September 1982-OCR'lbe Warren Record, Warrenton, North Carolina, Wednesday, September 29, 1982- ,: · F!ublished Every Wednesday By Record Printing Company P. 0. Box 70 • Warrenton, N. C. 27589 BIGNALL JONES, Editor HOWARD F. JONES, Business Manager Member North Carolina Press Association ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MAlJ"~R AT THE POS! OFFICE IN WARRENTON, NORTH CAROLINA, UNDER THE LAWS OF CONGRESS Second Class Postage Paid At Warrenton, N. C. In Warren and ' SUBSCRIPTION RATES: adjoining counties SB.00 Per Year SS.00 Six Months EIsewriere $10.00 IPer Year S6.00 Six Months Restating Our Position A misinterpretation of our position in The Warren Record last week concerning the dumping of PCBs as reflected in a couple of Letters to the Editor in this week's paper calls for some comment. While it la against our policy to answer such letters, we wlll again restate our position. We don't know whether or not the Afton landfill is going to leak. We don't know for a certainty that PCB's are harmless. We are sorry that Warren County was chosen as a dump site, but are unwilling to impugn the motives of those making the choice. We have never wanted more PCBs in the county. We believe that after four years of protests, Concerned Citizens have made their point. We believe that PCBs are going to be placed in the landfill at Afton. We believe that efforts to pre- vent it are futile, as becomes more evident with each passing day. We believe that any citizens group or individµal has the right to protest, and liave given freely of our newspaper for such peace- ful protest, a great deal of which has been repeuyous. We believe tlriat the bringing Into Warren County civil rights activists was a I grievous error, as a landfill Is not a ractal matter. We believe that it was wrong to overstate the dangers of PCBs causing cancer in humans as a proven fact, which such Is not a proven fact. We believe that continued resistance to ~Bs is not only futile, but costly, disruptive and bringing to out county a great deal of unfavor~ble publicity. . BIGNALL JONES, Editor This newspaper's opinion ~lt.i~ '/i., /ri. t-.1.0 A misplaced protest Has it become obli_gatory for any- one identified as a civil rights leaii- er to go to jail in Warren County? Judging from the arrest Monday or Congressional Delegate Walter E. Fauntroy of the District of Colum- bia, it would appear so. Fauntroy was charged with im_peding a truck headed for the state PCB landfill. Instead of interfering with this state's lawful resolution of a prob- lem that has faced blacks and whites in 14 counties, Fauntroy might well be protesting actions of the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Housing and Ur- ban Development. · . While Fauntroy was making his pilgrimage to North Carolina, the Justice Department was saying that it might asl( the courts to dismantle court-ordered busing _plans affect- ing several major U.S. cities. The nation's chief law-enforcement agency has begun to side with the opponents of the use of busing as one of the permissible tools to bring school systems into compliance with the Jaw. · • . '. Instead or kneeling in Cront of a truck near Afton, Fauntroy could have been back in Washin~on rais- ing his voice against HUD s pro~s- al to distort the intent of community development block grants. Con- gress intended these grants to cities fo provide benefits for low-to mod- erate-income people. But HUD wants to back off that requirement. The Reagan administration has provided plenty of issues for anyone who speaks for poor and black Americans. Look at reductions of general r ederal assistance for the poor, cuts in student aid, school lunches and other nutrition pro- gr ams, day care and medical assis- ta.nee. In the race of all this, the ac- tivists center their attention on something in Warren County that essentially is an environmental is- sue -and an issue on which state government has sought to act responsibly. . · Among the participants in the rit- ual of protest and arrest have been leaders of the Southern Christian ~adersh~p Conference, the Rev. Leon White, the Rev. Ben Chavis Floyd McKissick, Fauntroy and other civil rights figures. But the larger, tougher demands of political JeaclershiJ? for the black and the poor won t be won by brief ~rsonal or organ_izational publicity shots on the evening news. It's as if tile activists had de- •~aired or gettinf a handhold on the slippery mass o Reagan rollbacks in social programs. So they were happy to Tind something in North Carolina -or anywhere -that thef could devote their time and en-ergies to. It's a pity. The activists had their priorities straight when they marched for and worked for the ex- tension of the Voting Riihts Act bf. Congress. But by {urning to civil disobedience on an environmental issue in North Carolina, they have ventured far afield from gaining useful political results for their con- stituents. Warren County Fight . ~ . . . Taking Trlist In Direction . -0'-" "'~ ,12. '1/t'&, C ontinuing failure to stop the state's burial of PCB- t.ainted soil -in Warren County has not dampened the re- solve of the protestors, 200 or whom marched on the Capitol in protest recently. ·. . . · There was the same mix of peo- ple-black, white, old and young- that characterized the first demon- strations. Unity of purpose prompted such cohesion; all are fearful that the dump will leak and produce cancer in the community .. The Herald has said before that it understands the kind of concern that residents of Warren County have and that all possible mea- sures for their protection should be undertaken. These sentiments are echoed across the state-and, indeed, by the governor himself who has promised to see to the safety of the dump. Such assurances have not per- suaded the protesters. They seem to have been cau1ght up in a cause that is more and fuore being led by outsiders. Civil rights a~ivists have joined the fray because of charges that the dump site was chosen on the basis of the county's pre- dominantly black population. Golden Frinks and Fred Taylor of the Southern Chtistian Leadership Conference appeared to lead pro- tests in Afton and in Raleigh. They had been arrestecl for their efforts earlier, as had Dr. Joseph Lowery, president of the same organiza- tion. The Rev. Leon White of the United Church of Christ's Commis- sion for Racial Justice has urged crowds to go to jail if necessary to stop the dumping. Lois Gibbs, Ytlho organized her neighbors to push the federal gov- ernment to recognize Love Canal in New York as a national disaster area, was invited to advise on how to organize agaipst the dump. She founded the Lave Canal Home- owners Association. Out of that ex- perience she urged the protestors to do "anything you have to do, but stop the chemic~ls from coming in here." Sympathetid neighbors from other counties /have joined, too. The swelling movement promises a rights march on Washington- while the trucks continue to move contaminated soil into the landfill in accordance with state and En- vironmental Protection Agency di- rectives. We are witnessing the birth of another cause ...... legitimate in its origins but disturbing in its trend away from community-based con- cern for the environment and per- . sonal health. ■ 1 Playing to fears in Warren . . . ,-t,t,,,"'-N1FO ·. tf/2.r1,1- wµ1iam SanJour, an off 1cial of the ~lace, landfill technology became Env1ronm_ental Protection Agency, the lesser of two evils. · · has contributed to the fears of the I , • people of Warren County rather ts clear what the other evil '!as. than helping them to put the dan-EPA ~ad rul_ed that the chenucal gers of a PCB landfill in perspec-couldn t be J~st left on the road five. Sanjour thus becomes part of shoulders, w~1ch haye t~ be scraped the problem, not a r· art of the solu-and . othel"Wl~e maintained. N~w, tion in an issue tha has no perfect medical studies show that PCB s1m-answers. ilar to the type dum~d along the ro~ds has shown up m the breast The chief of the.EPA's hazardous waste implementation program warned that landfills do not stop leaks but merely delay them. North Carolina officials, however, did not choose to bury PCB-contaminated dirt near Afton because they regard landfilJ technology as a 100 i>ercent guarantee against chemical dan- ger. They had no feasible alterna- tive to using this disposal method, and Sanjour offered them none in his weekend speech in Warrenton. Lacking in Sanjour's warnin~ that landfills for toxic wastes • don't work" was any admission that the Afton site differs from those around the country that have been inade- quate!y prepared t~ ~eceiye liquid cnem1caJs. By spec1fymg six feet of compacted clay as a bottom liner and using additional soil covers and plastic hners, the state took extra measures to prevent PCBs from leaching into groundwater or other- wise escaping their place of burial Without the state's havin~ the luxu: ry of being able either to mcinerate 35,000 cubic yards of tainted dirt or being able to detoxify the PCBs in milk of at )east 12 women living near spill sites. . While the concentration of PCB in these women was no higher than that found in women elsewhere in .,the state the change in tyPe con- firmed the danger of leaving the spills in place wfiere the PCB mig!it be disturbed and spread. The spills were on roads wllere both wliites and blacks live, and Warren County had the second longest spill among the 14 counties invorved. · Sanjour clearly added to Warren County's concerns when he suggest- ed that the PCB-landfill prece<lent would make the county a candidate to receive other toxic wastes. Sure- ly the Hunt administration or future administrations would not follow such a ~Jicy in the county given Warren s landfill contribution f.o re- solving a 14-county problem. In any case, the EPA official did nothing to improve understanding or to provide balance. Certainly his facile readiness to attribute the landfill location to politics reflected a shallowness he would never ap- prove in f waste dump. '. THE CHARLOTTE ·~ . ' ,. llOLFE NErLt, ;,,.,~,,, ond MNi.\::r TOM BRADBURY IOHN W. EPPER~IMElt lucvtl-.. Editor/Editoriol ,.-. b«llti-.. Edltor/,:.W, · · ROBERT SUAREZ, 0,,,.,01 Mono,-, DENNIS SODOMKA, ~lllf ldllor PCB dumping plan rec,SOnable .. Jt would be easy to say from Charlotte, some 200 miles away, that Warren County residents are raising a ruckus over nothing. Af • ter all, the 'state Is not dumping tons of dirt contaminated with polychlorlnated biphenyls -PCBs -in our backyard. We understand the feelings of the protestors In Warren County. No one wants hazardous wastes near where they live. · But some• thing had to be done with the soil. . The state made a concerted and careful effort to determine the safest way to dispose of the dirt, scraped up from where It was Ille• gaily dumped along 211 miles of the state's roadside in 1978. The state examined six potential sites recommended by the Enviornmen• tal Protection Agency. The state considered -and went so far as to test -tre.ating the contaminated soil where it lay. The state consld• ered hauling the SQII to a federal dump site in Alabama. But, in the end, the state deter• mined that dumping the dirt In 1f ! ·-.:..1-Warren County was the safest way· to dispose of it. Tlie state has taken great pains to ens 1 ure the safety of the site. Only 20 acres of the 142 the state bought Jwill be used for waste disposal. Tile remaining 122 acres will be leased back to the county to serve as a buff er. The pit containing the soil Is clay-based and Is lined with layers of plastic nearly two inches thick. We are satisfied that the state's decision was not made In haste. It was not made under pressure. It was not made without repeated studies. And It was not, as has been charged, made because Warren County has the Mghest percentage of blacks of any county In the state. . Unlike those who dumped the chemical along North Carolina's roads, the state bas been neither careless nor heartless In Its efforts to find a way to s~f ely dispose of it. Given the scope o the problem and given the optlo s available, the state has done the best It could with a problem It neither wanted nor was responsible for. , Patrolli11g Warren °l/2. 7/9'7... ~•1'1,,~ 7)--~Y. ~,.,,.J strators futilely trying to block trucks hauling the PCB soil to a sanitary land- fill. One other note about the hoopla in Warren County: State taxpayers who are angry enough about ha\ing to pay for the cleanup of illegally-dumped PCB oil alongside 210 miles of roads in 14 North Carolina counties may become even madder when they realize what the total bill will be. And one substantial part of that is the $161,000 cost for stationing 70 Highway Patrolmen i.Ji Warren County to keep the peace and arrest demon- Gov. Jim Hunt called it "unfortunate" that the patrolmen had to be reassigned from their other dQties and added, "All of us would prefer to have those patrol- men on our state's roads and high- ways." Everyone, that is, except the drunks who mlly escape the long arm of the law in the state's crackdown on drunken drivers. s-: [ '"~~ife~drt;~,-~~~~---~--:~0'~1,"'-- ~-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiizztiiiii.iaua:.9i--:-ii·-a ~ :-. ~... w ~z-zrar .. --r---.mwzmnw· · ~~ St,Ytr- Burying PCBs State Plan Is Reaso11able Most technical experts would agree that the best and safest way to dis- pose of hazardous wastes is to either recycle them or completely destroy them -such as by incineration. Ap- parently, neither method is feasible with the many 1ons of dirt that must be scooped up from 210 miles of N.C. Carolina roadsides where unscrupu- lous waste haulers illegally dumped toxic PCBs five years ago. We believe state officials, under difficult circumstances, are finally im- plementing a reasonable solution to North Carolina's PCB problem. Unfor- tunately, many residents of Warren County do not agree, and they are being arrested and rearrested this week as they try to stop the state from hauling truckloads of PCB-con• taminated soil to a landfill In their county. Their fears are understand- able but should not stop the state from continuing its necessary task. After the horrible revelations of II• legal or poorly run waste dumps at places like Love Canal, N.Y., many Americans are frightened when the term "hazardous waste" is men- tioned. They are properly frightened if it seems that officials proposing waste "disposal" schemes are simply taking the most expeditious route or have shown little regard for public safety and concern. In this case, the state has gone the extra mile: Officials examined several schemes for handling the contami- nated roadsides, including trucking the dirt to a federal hazardous-waste landfill in Alabama, treating the soil in place on roadsides, and even bring- ing a portable incinerator to North Carolina to try to burn up the contam• lnated dirt. After consulting with the Environ- mental Protection Agency and other knowledgeable experts, they ruled out every option except burial In a spes:ial monitored landfill in North Carolina. When the state bought 142 acres for the burial site, It deeded to Warren County all but the 20 acres that wiJl be used to bury the contami- nated dirt. That should assure local residents that the state has no desire to expand the landfill to accommodate other wastes. Nothing is going to make Warren County residents happy about the landfill, of course. The site was cho- sen because the area is rural and sparsely populated and within reason- able distance of the contaminated soil. We find no reason to believe, as some black Warren County citizens have charged, that there was any racial motive in the selection. The contaminated soil has remained along North Carolina roadsides for five years, exposed to rain and wind, with state experts testing the soil and finding the PCBs still there. That sug- gests that the chemicals have latched onto the soil fairly strongly, and that once they are sealed in a properly designed landfill, and permanently monitored, there will be even less danger. . . PCBs aren't ,,u,n the worst of it ~, .. , .. ,.rJ The battle in Warren County over the·burial of dangerous PCBs is a measure of.how far trust in .. experts" and public officials has slipped. According to those experts and officials, the landfill into which the chemical-laced soil is being dumped is safe. It's lined with plastic, like o~ here in New Hanover County, and it is in aoil far better-suited for landfills than ours is. In other words, it ought to be safe. Some people in Warren County aren't buying it. They've gotten themselves in a (rantic state of mind, throwing their bodies into the billyclubs of the law and begging to be arrested. The emotional volume is being cranked up fur- ther by folks who seem to enjoy being leaders in a vreat cause. -But pe~le are vulnerable tc; being manipulated by such leaders" because in rec~nt years th!Y have· seen the government and mdustry -m some cases ignorantly, in others deliberately - misstate the facts about the safety of everything from drugs to chemicals to nucJear power. People don't know whom to trust. If a project brings jobs and money into a community, many prefer not to think about potential dangers. If a project brings nothing but waste, as it is doing in ~arren County, the dangers come to the fore. The state has to put the dangerous chemicals somewhere, and burying them in Warren County aeems to make sense. It probably will never hurt a fly. . But it's hard to blame the people of the area for being frightened . They know that nobody knows for sure. And pledges from politicians don't mean much. ------J A I TliE 1-\SHE VILLE CITIZEN . J ·' \ffS R WILSON JOHN Q. SCHELL · · e.w,;,::ve Editor General Manager RICK GUNTf;R, Editorial Page E:ditor Fll.L MOORE Rnd/JOHN PARRIS, Senior Editors BOB TERRBLL, Associate Editor ROBERT B. SAttERWHITE, Managing Editor I Wedn~sday, Sept. 22.1982 Oratory IN ot Help£ ul Iri Warren County There's a great deal of s~oke scienti(jc reasons, not because of for very litUc fire in Warren Coun-the charact~ristics or Warren l)'. · · County residents. Their position For the past two weeksJ resi• bas been upheld by the courts.· dents or W<irrPn County, e>..Horted . It would . have been far .better by various leaders. many of whom bad the PCBs not been illegally pre\iousl~ kni:.>w little about/ War• dumped in the first place. But it ren County, have bet>n protesting was. · the dumping of PCBs in a J~ndfill It was necessary to remove near Arton. · · · the stuff from the roadsides. •That The PCBs was spread illtgally is being done. It was then neces• along the berm of hundr~ of sary to find a sa.r e place to dispose 1 miles . of back roads in _14 crntral of it. And, so far as science can · North Carolina countks abo~t four determine, the safest place to put 'years ago . After a Jong sear ell for a the stuff is in Warren County. safe way to ruspos" of the st~ff, the That decision has been re- state of ~orth Carolina is intf?rring viewed carefully by a ·number of it in a sa'litarv .J.lndfw in Warren governmental agencies. It has been Cowitv. · The concern or the Warren tested in court. It is the best pcissi- Cow~1cnai,; ~ genuine, e\en 11 il is ble way out of a difficult situation. i In recent weeks there have ba:-ing blown out of pnpprt1on. '--· · bo 1 , PCBs is toxic and has been 1;igged ~en su~estions a ut a ternate • • •• , 1 • ways of disposing of the PCB.s con-as a cane t>r-rausmg substaJ).ce. It lamination including a scheme to calls for <'arefulJ;i -planr;ed. s~1.:ntU-tr k lh ' t · t t Al b kally•SC'lund dispvsal mt'thod~. . uc e ma ena o. a am~, The chcke of the Warren ~here, suppos~dly, better co~di- Co.1nty site v.as rnade after ~ Jong. . t1(1ns lor /urymg the stuff exist. tlwrougt, !i.tudy by state officials. The res1d .nts ~r Alaba~a have not The · Wuin•n Countv sit ~ wc1s yet ~ri consulted on this one. d,osen rrom among iive odtential Another _su~~ei,tion has bet>n t_o J'3::ations in North Carolina for the burn thr PCBis in plare, v.he~e ll dt.;pc:sal area. was ~umped al~ng the roadside~. The deci.son was not rdtctde in Expe1 t.c; un.mediately tagged this . ha.:o!e. Indeed. there are so~e who as lmpr&chcal, ror reasons on~ sa} th<: state took too Jong to n,ove doe~11't have to be an expert to un- on the matter. d&rStand. The· decision has beeri cbal-There just isn't a "gooo·• way Jenged in the courts and h.ts t.w.en . to dispose of the PCBs. Th~re ~·t upheld there. . anythmg good ~bout the s1tuat10~ Some Warren County r~idents Ht all. But the Wsrren County dec1- claim that the disposal site ~as lo-sion was the best option in a bad cated tht-re because 60 percent of selection. . . the count,. residents are black. It has to be done and no Others saJ: th~ decision w~ ba.c;ed 8!flO~t of inflammatory oratory is OJI the fact that Warren Cou~ty res-g<.1ing to change the facts. idents ~re not, in the main, affluent The pt>ople who are leading the people. . . protests ill Wan en County are not The state officials h&n4.ng the helping anyone. kast of all the resi• di...:posal say the site was picked fur dents of Wilrren County. This newspaper's opi13ion ~~ltifk t:t/1,./rt. _--.. -. tJ~O Demagoguery at dump The minor drama ~ing played out at the PCB dump s1te"iri Warren County should cause no one tc for- get what the issue is and what it is not. To do so would be a disservice to the concerned local opponents of the dump and to the state officials who overrode that opposition out of concern for the gener~ welfare. Anyone inclined to rush to judg- ment might pause to consider the dilemma faced by the state follow- ing the dumping of PCB-laden waste along ,210 miles or roadside Residents whose homes and lands bordered these roads demanded and rightly so, that the state re: move the waste. Both whites and blacks Jive along these roads. cess was there any hint that racial considerations entered into the deci- sion. And yet such late comers to the protest as the Revs. Leon White and Benjamin Chavis would have the state and nation see it as an is- sue of whites against blacks. Thei~ presenc~1 t~eir exaggerat- ed claims and tneir rhetoric will lead North Carolinians to see the protest as another show on the dem- onstration circuit, one calculated to enhance the fortunes or a handf uJ of accomplished d~magogues. Breath- less and unsophisticated coverage by television, radio and newspa~rs of the rallies, marches and lie- dow~ can oruy promote that im-pression. The Warren County protest began as an environmental issue. It had its State officials responded with great care and caution. Federal and focal scientific ex~rts reviewed the arguments for and against leaving the waste where it was and moving it. Their studies came down on the side of removal, aJfhought whatever hazards of cancer that PCBs pose to humans r~~ain tr,~ proved. Given that dec1s10n, add1honal studies were carried out to find and prepare a safe receptacle for the wastes. · roots in local concerns. It was Jed by Jocal people. What a travesty it will be if this sincere err ort, no matter how misguided, is now turned into a showcase for persons whose con- cerns have JittTe to do with Warren <;ounty and North Carolina. Both federal and state officials fi- naJly agreed that the Warren Coun- ty site met the necessary require- ments. At no time in this long pro- 'A I C L ,,~~,,--v var re n ounty rury 1..~.,, · . . . -1/'2:a./tL Some of the peopl: taking part in Officials of both agencies say the those demonstrations in Warren Jandfi)) has been over-designed, that County may be opportunists looking the plastic liner is an additional fea- for headlines, but basically they seem ture not required, that the clay liner to be people sincerely concerned with is extra truck, and that there is no the weJJ-being of their community. danger of seepage of contaminants After all, what community would into the water table. EPA ... recom- welcome a toxic landfill into its mended burial as the most feasible midst? Closer home, residents of the means of disposal. Pomona area here in Greensboro Yet, understandably, the people of someday may find themselves in the Warren County don't want the land- same situation. fill. The two-mile route of the protes- ·v ·et, after four long years, it is ters' march from a church to the time to remove the PCB-contaminat-landlill contains perhaps as many as a ed soil from along the highways dozen houses. These peopl~ feel where it has lai?L threatened, if not now, then possibly There may be no answer that will satisfy the protesters. The Warren County site was selected as the best available. Unfortunat~ly, one of the as-yet unanswered questions of our · age of technology is how to dispose of its waste products, frequently highly toxic. Accor{ :ng to the state Department of Human Resources and the Envi- ronmental Protection agency, the Warren County site was chosen for three main reasons: sparseness of population, type of soil in the area, and because the county's roads were among the more heavily contaminat- ed. in the lifetimes of their children. We decry the appearance oi outsi- ders taking part in the demonstra- tions, and in some respects making the demonstrations appear to be ra- dal. The protests are not racial in themselves. Blacks and whites in a county predominantly black have banded together in this cause. . That is their right and the pro- tests, for them, are warranted. Un- fortunately, there is no satisfactory answer to pass along. The waste must be disposed of, and it is Wa1Ten County's lot to have the 6...~t disposal 1ite available. Everythinr else ii aound and fury. This newspaper's opinion . ~;J; 0 ,t/1 /n. Cal11111eeded.in Warren By any measure, the threat that PCBs pose to the health of Warren County residents appears minimal as the state begins dumping the spoiJ into a r ederalJy 21pprov2dland- fil1 near Afton. Further; the state's use of the site to receive dirt con- taminated by PCB spiJls 4long 210 miles of highway has met the re- quired tests under law. Therefore, anyone who helps provoke unlawful resistance to the dumping does the protestors and other Nortb Carolin- ians a disservice. Scores of opponents of the PCB dump were arrested Wednesday for bloclcing trucks. The Highway Pa- trol handled the arrests efficiently and humanely. But additional con- frontations with the troopers and the trucks might also lead to inju- ries or worse. The state has both the right and the duty to get on with the cleanup. More than rour years have passed since PCB -laced oil was dumped in 15 counties. Despite extensive ef- forts to find other solutions to the problem, the state has been left with one workable alternative - disposal in one properly safeguard- ed landfill. Warren County residents had ev- ery right to resist through legal channels when the county was cho- sen as the TrmdfiJI site. But angTI emotions have overridden good judgment in escalating the protest to physical resistance. · For one thing, the charge that Warren was cflosen because the county has a Jot of poor and black people is off target. The prevailing reasons were the availability of the i. I site and its suitability for keeping the chemical ou} of the environ- ment. For anothe , the fears of ei- ther short-term o long-term dam- age to public health seem grossly disproportionate. First, activated carbon applied to the PCBs more than three years ago bound the chemicals and decreased their chances of migration. Second, the landf ilJ has both cJay and plastic liners to contain the PCB spoil. In any case, PCBs do not dissolve readily in water and do not leach into the soil easily to contaminate water supplies. . Evidence suggests that PCBs abroad in the envfronment, includ- ing sanitary JandfiJls that already exist, are a far greater danger to . the human food chain and water supplies than those to be dumped near Afton. The Warren landfill will be carefully monitored. · The dumping in Warren County involves the applieation of the best- known technology for the safety (!f nearby residents and has been vali- dated by the judgment of courts. It's the auty of Jaw-abiding citi_zens to aJJow the state and the ~nviron- mental Protection Agency to pro- ceed with the necessary cJeanup as expeditiously as possible. ·