Comments on: Dumpsites pose liability issues https://www.ibiblio.org/carrborocitizen/main/2012/03/15/dumpsites-pose-liability-issues/ Carrboro's Newspaper 2007 - 2012 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:58:37 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: David Bellin https://www.ibiblio.org/carrborocitizen/main/2012/03/15/dumpsites-pose-liability-issues/comment-page-1/#comment-117322 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:58:37 +0000 http://www.carrborocitizen.com/main/?p=24501#comment-117322 LETTER: Dumpsite vote rushed
By Staff
March 22, 2012 |

Decades of disrespect of a historic community were continued in the rushed vote by the Orange County Commissioners to avoid cleanup of debris in the Rogers Road community.

On Tuesday, March 13, 2012, with little advance notice to the community, the county commissioners voted not to clean up the largest legacy dump sites. Owners of multiple parcels freely granted access and were told they would be “kept in the loop.” They received no notice that a vote would take place at the March 13 meeting.

The “research” used as the basis of the decision was superficial. County staff walked property and took photos. The county did no further investigation. No testing was done, no excavation, no digging, no soil sampling. There is no basis for any assumption that there are “toxic” materials, no documented basis for concern about liability. Previous visits by the State Department of Environmental Resources and the Town of Carrboro indicated that the waste consists only of “inert materials,” mainly old construction and demolition debris such as concrete. There are state funds available to assist in the cleanup where it impacts streams. It is not apparent that the county looked into this option.

After the initial visit, promised information was not provided; owners were never contacted again, never invited to meetings on the topic and not informed there would be discussion or voting on the use of cleanup funds. They were not invited to discuss the situation with the commissioners.

It is too early to close this discussion. The topic should be reopened by the commissioners after the next elections. There are many more decisions to be made about how we address the needs of the Rogers Road community, foremost among them, sewer service to the whole community, coming up from the Carrboro side and available to serve other neighborhoods as well.

Lip service should stop, and social service should begin.

David Bellin
Carrboro

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