
{"id":24501,"date":"2012-03-15T10:26:56","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T14:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=24501"},"modified":"2012-03-14T17:10:03","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T21:10:03","slug":"dumpsites-pose-liability-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/03\/15\/dumpsites-pose-liability-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Dumpsites pose liability issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Rose Laudicina<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Facing possible liability issues that could cost Orange County millions of dollars, the Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to avoid disturbing two illegal dumpsites that have been identified as possibly containing hazardous waste along Rogers Road. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is an unfortunate situation that we find ourselves here with a desire to help the Rogers Road neighborhood and then being faced with this situation,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Commissioner Valerie Foushee said at Tuesday night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meeting. <\/p>\n<p>The two sites drawing concern are located on either side of Rogers Road near the intersection with Purefoy Drive and have been used as illegal dumpsites for more than 30 years. The county is cleaning up illegal dumpsites in the Rogers Road neighborhood as part of a plan to mitigate the effects of the county landfill on the neighborhood. <\/p>\n<p>Although both sites are currently believed to be inactive, both County Attorney John Roberts and County Manager Frank Clifton said they believe the sites once were being run for profit.<\/p>\n<p>Roberts said he thought the operators of the sites enticed commercial industries to dump at a lower cost than the nearby county landfill and allowed people to dump items not permitted in the landfill, such as hazardous waste. <\/p>\n<p>Preliminary reports from staff said the two sites appeared to contain construction and demolition debris, land-clearing debris and municipal and commercial waste material, although much of the waste is buried. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The problem is that you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s buried there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clifton said. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you look \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 on one side you can see trees growing through tires that have been there for 30 years, and on the other side you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the creek, because it has been buried by trash.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>To discover what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s underneath the surface, the county would have to disturb the soil, meaning that if any hazardous waste were uncovered the county would be legally responsible for the pricey cleanup. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to touch this because the potential is there for state and federal liability acts that the county cannot afford and taxpayers cannot afford,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Roberts said. <\/p>\n<p>While the county health department reported that no contamination in surrounding wells could likely be attributed to the dump sites, Robert Campbell, Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association representative, warned commissioners of contamination to Bolin Creek since the two sites are at the creek\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s headwaters. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cleaning up 40 years of illegal dumping will be difficult,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Campbell said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but if these sites are so hazardous to give liability to the county, then the county will be facing much larger health-quality problems.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>At a previous board meeting, residents of Tallyho Trail, a neighborhood behind one of the two sites, presented the board with tests indicating their well water was contaminated. This raised questions for Commissioner Barry Jacobs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had determined that it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t from the landfill, but it certainly could be from one of these illegal dump sites,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jacobs said Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>The commissioners voted to continue with plans to hire a contractor to clean up the other illegal dumpsites in the area and directed staff to return with a proposal about public-health measures that could be taken to protect people from what could be buried in the two dumpsites. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facing possible liability issues that could cost Orange County millions of dollars, the Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to avoid disturbing two illegal dumpsites that have been identified as possibly containing hazardous waste along Rogers Road. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24501"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24506,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24501\/revisions\/24506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}