Agenda - 06-05-2012 - 5a - Laserfiche WebLink

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14 1 Joan Garnett said that she was representing Justice United. She conceded her three 2 minutes to Rev. Robert Campbell. 3 Chair Pelissier said that the Board normally does not allow this, but she would this time. 4 5 Rev. Robert Campbell said that he is speaking for RENA, the Coalition to End Racism, 6 and Justice United. He thanked the County Commissioners for closing the landfill. He said that 7 in December the County Commissioners promised to clean up 40 illegal dumpsites, which 8 includes these two that were mentioned in this item. He spoke about a surrey that was done 9 that showed the water was contaminated. He said that the County has this information. He 10 said that when it was first brought up to clean up these sites, it was stated that it would cost 11 about$500,00041 million to clean it up. He said that $50,000 will not be sufficient. He said 12 that the illegal dump sites are a liability to Orange County. 13 Sara Hatcher, Master's student of UNC School of Public Health and the former Project 14 Leader of UNC's Engineers Without Borders project, said that she is thrilled by the many steps 15 taken in the last year to provide this community with the services it has been promised. She 16 said that the project done through Engineers Without Borders identified over 40 illegal dumping 17 sites, many of which were located within the headwaters of Bolin Creek Watershed. There 18 were approximately 135 tires, along with hazardous materials such as antifreeze, motor oil, and 19 paint. This represents a history of disrespect for the community and has potential lasting 20 environmental health implications. She urged the County to reconsider the restrictions involving 21 buried, partially buried, and hazardous or dangerous materials as it moves forward with the 22 landfill neighborhood illegal dumping cleanup and collection initiative. 23 24 Chair Pelissier apologized to her colleagues that she allowed time to be conceded. 25 John Roberts said that the potential of liability is from many sources and County staff 26 has been given information that some of these sites may have been operated in the past as a 27 for-profit landfill. He cannot verify this at this time. He said that the cleanup costs for this would 28 be extremely high, but that is not the reason that he strongly counseled them not to touch this. 29 He counseled the County Commissioners not to touch this because of the potential for a 30 tremendous liability from the State and Federal governments. The County taxpayers cannot 31 afford this potential liability. 32 Commissioner Foushee asked John Roberts to explain to the public what the liabilities 33 are. 34 John Roberts said that there are several state and federal acts such as the Clean Water 35 Acts, Resource and Conservation Recovery Act, etc. Each of these laws has provisions that 36 anyone who transports, disturbs, or excavates hazardous or toxic materials, regardless of 37 whether it was intended or not, becomes liable for that cleanup. This is a very expensive 38 cleanup. It would be millions of dollars. 39 Commissioner Yuhasz said that the County cannot possibly know what is there until it 40 investigates, and once it investigates, it cannot possibly avoid the full responsibility of whatever 41 is found. John Roberts said that once this is disturbed, the County becomes liable. 42 Commissioner Jacobs said that this issue came up with the development of Fairview 43 Park, and that is why the County did a land swap with Hillsborough and did not disturb the area 44 that had materials buried. He thinks that there are two issues here—one is the issue of what 45 the County is willing to remove and the other is an issue of public health of the people that live 46 there. He said that the immediate issue at hand is to deal with what can be readily removed. 47 He thinks that there should be some sort of plan to look at how to address or protect public 48 health. He asked if the Health Department could review the water contamination data that has 49 been given to the County Commissioners. He also asked if the property owners could agree to 50 put in monitoring wells to get some data along the edges of those properties so that there would