The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners delayed decisions on three important items — a controversial rezoning, borrowing more than $37 million and appointing new members to the county planning board — at its Oct. 7 meeting. The board also cancelled its Oct. 21 meeting, meaning that the commissioners will take up all the items at their meeting on Nov. 4 — Election Day.
Staff of Rep. Heath Shuler turned away reporters, photographers and citizens from a meeting this morning on the issue of groundwater contamination at the former CTS of Asheville site. The meeting’s location had been changed from Shuler’s Asheville office, and his staff would not reveal the new location or who was attending.
Sen. Elizabeth Dole and Rep. Heath Shuler are both pressing the issue of groundwater contamination at the former site of CTS of Asheville on Mills Gap Road. Dole’s office announced that she’s written a letter to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency “demanding answers,” while Shuler’s staff is holding a meeting on the topic Thursday morning.
Don’t panic—gas is on the way, officials say City supports CTS petition No agreement on graffiti cleanup strategy The proposed Haywood Park development was the main event in an already loaded agenda for the Asheville City Council’s Sept. 23 formal session, but questions and rumors about the area’s uncertain gas situation prompted Mayor Terry Bellamy […]
An analysis by the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry has found no evidence of cancer clusters in the immediate area surrounding the former CTS of Asheville site. But the small sample size places sharp limits on the reliability of the conclusions, researchers caution. And other types of studies being undertaken now may yield a more […]
Rep. Heath Shuler gets an earful on the CTS contaminated-waste site, and a Senate committee approves a bill introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Dole to protect against trichloroethylene.
The list of inactive hazardous-waste sites documented by the state of North Carolina is 72 pages long. The inventory lists 47 sites in Buncombe County, but the actual number is probably larger, as not all the sites are documented. Among the ones that end up on this roster are things like landfills, junkyards, shuttered industrial […]
CTS contamination spreads New storm-water rules approved The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners sold a piece of parkland to developer Stewart Coleman; now they want it back. But they’re asking the city of Asheville to make it happen. At their June 24 meeting, the commissioners unanimously approved a resolution encouraging the city to agree to […]
The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners sold a piece of parkland to developer Stewart Coleman; now they want it back. But they’re asking the city of Asheville to make it happen. At their June 24 meeting, the commissioners unanimously approved a resolution encouraging the city to agree to a land swap so that Coleman’s controversial Parkside condominium project would not intrude into the adjacent Pack Square Park.
The current plan for addressing ground-water contamination at the former CTS of Asheville plant would cap the amount the company could be required to spend on the cleanup at $3 million—even if the ultimate cost were much higher. So says the CTS Citizens Monitoring Council, a group of seven residents living near the hazardous-waste site […]
The subject: “Making it happen! Full cleanup.”
In a presentation to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners yesterday, county staff confirmed that small amounts of TCE, an industrial chemical that can cause cancer, liver and brain damage, had been found in a third well near the site of the former CTS plant on Mills Gap Road.
The item wasn’t even on the agenda, but at their March 25 meeting, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners got an earful from residents of the Mills Gap Road area, adjacent to the contaminated CTS industrial site. The residents had come out in force to oppose a proposed rezoning of land near the site, but […]
Some 150 south Asheville residents turned out Jan. 31 for an arduous, heated public meeting to talk about the ground-water contamination at the former CTS of Asheville plant on Mills Gap Road. Representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the N.C. Division of Waste Management, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and others […]
A half-dozen environmental groups say the state has mismanaged a fund established to ensure safe drinking water for residents using wells. Last August, the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources allocated $300,000 from the Bernard Allen Emergency Drinking Water Fund—the entire initial allotment for the fund—for a two-mile water-line extension that benefited just four […]
During the final weeks of 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources conducted sampling in the neighborhoods surrounding the former CTS of Asheville plant. In an effort to learn whether the ground water contamination there poses an exposure risk to nearby residents, the agencies sent out […]
If the major items on the agenda for tonight’s meeting of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners seem familiar, that’s because they are. The board will consider two proposals that it delayed from the Jan. 8 meeting: a request for 10 more full-time sheriff’s office employees and the appointment of a monitoring board for the pollution at the former CTS plant.
EPA rolls in on the TAGA bus When wildfires surged through Southern California, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was on the scene with a TAGA bus. Chemical fire? Monitoring fumigation used to dispel Anthrax? Analyzing toxic vapors in the subsurface? All jobs for the TAGA bus. Short for “trace atmospheric gas analyzer,” the $1 million […]
Residents living near the former CTS of Asheville plant, a hazardous-waste site on Mills Gap Road, have upped the ante in an ongoing push for a full-scale cleanup, announcing that they intend to file a federal lawsuit. Meanwhile, both the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have launched […]
Some 200 concerned south Buncombe residents packed the Skyland Fire Department on Oct. 29, peppering state and federal environmental officials with questions about CTS of Asheville, a controversial hazardous-waste site on Mills Gap Road. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staffer David Dorian, the on-scene coordinator for the site, gave a presentation detailing its history, current status […]
Emotions ran high during the public-comment portion of the Buncombe County Commissioners’ Oct. 16 meeting. Ten people turned out to voice concern about a public-health hazard on Mills Gap Road in South Asheville, where the former CTS of Asheville plant is leaching trichloroethylene, a harmful pollutant, into ground water and flowing streams. The outcry came […]
