From the Office of Representative Brian Turner:
Representative Turner Files Bill to Disclose Hazardous Waste Sites
A bill filed by Representative Brian Turner yesterday will make data about hazardous waste sites more accessible to North Carolina residents.
The Department of Environmental Quality has identified nearly 2,500 chemical spill sites and nearly 700 old, unregulated landfills around the state. Eighty percent of these sites are located within 1,000 feet of a water supply source, residence, school, church, daycare or park. These sites pose health and safety risks to the neighborhoods around them, and DEQ is continuing its work to help property owners understand the scope of environmental contamination and mitigate the associated risks.
House Bill 763 will require the Department to provide its data to all 100 counties to be integrated into existing, local GIS mapping systems, where it can be easily accessed by residents of those communities.
“North Carolina families should be able to access information about potential environmental hazards in their neighborhoods, especially when there is no visible evidence of their previous use as a landfill or hazardous waste site,” Turner says.
Data about the location of these sites has been available on the DEQ website for some time, but that is not a place where residents typically think to look for information about their properties. Need for the bill arose after Representative Turner was contacted by a constituent who had recently learned that property he owns is the site of an old, unregulated landfill, a fact that had not been disclosed by any of the typical inspections done as part of his real estate closing.
“Had this information been available on the county website, he would have had the chance to investigate further before making his purchase,” says Turner. “This bill will make sure that, in the future, folks like him have that chance. In the information age, there is no reason information like this should be difficult to find.”
The most recent DEQ report on inspection and mitigation efforts can be accessed here.
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