A core group of residents living nearby the former CTS of Asheville plant, a hazardous-waste site known to be contaminated with high levels of an industrial solvent that may cause cancer, have organized an informational meeting for this evening (Wednesday, June 11) at 6:30 p.m. at the Skyland Public Library, 260 Overlook Road.
Residents have been clamoring for a full-scale remediation of the site since fall of 2007, when state and federal agencies first began holding public meetings to discuss the contamination on the property. The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources has been in communication with the Elkhart, Ind.-based CTS Corp., compelling them to submit a plan for a ground-water-contamination assessment. However, there are no immediate plans for a full-scale cleanup at this time.
Local residents aim to change that, and they’ll begin by getting together this evening to share information, according to resident Dave Ogren. Written along the top of a flyer for the meeting is this line, “The subject: Making it happen! Full cleanup. … Who, how, when and what to do now.”
Click here to go to the Xpress Files and download dozens of government documents related to the CTS site.
— Rebecca Bowe, contributing editor
I lived in the area of the CTS plant in the 1970’s, several children including my brother and myself played in a stream that ran from the hill at the CTS plant. We noticed sudsy water, foamy water, discoloration and always always and oily film on the water, we saw deformed frogs and salamanders but didn’t know any of this indicated it was dangerous. We sat in the water sometimes for hours and hours. We played there daily for years. None of us have ever been contacted concerning how our health is – my brother has kidney cancer, I have had surgery for an abnormal amount of tumors (the tumor type is not abnormal but the number of tumors was), several of the adults that lived there at the time were sick and dying, my Dad died of cancer, my Mother was always sick, etc.
Why is no one trying to find EVERYONE who was in contact with the contaminated water?? The claim of 64 cases of cancer is incorrect, the research needs to include those of us who lived there during peak contamination times all the way up to current time. I can only imagine if the ratio of contaminates in question this far into the closing of the plant – what it must have been when we were sitting in the water playing while the plant was in full production.
I look forward to hearing about any future meetings about this and hearing that EVERYONE is being contacted that lived there from the plant’s inception until now – we are a resource of information that has not been tapped for correct assessment of this situation.
I would like to follow up with a thought that I failed to include in my previous remark:
Since I lived in the area during the 1970-1980 time period and the contaminated water was visually obvious – one could conclude that when the plant produced electronic equipment that they too were responsible for contaminating the water. This appears to have been an ongoing issue that would date back further than the current electroplating processes of the last owner. A double whammy on the residents. Something to think about though. A major investigation should be done not just of the last processes and owner but of the electronic production previous to 1985.