In this week’s Local Matters podcast, Xpress news editor Margaret Williams talks to reporter David Forbes about Buncombe County’s budget woes, and environmental reporter Susan Andrew about the latest news from the EPA about the polluted CTS site. Xpress freelancer Christopher George also presents a rundown of last week’s City Council meeting.
Emotions ran high at a March 10 press conference and community meeting at the Skyland Fire Department concerning the former CTS of Asheville plant. As uniformed police officers wearing bulletproof vests kept watch, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials announced that the plant and adjacent Mills Gap Road property have been proposed for addition to the National Priorities List of hazardous-waste sites. Addition to the list would rank the property among the most contaminated sites in the nation, qualifying it for cleanup under the Superfund program.
Photos by Jonathan Welch
In a statement today, Rep. Heath Shuler declared his support for placing the contaminated former CTS of Asheville site on the national Superfund list. Shuler praised residents of the area and local activists, stating he’d work for a full cleanup “as quickly and thoroughly as possible.”
Environmental laws took a battering in the U.S. House last week as Republicans passed a continuing resolution … packed with provisions to roll back and de-fund a slew of federal rules aimed at controlling climate change and protecting clean air and water. Along with other provisions in the continuing resolution that passed were ones that […]
The WNC Regional Air Quality Agency (WNCRAQA) announced its intent today to modify the permit for the Asheville Steam Electric Plant, located in Arden. The permit controls how much pollutants the plant can legally put into the air.
In a perhaps unintended act of irony, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representatives offered bottled water, chocolates and rubber squeeze balls in the image of the Earth to neighbors of the contaminated former CTS site during a Sept. 9 community meeting.
Don Rigger, a key official from the Region IV office in Atlanta, apologized for the agency’s past mistakes and assured the long-suffering neighbors of the Mills Gap Road site that it will be cleaned up — though he stopped short of saying when.
David Bradley, 61, runs an insulation business out of his home on Chapel Hill Church Road, near the contaminated former CTS of Asheville site. Now, based on a request from CTS, the Environmental Protection Agency has demanded that Bradley give out information on his home as a possible source of contamination or face stiff fines.
A report released today by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Inspector General strongly criticizes the agency’s response to contamination at the former CTS of Asheville site. The report asserts that while testing standards were followed, limited oversight, along with poor record-keeping and communication, harmed the effort and failed to communicate the hazards to the public.
