The Chapel Hill Town Council recently finalized a decade-long effort for finding a solution to the coal ash at 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
The council unanimously adopted the Brownfields Agreement with the state government at a meeting last week. The document outlines potential development uses and the minimum remediation measures for each option.
The public gave feedback on the draft agreement in September, and by approving the agreement and asking staff to execute it, the town is moving forward on public engagement on what to develop on the property.
While the document does not make decisions about what future development will happen at the site, it does prohibit housing, care centers, and schools. The town can also now execute additional site monitoring and reporting to the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Most of the March 12 meeting centered on the public’s concerns of whether the agreement does enough to protect public health. However, Council Member Melissa McCullough stressed how she believes it is important to finally get started on remedying the site.
“There is no perfect solution,” McCullough said. ”No matter what we do on this site, there is an impact somewhere. The importance of us getting started on these decisions and the flexibility that we have in this agreement — it covers the possible range of things that we could do. But it does not dictate what we have to do. And given that it’s time for us to get to it, I’d like to see us sign the agreement.”
The town removed about 1,000 tons of the ash in 2020, but members of the local advocacy effort Friends of Bolin Creek specifically expressed worries about how the agreement does not require the removal of more. The group also cited concerns for how more frequent hurricanes might carry the waste into Jordan Lake — a primary drinking water supply.
The group’s other point centered on a January Environmental Protection Agency Report, which identified coal ash as an increased cancer risk. However, the findings were not taken into account due to releasing after the Department of Environmental Equality sent the signed agreement.
Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson said it will be important to integrate latest and upcoming reporting into town solutions moving forward, but it is not a reason to delay adopting the agreement.
“I think it’s understandable that our community feels really passionately when there’s ever a threat to safety,” Anderson said. “It absolutely makes sense. I’m really glad that people are here and are helping us to think through how we approach this in the safest way.”
And Council Member Camille Berry also emphasized that while DEQ has set the minimum of what the town can do, the minimum is not necessarily what the town plans to do.
“None of us is comfortable with loss of life,” Berry said. “None of us is comfortable with the harming of anyone’s health, whether it’s two-legged or four-legged. I also am not comfortable — I’m speaking for myself — in sending our harmful materials, digging them up and sending them to another community that may not be able to protect themselves as well.”
Council Member Paris Miller-Foushee agreed how it will be important for staff to look at how other communities will be impacted by town decisions. She stated how low-wealth communities of color are 2.7 times more likely to be targets of selective removal of coal ash, but their voices are typically absent in the decision making.
“When we’re presented with the option of digging it up and taking it somewhere else, those statistics are never brought forward as to which communities our potential harmful waste will go to.”
To view the full Town Council meeting, click here. More details about the Brownfields program’s process and Chapel Hill’s efforts at 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard can be found on the town’s website.
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Chapel Hill Signs Finalized DEQ Agreement for 828 MLK Boulevard Coal Ash Site Chapelboro.com.
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