On Aug 1, 2007 over 137,200 visitors had seen the truth about Kersey Valley on thedumpsite.
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POLITICAL NIMBY-
Officials have become very skilled at diverting attention from REAL NIMBYers THEMSELVES! High Point officials used their political wesayso to ensure it was put someplace OTHER than THEIR back yards, close to town and CHEAP to haul to. In a politically weak area of disenfranchised folks who can't retaliate in a voting booth and poor and elderly that can't afford a court fight.
INFORMATION ABOUT LANDFILLS? THIS IS REALITY!
Instead of laying down and taking it when it all started,
we made notes, took names, and made thousands of photos.
This is 14 years of actual documentation living surrounded by it.
We've been there and done that and brought back reality for you to see.
LIKE CHRISTMAS AT OUR FRONT DOOR >>>
OFFICIALS' RESPONSES WHEN WE COMPLAINED...
"What do you expect? It's a landfill!"- - Mayor Rebecca Smothers, Council Meeting
"It's got to go somewhere!"- - ex-Public Services Director Perrry Kairis, Council Meeting
"We know all about Kersey Valley."- - ex-Mayor Arnold Koonce, Council Hearing,
"Although the landfill is close to adjoining residents, the City has operated the facility in accordance with all State requirements."
--Perry Kairis, High Point ex-Public Services Director "Response to Public Hearing Comments"
AND SOME JUST DON'T GET IT...
"We can't go back to burying it in our back yards."
--Guilford County Planning Board Chair, Mary Skenes Greensboro News-Record 12/13/2001,
Photo, right, from our kitchen door IS our back yard!
Many of our photos are from our back, front, and side yards.
"Water, water, everywhere." Coleridge's Ancient Mariner lamented... but what kind?
Drinking water vs High Point's human waste. In the Targeted Mile, it's all in the same cup.
TARGETED MILE NIMBY - The BIG PICTURE
Disenfranchised voters outside High Point voting districts were exploited by dumping human waste nearby at their expense.
WHERE THEY LIVE...
This isn't all.
We could show more but the result would be the same.. far from the dump.
WHERE WE LIVE
THE TARGETED MILE:
Officials put their LULUs (Locally Unwanted Land Uses) here! An average of 6 miles from them! Everyone else's regional water sources are downstream
<<<< TARGETED MILE.
THE WATER --Richland Creek (blue line near bottom of map) flows into Deep River which flows from the lakes toward the lower left. It is THE source of water for Randleman Lake (Click HERE for map.)
Backwaters extend up Deep River and Richland Creek to the two asterisks and up Kersey Branch to the red asterisk.
And it is side by side with
"O"Seaboard Chemical Toxic Waste Cleanup Site.
An official report in 1999 estimated it will take "over a century" to clean up High Point's Riverdale Dump and the Seaboard Chemical Site. Just across the street is...
YELLOWEastside Sewage Plant has overflowed raw sewage into Deep River (the area's drinking cup) many times. Here's one from November, 2001 to June, 2002.
"An eight month wastewater (sewage) leak caused by faulty equipment at the East-side Wastewater Treatment Plant was terminated, city officials reported this week. The 178,611 gallon leak which began in November 2001 at Eastside's Ash Lagoon Pump station, spilled untreated wastewater (sewage) into Richland Creek, which empties into the Deep River....... The Division of Water Quality was notified of the leak May 30 (2002) and is reviewing the matter.-- Greensboro News-Record Sunday June 9, 2002
Was this article and others because of High Point's environmentally friendly honesty OR
Was it reported because a state regulation mandates it must be announced publicly?
LIME GREEN LINES Leaking, decades old sewer outfall pipes lead to the sewage plant..Raw sewage that is leaked is also carried into Deep River and Richland Creek.
ZEROING IN CLOSER ON THE TARGETED MILE
<<CLOSER STILL- Another Christmas view from our FRONT DOOR.
The hill is years of garbage covered by a thin layer of dirt.
In 1993, with no hearings or public input, High Point built Kersey Valley Landfill with no buffer screens and 50 foot setbacks in our residential community.
<<< click to enlarge
The air photo shows how the tombstone shaped mountain of garbage was thrust into our community. Door-to-door canvassing counted 232 homes and 535 people within 1/2 mile, 62% belong to seniors.
Don't be fooled by the dump's plain appearance from a mile overhead. Every inch was stinking exposed garbage often over nights, weekends and holidays when, by law, it is supposed to be covered. Photo after photo on thedumpsite shows it.
"PAYMENT -- FOR WHAT?" You're too late, Suckah!
When we pointed out they were destroying our neighborhood and its property values and asked for at least reimbursement, High Point officials denied owing us anything and bought a big name law firm to CYA for them using a statute of limitations loophole.
THE 2006 ELECTION SUGGESTS THAT VOTERS ARE TIRING OF THIS KIND OF WESAYSO.
"Concerns about property rights have been driven by the populist backlash against a Supreme Court decision last year that upheld the right of local governments to condemn private property and then hand it over to someone else for commercial development. The court said then that states could tighten eminent-domain laws.
Eight of the state measures are designed to do exactly that, but the other four reach much further. Measures in Arizona, California, Idaho and Washington would compel state and local governments to pay property owners when land-use rules, such as zoning regulations, reduce the value of their property."
--The Seattle Times Tuesday, November 7, 2006
"WE'RE DOING GREAT!" You're just whiners!
In a separate case with separate issues, NC DENR claimed our complaints were unfounded because official inspections showed officials were doing a wonderful job of operating and inspecting at Kersey Valley.
An NC Attorney General's office lawyer waved wesayso official inspections to "prove" that they were right.
Go HERE to see one of these inspections compared to reality! There were 3 years of questionable inspections!
HOME GROWN TOURISTS --
We didn't have to go touring down the road searching for shocking pictures of this landfill.
High Point and NC DENR officials put it in the middle of our residential area and right next door to us.
Perhaps they thought their decision would save money and that any problems would soon blow over.
But there was an expense not covered by any of their planning, legal, or engineering estimates. TRUTH.
Putting it next to us meant we could see it and document it as it happened.
Most pictures on thedumpsite were made right from our home, front, side, and back yards!
Expert Advice??
The 1st part also works with lye, gasoline, and
iodine. Don't drink it and you're safe!
The next part works with alligators, poison ivy, ants, and terrorists! Stay away from them and you're safe!
This advice also gives effective protection from atomic bombs, battery acid, BB guns, head lice and weapons of mass destruction!!
But no one can make any guarantees about the Catch 22!
BUFFERS AND SETBACKS-- CONDITION OR SUGGESTION?... another myth..
Standing in her own yard in photo above right, Nell asks, "Landfill buffer? Landfill setback? What is THAT?"
NC DENR officials said garbage could be dumped 50 feet from where she stands.The permit design plan required a 50 foot buffer screen of the woods shown in the left photo to remain intact and an earthen berm to be built to block the view. This was not done and not enforced. In desperation, 68 year old Nell hand planted the cedar seedlings at her feet to try to shield her view and reduce odor, noise, and dust but High Point's garbage grew faster than the cedars!
Intended buffer screentrees were clear cut right up to the dump boundary and $OLD for pulpwood.
What state and local officials kept low key is that setbacks apply only to garbage. Nell had NO protection from High Point extraterritorial jurisdiction and their forced heavy industrial zoning that allows bulldozers, back hoes, dumptrucks, and any other noisy, dusty, diesel fume/soot spewing machines to be next to the fence beside her.. THIRTY FEET from her bed!
The main dump road is even with Nell's shoulders. Officials call it an all weather road, that's their fancy name for an ordinary, dusty, noisy, dirt road. All Kersey Valley garbage traffic used this road for years just feet from Nell's house.
"NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) refers to the common
feeling that people don't enjoy living near a landfill."
Perry Kairis High Point ex-Public Services Director "Response to Public Hearing Comments"
AFTER HIGH POINT - Nell wasn't visiting the dump. She's in HER yard. Photo is from her bedroom window.
Heavy industrial zoning comes right up to the fence.
"There comes a time when truth must speak to power."
- -Canadian official, Lloyd Axworthy,letter to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
"It is still basically a Yard-A-Pult approach.
['The Yard-A-Pult, invented for a 'commercial' on Saturday Night Live, invites disposal of waste by catapulting it over the back fence into the yards of nearby neighbors.]Our real waste disposal practices are not as different from this spoof as we would like to believe."
---Senator Al Gore, Pages 156-157, Earth in the Balance
Until we have something better, we must have landfills, but everyone knows -
Dust, noise, odor, trash, vermin, & property devaluation are expected at them.
That's why people (officials included) don't want to live near landfills!
On the shores of Randleman Lake (map HERE) near a new C&D dump, two other unlined High Point dumps (one a superfund site, the other denied by High Point officials), Seaboard Chemical Superfund Site (impaired stream map HERE).
THESE POINT SOURCES DRAIN INTO RANDLEMAN LAKE
BUT OFFICIALS INSIST IT'LL BE SAFE TO USE AS DRINKING WATER.
click to enlarge map
CLOSER - More reason to cry NIMBY. the Kersey Valley part of the TARGETED MILE.
In this closer view, the trees are not High Point's landfill buffers, they are on private land and harbor homes. "X" marks one belonging to a 68 year old senior just 184 feet from the garbage. He finally could take is no more and sold out to the only ones who would buy.. the City of High Point.. at a "you're near a landfill" real estate price. Because it is routine for real estate appraisers to look for similar sales in an area to base their appraisals on, now with a landfill next door... .... Well DUHH!
NEST OF HIGH POINT DUMPS
More including unlined leaky Jackson Lake dump is left off the photo.
Phase 2 is at the bottom of the photo. Even more is planned off photo right. The new C&D dump is farther right and High Point's unlined, leaky, Riverdale dump is beyond that.
Nell's home is 90 feet from "G", a main dump gate for 5 years. The "O" is Nell's water well, even closer. NC DENR officials and their AG lawyer claimed garbage could be put within 57 feet of Nell's water well.
She was boxed in on two sides and it'd soon be three so she also sold out to High Point at a reduced "you're near a dump" real estate value.
BLUEJackson Lake Dump has leaked into Richland Creek for years.
No clean up or plans in sight. No testing or assessment of its cleanup. High Point officials deny all responsibility even though over half of the dump is still on High Point property. The entire site was used by High Point as a dump before being shut down by the state. Leachate surfaces in odorous springs and flows into Richland Creek.
ORANGERiverdale Dump has leaked into Deep River for years.
In this view from Interstate 85 at right, the top of Riverdale is seen rising above the trees and Deep River . This unlined dump borders Deep River (the water source for the new Randleman Lake regional water supply) for almost a mile.
THE CATCH 22? LIKE MUCH LANDFOOLERY, THEY'RE MAKING IT UP!!
The report says it'll take "over a century" to clean up these sites but no one knows what new substances will be found to be toxic and how strict the standards will be then.
DUMPWATCH ADDED OBVIOUS COMMENT TO THE OFFICIAL REPORT:
"This is a no-brainer and does nothing to inspire confidence in the safely of the areas. The same statment can be applied to Love Canal, Chernobyl, thermonuclear test sites, and the low level radioactive waste site that North Carolina recently reneged on."
-- DUMPWATCH letter to William L. Meyer, Director, Division of Waste Management, NC DENR
There was no response from Mr. Meyer or NC DENR.
"X"New C&D Dump. High Point officials BANNED C&D materials from Kersey Valley in Dec 1999 and then shed crocodile tears because there was no place for C&D as an excuse for another dump! Asst City Manager Pat Pate "worked with MRR to help... find land that would be suitable for a.. landfill."-High Point Enterprise "Lack of debris disposal site hampers High Point",8/5/01
(More detail HERE) High Point officials continue exploiting the TARGETED MILE by calling it "suitable for a landfill"wesayso.
CURIOUS WORDS... CUROUS ACTIONS...
A 1999 combined report on Riverdale Dump and Seaboard Chemical Superfund Sites said, "the overall risk to public health posed by the two sites is relatively small as long as people do not drink the contaminated ground water and as long as they stay away from the two sites." A strong contender for one of Senator Proxmire's old "Golden Fleece" awards.
PURPLEKersey Valley Landfill 1, 2, & 3.
thedumpsite focuses on this part of the TARGETED MILE
"H"Projected Kersey Valley Phases 4 and 5..
.High Point officials got this 92 year old widow's home and land to make way for it. >>>>
All are now on the government's highly toxic lists.
20 years ago, mercury was in every hospital and home's medicinal thermometer.
40 years ago, lead was added to gasoline on purpose to make it perform better
and was a major component of some of the best paints available for schools and homes.
60 years ago, carbon tet was the safest, non-flammable dry cleaner you could buy.
100 years ago asbestos was a miracle fire-proofer/insulator in schools and hospitals.
EVEN CLOSER
Even comedian Jay Leno got a cynical laugh out of a MONDAY NIGHT NEWS HEADLINE
"LANDFILL: NO HEALTH THREAT IF YOU STAY AWAY FROM IT"
--The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Real Newspaper "Monday Night Headlines" segment, July 16. 2001
