City to apply for grant for Phoenix site

Havelock commissioners voted to seek a federal Brownfields Assessment Grant for the old Phoenix recycling during their meeting on Monday night.

Mid-Atlantic Associates, Inc., an environmental consulting firm located in Raleigh, is helping the city prepare the application for the Environmental Protection Agency grant. The deadline is Oct. 15.

“We do not know what’s in there. That’s the most troubling thing,” Mayor Jimmy Sanders said of the site. “Somebody has to take the first step and it appears that Havelock is going to be doing that.”

Havelock officials had asked Craven County to take the lead in applying for the grant, but the county rejected the idea, with officials saying they did not want to be liable for cleanup of the site that is located in the county just outside Havelock city limits near the Tucker Creek subdivision.

“It’s a no-brainer that this is the county’s responsibility,” city commissioner George Liner said.

Both county and city officials have pointed fingers at the state as being the party most responsible for any cleanup at the site. The state Division of Waste Management issued a permit to Phoenix Recycling Corporation in 1993 to operate the site and then later closed the site in 2000 after Phoenix could not meet its responsibility to recycle construction debris. The state also used the site as a dump for hurricane debris in the middle 1990s.

“We had no part whatsoever in the approval of the landfill and what goes into it,” Sanders said.

Havelock’s board voted unanimously to go forward with the Brownfields application. Two board members, Danny Walsh and Will Lewis, were not present at the meeting.

“We have quite varying opinions, but this is one we haven’t waivered on,” said Sanders.

There will be a $4,000 fee to Mid-Atlantic Associates to make the application, but if the grant is awarded, the fee will be waived, and if the grant is not awarded, the fee will be waived. The only way the city will have to pay the $4,000 is if the grant is awarded and the city opts to choose another firm besides Mid-Atlantic Associates to conduct the assessment.

The maximum award for the grant is $200,000, but the city will be making application for a community-wide assessment, which could bring another $150,000. The extra money could be used for the identification of any other properties in the city that have the potential for cleanup and redevelopment.

“We’re looking at any site that is unused, underused, or abandoned that had chemicals on site while it was active,” said Diane Miller, grants manager for Havelock. “Those sites include places like any gas station that is closed, or other business that had petroleum on site.

“It’s an opportunity for land owners who have no options to get rid of a piece of property that they would like to get rid of. We can take the liability off of them. Then it’s in that queue to be cleaned up.”

The redevelopment possibilities for the Phoenix site include making a park for recreation purposes and/or making a connecting road to link the adjacent neighborhoods of MacDonald Downs and Tucker Creek and Tucker Creek Middle School.

Liner said the grant would pay only for assessment of the contents of the site and further testing of groundwater.

“Ownership and anything other than the assessment is way down the road,” Liner said.

The state is analyzing water samples collected from private wells near the site for contaminants. Results are expected in the coming weeks.

Also, a private contractor S&ME, hired by the Division of Waste Management, is expected to begin its own $38,962 assessment on the site beginning in the first week of October and running no later than Dec. 20. The assessment is to include groundwater sampling, vapor sampling and removal of electric capacitors.

In other business Monday night, the board:

• heard a favorable fiscal year 2009-2010 audit presentation from Bryan Starnes of Martin Starnes and Associates. Starnes said “there were no issues at all,” and there were no findings of questionable costs and no significant deficiencies in the audit.

• made five appointments to the Recreation Advisory Board. Elected were Steven Blumenberg, Joe Robinson Jr., Jennifer Taylor Sabdo, Sharon Knapp and Pam Holder-Dorman.

There were two comments from citizens in the petitions and communications section of the Monday’s meeting.

Inga DeRoche commented that her neighbor’s yard was overgrown to the extent that growth was coming into her own yard at 510 Hollywood Boulevard. DeRoche claimed the overgrown yard was a breeding place for snakes, rats and other vermin.

Bernd Doss commented suggesting that the city consider filing a suit against Craven County over the Phoenix site for willful negligence.