This story originally published online at NC Newsline.
The EPA announced this week that it will determine whether 46,000 tons of coal ash at 828 Martin Luther King Blvd. in Chapel Hill, some of it exposed to the air, poses a “threat to human health or the environment and whether the threat requires further investigation.”
The preliminary assessment will include a site visit and a review of existing information and documents related to the property and the presence of coal ash there, according to the Town of Chapel Hill’s website devoted to the 828 MLK property.
Last fall, the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the EPA to investigate whether the coal ash dump should be cleaned up under the national Superfund program. On January 17, the EPA indicated that the petition met the federal requirements for a preliminary assessment and that they will conduct that assessment within the next year. The site has also been accepted into the state’s Brownfield’s program; a draft agreement between the town and the Department of Environmental Quality is scheduled to be released for public comment within the next several months.
Coal ash could increase a person’s cancer risk significantly more than previously estimated, according to a recent EPA report, because of arsenic and radioactive materials present in the material. Coal ash was widely used in North Carolina as structural fill, Newsline reported earlier this month, and in several locations the ash is exposed.
The ash sits below the Chapel Hill Police Station and next to the Bolin Creek Greenway; the police department is moving and the town hopes to redevelop the site. Numerous apartment complexes are near the dump, as well as several businesses. Parts of the 828 MLK site that are contaminated with coal ash are in the 100-year flood plain surrounding Bolin Creek, “extending the risks to downstream waterbodies and upslope residential homes and other terrestrial environments,” the Center’s petition reads.
One of the members of the Center for Biological Diversity lives 600 feet from the coal ash dump, according to the petition. One of the Center’s four North Carolina staff members, Perrin de Jong, grew up on the other side of Bolin Creek from 828 MLK in the apartment complex formerly known as Colonial Arms Apartments, at the intersection of Bolinwood Drive and Hillsborough Street. “Perrin regularly played in Bolin Creek during this time, putting his hands, feet and other body parts directly into the creek just downstream from where 828 MLK drains into Bolin Creek. At the time that he regularly played in Bolin Creek, Perrin was 5 and 6 years old.”
The ash originated in the 1950s and 1960s at the UNC-Chapel Hill power plant. The material is mixed with other old trash and building materials. Groundwater testing by town contractors detected very high levels of thallium, strontium, cobalt and total chromium—chemicals all associated with coal ash. Independent soil testing of the dump itself by Duke University Distinguished Professor Avner Vengosh found not only high levels of arsenic in shallow soils, but also Radium-226 and Radium-228 at levels two to four times higher than background levels.
The EPA has concluded that depending on the thickness of the cover, gamma rays can pass through soil and other materials to reach the ground surface where residents are exposed directly to ionizing radiation.
Town Manager Chris Blue said on the town website that that officials “will continue to seek out the best, most up-to-date scientific information to inform decision-making about the future of the site. “We welcome this EPA assessment, as it will help us make well-informed decisions. Since we found [coal ash] at the site in 2013, we have worked with numerous partners to gather information and consider options, with the health and safety of our employees and community first and foremost in our minds.”
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