Document Bv5KxkvxJOg3D1oGvD9X6JBVL

33-1 / The News and Observer, Raleigh, N. C., Sun., Dec. 6,1981 1 By JOAN OLECK Staff Writer Warren County vs. North Caro lina and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: "It's a David and Goliath kind of thing," a Warren County resident mused Friday. "You've got to use the right peb bles of information, get your slingshot, and hit at the right time and the right place;" he said. "It's the only thing that makes a democ racy work." But. what some folks in Warren County see as democratic chal lenge has stiff opposition up the governmental ladder. The state wants to build, near Afton, a 142acre landfill to hold soil contami nated with PCB -- polychlorinated biphenyls -- illegally dumped 3% years ago along state roadways. The state is bound by the federal Toxic Controlled Substances Act to dispose of the chemical under a plan approved by the EPA. For merly used in electrical transformers, PCB was banned af WARREN CO. j Warrantors \ /v ^reposed ^mp site/ that they had authorized their, at torneys "to appeal the decision of the court and to take whatever le gal. actions necessary to protectthe interests of Warren County." Attorney Charles T. Johnson Jr. said the appeal would be made to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of 'It's a David and Goli ath kind of thing. You've got to use the right peb bles of information, get your slingshot, and hit at the right time and the right place. It's the only thing that makes a de mocracy work.' --Warren County resident er when the issue is a hazardouswaste landfill. An "unknown" like PCB raises deeper questions than legality, he said. Warren County officials do not want the landfill between two streams leading to the water table. They are skeptical of a vinyl liner that the state proposes to use, along with clay and sand layers, to do is choose between two arguably unattractive choices," Mitchell said. a safe place."' Some Warren County leaders disagree with Mitchell. '.TTM hold the PCB soil in an instrument- monitored, 28-foot-deep, 157,000- square-foot pit. , The state sees.right on its side, too. "What everyone seems to ignore is that we're not dealing with ma He stressed the state's determi nation to make up for lost time. "We are not going to hold back and wait to see what they (Warren County) do," he said. "Our intenlion is to press ahead and get these materials off.the roadside and into Lennon noted that the gover nor's Task Force on Waste Man agement suggested in February that "land burial should be avoid ed if at all possible." He said land fills had failed in other states, terial being held in a vat by indus try," Mitchell said. "We have 210 miles (of PCB-laced soil) lying out in the. open. If it's dangerous to anyone, it's dangerous in that situ ation." Having explored disposal op tions such as covering the soil with neutralized charcoal or trucking it to an Alabama dump --some not approved by the EPA, others not practical or scientifically sound -- state officials see themselves faced with two options: leave the stuff where it is, or scoop it up and bury it. "What we're talking about is not a perfect world ... what we have to ter tests on laboratory animals Appeals in Richmond, Va., based linked the chemical to cancer, birth defects, skin, problems and on technicalities in Judge Britt's decision. liver troubles. Kenneth R. Ferruccio, a spokes The state, which wants to pick man for Warren residents, ex up 40,000 cubic yards of PCB-laced pressed confidence in the move, soil lying along highway shoul couching it in terms of rights and ders, not only has EPA approval, but court approval. Last month, morality. : "It seems Britt has made a polit U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt .dismissed two Warren County law suits that had blocked the state ical, not a scientific, decision," Ferruccio said. Neither the judge nor the state can guarantee toe from proceeding. '* landfill's safety, he said. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. said Thursday that he had directed the . "Without scientific assurances, Department of Crime Control and doesn't it make constitutional Public Safety to proceed with the sense that we would have freedom landfill. Friday, Crime Control of choice?" he said. "This would Secretary Burley B. Mitchell Jr. be a carcinogenic experiment