Document Yp2JQ5Jg34DnMwM439rLLXrO

Saturday, October 9,1982, Raleigh, N.C. local & statenews/OMtuaries/Oassified ads cSectioi PCB cleanup will continue,. lopponents told By CHARLES JEFFRIES Staff Writr Gov. James B. Hunt told leaders --of the protest against the state's PCB landfill in Warren County Friday that the state would not halt its cleanup operation but would do everything to protect the ; residents' health and environ ment. Hunt met with the protest lead ers for about two hours after a shaky beginning. Members of the executive committee of Warren ! County Citizens Against PCB first had refused an offer to meet, say ing they'd rather stage another protest at the landfill site and talk with Hunt next week. They later reversed their posi tion and agreed to the meeting, but neither side gave in much, said Hunt's press secretary, Gary Pearce. Pearce said that at the outset of ! the meeting, Hunt told protest ! leaders he would not halt the I dumping of PCB-contaminated ! soil in the landfill, despite the ! nearly three weeks of steady proj test against it. "They asked him again not to ! finish the dumping, but he told I them `No, we have no other opi tion," Pearce said after the meet ing. Pearce said Hunt promised that the state would pursue detoxifica tion of the landfill's contents "when and if it becomes feasible." Hunt also told the group that the state would monitor the landfill and wells within a three-mile ra dius of it and support any legisla tion to prohibit future landfills in Warren County. Pearce was the only person in the meeting who would disclose what was discussed. Protest lead ers said they wanted to discuss the meeting privately before com menting. < "We'd like to go tell the people in Warren County first and then let the media know," said Jim Ward, vice president of the group. Ward was one of six members of the protest group's executive com mittee to attend the meeting. The Rev. Leon White, North Carolina director of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Jus tice, and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Chris tian Leadership Conference, also attended. A total of 507 arrests have been made since the protest against the landfill began Sept. 15. The pro testers claim the landfill will leak and that the site was chosen be cause the county is predominantly biack and without political influ ence. , The state maintains that the landfill was the most economical way to clean up the spill and that Warren County was chosen be cause it best fit the need for suit able soil and available land. They See PCB, page 2C PCB cleanup to continue. Hunt says Continuedfrom page 1C roads, and nearly 14 miles of road way at Fort Bragg. deny race was a factor in the deci- Thus far, 231.2 miles of contami- sion to locate the facily there. nated soil has been removed and The soil, contaminated when the cleanup operation appears to PCB-laced oil was illegally be headed into its final week, al- dumped along roadsides jin 14 though it was suspended Friday counties in 1978, is being scraped for the meeting between Hiint and from more than 200 miles of rural the Drotest leaders. .