The NCTimes also reports that air monitors never detected contamination. Apparently they were on the site the whole time and the county air monitors have been copiously inspecting the site. Burning Question: was that before or after the complaints started?
Now we know why we're not getting responses for more information from the neighbors. They've all clammed up because they think they have a better chance of winning a lawsuit if they don't talk publicly. Burning Question: Does this mean they think they have a limp case?
The article by Barbara Henry raises more questions than it answers. That's because both Mark McPherson of the County and Tony Pauker of City Ventures are spinning like crazy to shift the blame to others, with a strong implication that surrounding residents are wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt seems the County didn't send out any teams until after complaints were filed. McPherson needs to clarify exactly what the County was doing before the complaints. Was there air monitoring set up at the beginning? Were inspectors checking that proper spraying down was being done?
The County thinks there was inadequate use of water trucks. Pauker contradicts the County on this. Pauker insists that everything was done safely. Obviously it wasn't. For legal reason Pauker would never admit any wrong doing.
City Ventures is a savvy, well financed operation that knows how to make money for its investors. When the County says that it determined that the best plan was to bury the soil on site, it should have said it was the cheapest plan. It's what developers always insist on now that correct soil assessment is being done. At a meeting about the Brown property on Lake Drive, City Ventures said that soil removal was a "deal breaker." Too bad the County and the City didn't call their bluff.
It's unfortunate that the Hymettus neighbors have become the guinea pigs. Both the County and City are on notice that sloppy compliance won't go unreported. Grading and burial of contaminated soil will soon be occuring on the Brown and Hall properties. The Hall property has a particularly long history of non-compliance by the City.
As a neighbor adjacent to the greenhouse property I can confirm that the air monitoring City Ventures talks about wasn't started until late in the afternoon on March 24th. This was almost two weeks after the first complaint was filed and by that time they were watering like crazy and 90% of the "dirty" dirt buried. We have a good view of the whole property from our house and I did not see the water truck in use the whole week prior to our symptoms starting.
ReplyDeleteWe have the same questions about the workers and don't understand how we are so affected yet they are apparently fine.
We are still waiting results from several tests so until we have some answers there is not much more we can say.
ha ha, the workers are fine until further notice, it would be interesting to have them submit to testing to see if they are contaminated....sometimes symptoms don't appear for awhile
ReplyDeletesometimes you don't have symptoms until a decade later. Like a nice medium dose of radioactive Iodine or something or a carcinogenic pesticide.
ReplyDeleteJBMCGILL, Leucadia is hoping that things work out for you and your family.
New Burning Question: If all the monitoring is new, does that mean what they were doing before was considered inadequate and required improvement?
ReplyDeleteIt is not surprising that the workers did not complain. They rarely do for fear of losing their jobs. The intoxication has to be life threatening for a complaint to be filed, and it comes after emergency room treatment.
ReplyDeleteIf the workers were not using protective clothing and respirators, there surely was worker exposure. And with dust on their bodies and clothing, they took it home perhaps exposing their families. For pesticide application, even with the safest modern compounds, there are strict rules about bathing afterwards, a change of clothing, and washing the clothes separately. For more toxic pesticides protective clothing is required, which is a tyvek suit at minimum.
All the workers should have mandatory blood testing, although I doubt it will be done. Both the County and developer will resist it. Our city government seems to be MIA.
I realize now I made a mistake in my earlier post. The monitoring began a week prior in the afternoon of March 17th. The rest of the info is correct.
ReplyDeletejbmcgill, please email any updates you have to this blog.
ReplyDelete