Moeser Vows to Clean Up Chemical Dump

But some citizens and neighbors of the tract complain this is still unacceptable.

Earlier this month, Bob Epting, an environmental lawyer in the area, handed a petition to the Chapel Hill Town Council requesting the chemical dump on the edge of the tract be cleaned up now, not later.

The council will meet Friday to go over the report given it by UNC officials, but this will not be a time for public comment. "We hope in late August we will be able to go before the council and that there will be public forum at that time on the question," Epting said.

Epting said he is not happy with the University's decision to delay the cleanup. "That is no different from what they have been saying all along," he said. "Anyone who reads that letter as a commitment on the University's part to begin now to make an effort to clean up that site is badly misinformed."

Epting said he is upset that the University says it cannot find the money to pay for the removal of the dump but that it is still using money.

"The University is wasting money on other things presently when it has just raised $1 billion for an endowment that ought to be spent for exactly this kind of thing," he said.

However, UNC officials take a different stance on the cleanup issue.

Dr. Richard Miller, environmental manager at UNC's Department of Environment, Health and Safety, said the University is still looking to identify funding for the project. But Miller also said the site is not a top priority for the University.

"We have studied and looked at the site long enough to see that it does not create an imminent hazard," Miller said. "It is an inactive site, and it is ranked very low in the state."

The chemical site ranks 229 out of 474 sites on the state's priority list, and Miller says that could change. "That ranking has been dropping," he said. "The site used to be right in the middle, but other sites in the state have become a higher priority and have pushed it down."

Epting said it is important for the University to take responsibility and clean the site before the planning for the development begins. "This is an important occasion for the University's present leaders to stand up and say we are going to leave a legacy knowing that we respected the future generation's right to have this property come back to them clean."

Miller said if the site were an imminent hazard, then it would be cleaned up immediately. "If there was a serious problem there -- if there were leaky containers all over the place and there was a chance that people and kids could get exposed or hurt -- there would be no question," he said. "But at this point it is pretty much a non-issue as putting it first on the list."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.