The City of Asheville has walked back a controversial plan to process storm debris from Hurricane Helene near a public housing complex.
The two city-owned sites, Roger Farmer Park and 65 Ford Street, are both within half a mile of Deaverview Apartments, a 160-unit development in West Asheville. The Asheville Municipal Golf Course, another city-owned property, will also be discontinued as a debris zone.
The original plan – and how it might impact public housing residents – was first reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times last week. Residents expressed concerns about the potential health impacts of having chemicals and other hazardous materials nearby.
These concerns are not the first worries from public housing residents, who have already struggled with getting basic needs met, including elder care and water for flushing toilets, in the wake of Helene.
At a Monday briefing, City Manager Debra Campbell announced that the three original locations would no longer be used as a debris site, but could be “reactivated if necessary.”
A new primary site at Enka Commerce Park is secured, Campbell added. The Enka site will now be the main processing location for debris, which will be “staged, grinded, compacted and prepared for hauling out of the city,” she said.
The existing debris at 65 Ford Street, the golf course and Roger Farmer Park will eventually get transferred to the Enka site. The Ford Street site and golf course will still undergo “security and site prep measures such as fencing and access for heavy machinery” in case they should be reactivated, Campbell said. The Roger Farmer Park site will not be used for debris moving forward.
Campbell stressed that the Ford Street and golf course sites would only be reactivated “if needed” and that the city will continue to “diligently monitor” the temporary sites to ensure environmental regulations are met.
In the wake of Helene, the city is grappling with an estimated 2.5 million cubic yards of debris, Greg Shuping, the city’s deputy emergency operations center manager, said.
To put that number into perspective, Shuping estimated the debris surpasses more than 70,000 truckloads.
Shuping also said that hazardous materials “would never” be brought to the debris processing sites and that there are local, state and federal regulations that stop the city’s contractors from bringing those into city-managed debris sites. Two businesses – Southern Disaster Recovery and Debris Tech – have been contracted for $500,000 each to haul debris to processing sites.
None of the debris sites are available to the public. For more information on how to manage your debris, see the city’s website.
