The Town of Chapel Hill is making progress on developing the 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard site. The Town Council recently heard an update on the effort to remediate the coal ash located on the property, as well as potential uses for the location.
The June 11 meeting focused on the town’s public engagement initiative, which Community Sustainability Manager John Richardson said surveyed Chapel Hill residents about what they want for the future of the site.
“This is not meant to be scientifically significant,” Richardson said. “Instead our goal has been to engage our community in a variety of places, particularly those close to the site, and to gather feedback and themes about what’s most important to our community.”
The initiative follows the town’s adoption of the Brownfields Agreement. Signed in March, the document outlines potential development uses and the minimum remediation measures for each option, and it also prohibits housing, care centers, and schools.
In terms of potential uses, popular survey responses included recreation courts, a transit station, and parking to support those uses and the neighboring Bolin Creek Trail. For remediation, Richardson said those surveyed expressed interest in “capping” the coal ash underground by other materials or taking removed coal ash to the least impacted landfill.
According to the town’s community engagement survey, Chapel Hill residents want to see recreation, a transit station, and parking at 828 MLK. (Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.)
At the meeting, many council members supported the idea for recreational uses and also for a Municipal Service Center, as Richardson said having a mixed-use site is likely. Next steps for the project include developing concept sketches for the potential uses, as well as identifying costs for both a feasibility study and the remediation of the coal ash, he added.
But a repeated concern from the council centered on the project’s lack of funding, as Richardson said there is no existing funds for the project’s remediation. He explained how the latest cost estimates for it range between about $3-$25 million, from cap-and-cover to full removal of the contaminants, respectively.
When allocating funds to the feasibility study versus actually remediating the site, Mayor Pro Tem Amy Ryan said she thinks it will be important to make the best use of available dollars for the latter.
“Money is going to be hard,” Ryan said. “I was really hoping we would be able to find federal cleanup dollars. We’re going to need a funding plan and to get creative. There are some sports groups, if we do decide to go the recreation route, that said they’d be willing to help raise money for something like this. I think there’s going to be a lot of community avenues that we can explore further.”
Most town residents said they prefer to cap and cover 828 MLK’s coal ash. (Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.)
And if the town does partial or full removal of the coal ash, Council Member Paris Miller-Foushee stressed how it is important to understand how other communities will be affected. For one landfill the town identified to be the least impacted, she said she is “alarmed” by how the population of its surrounding community is 30 percent people of color and more than 10 percent are living below the poverty line.
“I hope we continue to keep equity at the forefront of the work we’re doing,” Miller-Foushee added. “That we continue to keep science and safety [at the forefront]. That is my commitment as we continue to think about how we can move forward with 828 MLK.”
Many council members, including Mayor Jess Anderson, also responded to members of the public who critiqued the community engagement process during the meeting. Their comments centered on how the survey did not ask specific enough questions about the site’s environmental implications, as well as the initiative’s lack of participants.
“I have to be honest it’s really hard these days to get people to engage,” Anderson said. “It really is, and it’s not a result of a lack of trying. My guess is people are overwhelmed and exhausted, and I often am disappointed at the number of people willing to come hang out with us on a given Wednesday night or Monday night.”
“I do think there’s been a huge effort to engage people,” the mayor continued. “And we can go to people and we can go to folks intentionally who are not as aware and start those conversations, which I think is really important, just even for people to know what’s happening.”
And Anderson emphasized the need to keep the process moving.
“I think everybody in this room is committed to making sure this site is safe and that people in our community and other communities are safe,” Anderson added. “I do not think that there is any disagreement here about that. I think we need to continue on. There’s nothing that is here tonight that makes me worried that that is not going to happen.”
To view the full Town Council meeting, click here. More details about Chapel Hill’s efforts at 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard can be found on the town’s website.
Featured image via the Town of Chapel Hill.
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Chapel Hill Hears Update on 828 MLK Boulevard’s Potential Uses, Coal Ash Remediation Options Chapelboro.com.
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