A recent Athens-Clarke County environmental assessment found no evidence of pollution around a former DuPont plant and the county landfill in rural neighborhoods near Winterville, despite residents’ longstanding concerns that their soil and water have been contaminated.
Environmental attorney Rebecca Davis of the Atlanta law firm Seyfarth Shaw and a team of ACC officials—including Assistant Manager Josh Edwards, Sustainability Officer Mike Wharton, Geographic Information Officer Joseph D’Angelo and Solid Waste Director Suki Janssen—reviewed state and federal records and previous environmental assessments and did not find anything to indicate that surrounding properties near Pittard Road and Dunlap Road were affected by the former synthetic yarn spinning plant or landfill operations.
“We did not see any evidence in the record of the release of toxic substances,” Davis said of the DuPont plant. At one point, there was a leak in an underground oil tank, but not enough to affect surrounding properties, she said.
Wells belonging to landfill caretakers who lived on the property were contaminated in the late 1980s, Janssen said, but the Georgia Environmental Protection Division did not find harmful chemicals in wells outside the landfill at that time. Two wells on properties Janssen described as unlined “dumps” were capped and covered, and ACC bought more properties surrounding the landfill to extend its buffer, she said. A methane gas collection system installed in 2011 also serves to keep water from spreading, as do trees and trenches around the property, Janssen said. In addition, surrounding residents are now on municipal water. But Janssen said she found evidence of oil dumping, trash burning and improper sewer connections in the area around the landfill.
The landfill is permitted by all three branches of EPD—air, land and water—with monthly reporting and testing at more than 40 test wells and regular inspections, Janssen said. EPD has declined to investigate further, finding no new evidence for contamination based on more recent complaints, she said.
“In past years, about 20 people have died of cancer, mainly along Dunlap Road,” Commissioner Patrick Davenport said. He questioned why the ACC study did not do its own soil testing instead of relying on past studies.
“There is no evidence that would raise new environmental justice issues, but definitely we have a perception issue at the landfill,” Janssen said. “Maybe we need to tell our story better.”
Davis said that ACC could only test on private property with a court order, and they wouldn’t know what to look for or where to look based on the existing record. “It gets very expensive, and there’s just no reason to believe there’s a problem out there,” she said.
A public hearing for Dunlap Road residents to present the findings is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Apr. 25 at Billups Grove Baptist Church (5720 Lexington Road). Another for Pittard Road residents will be held at 6 p.m. on Apr. 27 at New Grove Baptist Church (1228 Moores Grove Road). Results of the assessments are available online at accgov.com/dunlap and accgov.com/pittard.
The ACC Commission ordered the assessments of the primarily Black neighborhoods as part of a resolution in support of the Black Lives Matter movement passed in July 2020. They were funded the following June as part of ACC’s fiscal 2022 budget.
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