Davidson Community Garden roadwork and minor asbestos cleanup almost complete

There has been a lot of activity at the Davidson Communkty Garden these past several weeks beyond just the harvests being brought in for the Ada Jenkins food pantry.

With the help of the Town Public Works Department, the landscaping and fence along Potts street was moved back to make way got the eventual Potts-Sloan-Beaty road project.  All reports are that the plants are doing well.  Also, some additional raised bed boxes have been installed which will prevent the loss of food production capacity.

All in all, what initially sounded like a change that could have significant implications, turned out to not be that bad.

Coming this week, there will also be some activity related to the ongoing asbestos cleanup being done by the EPA at a number of properties in the West Side neighborhood.

After testing the garden, the EPA did find trace amounts of  asbestos in the portion of the property closest to the road and fortunately not where food is produced and digging occurs.  Here is the latest information from the weekly garden email blast

A few weeks ago, a man from the EPA came by the garden to talk to us about asbestos testing results. Because of asbestos discovered near the warehouse on Depot Street, the EPA started testing properties nearby. They tested at the Community Garden and found no traces of asbestos in the garden area. In the grassy area from the picnic table to the road, however, they found the minimal testable level for EPA clean-up. EPA workers will come to the garden this Thursday and Friday to remove the top foot of soil, replace it with new soil, then lay turf and mulch. The positive outcome of this is (1) no traces of asbestos in the gardening areas and (2) a renewed grassy area!

aShortChronicle contacted the EPA to see if more detail was available.  According to EPA's Davina Marriccini, "EPA collected 2 composite samples in the community garden, one in the garden area itself and one north of the garden where the mulch, compost bins and picnic tables are located. Asbestos was found in the sample north of the garden at the lowest detectable level (detection limit of 0.25% at the 3-6" interval). EPA has coordinated with the property owner and the community group that oversees the garden to schedule cleanup within the next few weeks and answer questions. There is no immediate risk to people working in the garden harvesting vegetables. Please remember to wash hands and vegetables after working the garden."

Cleanup is scheduled for later this week.

EPA provides update on West Side asbestos findings

In September, aShortChronicle told readers about a meeting for neighbors of the proposed Davidson Depot project on the town's West Side.  That meeting was tense at times and didn't answer a lot of residents questions.  However, it did result in kicking off a sequence of events that will result in something positive for the neighborhood.  That process began to show results at a meeting Tuesday night at Davidson Presbyterian Church off Depot Street.

Carolyn Minnich with the Charlotte office of the NC Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) attended the September meeting, and after hearing the range of neighborhood concerns, she contacted the EPA to get them involved.

In November the EPA ran tests on numerous properties as well as taking air samples.  The best news Tuesday night was that it appears the air samples were all clean - meaning random air born asbestos particles were not detected.  The stream running into the pond at Roosevelt Wilson Park was also tested, and its initial tests were also clean.  More of these tests will likely be done to verify again, but both were good news.

The unfortunate news was that several properties adjacent to the Linden Mill property did have trace and low level asbestos detected in the soil.  Here, the EPA seems to be doing a lot to alleviate residents' concerns.  While they did recommend precautions in some cases they seemed to be working hard to make sure things were being checked thoroughly.  More properties will be tested, and they asked for long time residents of the West Side to help pinpoint on a map any locations those residents remembered as dumping sites.  There was clearly a sincere interest in making sure the problem was fully addressed.

You could tell that the EPA workers had built a good rapport with West Side residents in the short time they had been on site often calling residents by their first names when answering questions.  Residents also seemed thankful that multiple agencies both State and Federal had an eye on this now.

It wasn't all good though.  At times there was a palpable frustration with the Town that it had taken so long to get these agencies involved.  At one point it was suggested the neighborhood was owed an apology from the Town for the many years these concerns drew no action or attention.

Apology from the Town forthcoming or not, going forward one can be sure the Town is paying attention now.  It looked like all the elected officials and senior staff were on hand Tuesday evening to hear the update.

Below is the presentation that was given - provided courtesy of the EPA.