EPD to inspect dump site today

Patti Dozier

July 01, 2009 10:47 pm

— THOMASVILLE — State environmental officials will inspect a Grady County dump site today.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) inspection comes six days after a Grady County government official learned debris was being dumped on land state-permitted for mining off Pine Park Road.
Larry Ivey, Grady County chief building official, said owners of the property told county commissioners they would bring “clean” road debris to the site, but other material was dumped.
“That was the total issue,” Ivey said Wednesday.
Ivey said he suggested to Jimmie Crowder Excavating & and Land Clearing Inc., the property owner, that the company apply for a variance and go before commissioners in a public hearing.
The company applied for the variance, but never returned to pay the fee.
“That as far as we’ve gotten on that,” Ivey explained.
The looming situation came to Ivey’s attention last week, when an anonymous caller asked Ivey if a landfill was located in unincorporated Grady County.
“They said these dump trucks were coming into Grady County loaded and going out empty,” Ivey said.
He went to the reported site south of the town of Pine Park and waited. Eventually, a loaded truck arrived.
“They had started dumping construction debris in there,” the building official said. “I told him, ‘Don’t haul nothing else into this county.’ “
The company did not have permission to dispose of construction debris. “He was supposed to bring asphalt and concrete,” Ivey told the Times-Enterprise. “That’s what he’d proposed to us.”
Carlton Jackson, a Crowder co-owner, said Wednesday he had no comment on the situation until after meeting with EPD officials today.
Some of the debris is from demolition of a building on the Archbold Memorial Hospital campus in Thomasville.
Hospital officials said asbestos in a small area of the building was removed long before demolition began last week.
An EPD document in which Archbold notified the agency about demolition and asbestos-removal plans shows disposal of demolition debris would be in Leon County, Fla.
Michael Noli, project manager for several programs in the Archbold master facility plan, visited the Grady County dump site Wednesday and confirmed debris from the Archbold demolition has been disposed of there, along with other debris from elsewhere.
Noli assured Ivey asbestos had been abated prior to the structure being razed.
Ivey said he is not concerned about Archbold debris. His concern is the disposal of unauthorized materials, regardless of their origin.
The general contractor for removal of the debris from Archbold is BE&K Corp. in Nashville, Tenn., Noli said.
Crowder is a subcontractor hired by BE&K, he added.

Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 220.