Newspapers / The News-Record (Marshall, N.C.) / April 16, 1981, edition 1 / Page 1
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Madison Ccroaty Library Marshall, KC 28793 The News Record SERVING THf^EOPLE OF MADISON COUNTY 80th Year No. 14 PUBLISHED WEEKLY IN THE COUNTY SEAT AT MARSHALL, N.C. THURSDAY, April 16, 1981 15c Per Copy Commissioners Apply For Sewage Grants The Madison County Board of Com missioners announced Monday that a final application for state and federal assistance for the planning, design and construction of on-site sewage treat ment facilities to serve individual homes in rural areas of the county has been completed and submitted to the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Community Develop ment. These grants will assist owners and occupants of homes within the county which cannot be served by sewers now being built or extended from Marshall, Mars Hill and Hot Springs. The grant will be used for the constuction of in dividual septic tanks or alternative systems on sites where septic tanks cannot be installed. Funding for the project will be sought under section 201 of Public Law 92-500, the same source of funding now being used for sewer system and sewage treatment plant construction in the three towns. Commissioners said the project will be initiated at six individual locations within the county and will then be ex panded to include additional areas as it progresses. A public meeting at which this project will be described in detail, and at which questions concerning in dividual participation will be answered ? is scheduled for Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m. at the courthouse in Marshall. The commissioners said all in terested residents of the county are in vited to attend. The purpose of this project, in which the county will be assisted by Frank Schutz, a consulting engineer and by Health Deaprtment staff, will be the elimination of existing and potential health hazards and water quality pro blems caused by the direct discharge of inadequately treated sanitary wastes from homes in the county. At homesites where the installation of conventional septic tanks and drain fields to eliminate these problems may not be possible, use will be made of such alternative systems as earth mounds and pressurized distribution systems. Prior to the installation of any system, a survey will be made of each homesite to determine it's suitability for the use of a conventional system. If a conventional system cannot be used, an alternative system, suitable for use on the site will be selected on the basis of soil conditions, depth to bedrock and groundwater and other site characteristics. Only those systems which have been successfully used in other areas under similar conditions will be considered, commissioners said. At the time of installation, federal grants of between 75 and 85 percent of construction cost, and North Carolina Clean Water Bond Issue grants of bet ween 74 and 12 Vj percent will be available to the homeowner. When necessary, methods of assisting the homeowner in meeting the remaining 7Vi to i2Vfe percent of the construction cost through multi-year payments or direct assistance will be considered. All home and property owners of houses which were completed and oc cupied by December 26, 1977 are eligi ble for this assistance regardless of in come or family size. One grant applica tion, on behalf of all individual owners, will be filed by the county. The county will be responsible for the satisfactory operation of each system through a continuing management pro gram. Each homeowner will be assess ed for his share of the cost of this management system. This assessment will be similar to the charges which residents of the towns now providing central sewer service are currently paying. In return for this fee, maintenance, inspection and pump-out services will be provided as necessary. Provision of this same service on a fee basis to homeowners who have built or will be building their own systems will be considered. Hot Springs Teacher Acquitted Of Charge Larry Wyatt, a 5th and 6th grade teacher at Hot Springs Elementary School, was ac quitted in criminal court Wednesday, April 8 of a charge of assaulting a minor by Judge Earl Fowler of Asheville. Wyatt, 32, was charged in March with in flicting physical injury upon a minor child by striking him with a wooden paddle while ad ministering corporal punishment to Toddney Snelson, 11, a student at the school. After hearing testimony from both pro secuting and defense witnesses, Judge Fowler said he found Wyatt not guilty of the charge on the grounds that the bruises alledgedly sustained by Snelson during the paddling could have been induced by other physical incidents involving Snelson during the same day of the paddling. In addition, Fowler said he had doubts that the bruises described by a physician who examined Snelson were made by the paddle used in the paddling. Mrs. Charles A. Snelson, mother of the student, brought the charges against Wyatt after she discovered bruises on her son's but tocks the same day of the paddling incident. A stream of defense witness testimony established that Wyatt had followed proper procedures in administering the punishment, and that Snelson had fallen in the school bathroom and engaged in "football tackles'' in the gym the day he was paddled, incidents which could have contributed to the bruises. Ponder Re-Elected Chairman Of Madison School Board ^ By NICHOLAS HANCOCK Miter Bobby Z. Ponder was re-elected chairman of the Madison County Board at Education, and Aaheville attorney Larry B. Leake was rehired as the board's attorney for lttl-U in one of the board's first actions taken at the April thanked board members for them that he would do all he could da to benefit the board and the school system as chairman. "I sort of dreed the next few years, though, with all the cut backs. But, we must keep some 3,000 kids in mind, and do the rery beat for them that we can," Ponder said And that's what I pledge to you that I will at tTnpStLdofortheDext: m Nutrition Program will be 1110,112 less than this year leaving the local pro gram with approximately $900,000 in operating expenses. Edwards said $10,000 is expected to be cut from the ESEA Title VI-B Handicapped pro gram giving the board some $80,000 to operate that program next year. Edwards said the school system standi to lose $191,00 through federal cutbacks this coming year. He summed up the Ntlh innMng Hw?i>fi?i situatiw by saying federal cuts will run M to SO percent, state cuts at 6 percent, county cuts nearly S percent. On top of that, the board is faced with a tt per cent inflation rate. The board said they would discuss cutback matter foiher at a called meeting on Wednesday, April 15 when from Luanne Chandler at Laurel School who stated she would be moving out of the county. The board declined to hire a replacement for Chandler. ? Spent one and one-half hours in ex ecutive session with Mr. and Mrs. Bob Ferguson and high school principal David Wyatt in a discussion of what Ponder said were "some problems." The board took no action on the matter. ? Approved a proposed budget of 910MM for the vocational education program at Madison High School. Jack Cole explained to the board that the on ly hiersaat in the budget was for ? Accepted a letter of resignation f rom Madison High School secretary Madison County Industrial Park Site Special County Bill Passed By NICHOLAS HANCOCK Editor A special bill was passed and ratified by the General Assembly on April 3 which opened the door for Madison County to con tinue to develop its industrial park without the encumbrance of putting tracts of land up for bids to be made by industrial developers. The bill, HB 471, exempts Madison County from the restrictions and limitations of Article 12, Chapter 160A of the N.C. General Statutes which requires bids to be made on lands sold or leased by the county. The bill states in part, "It is the intent hereof that leases arid sales may be negotiated and consummated without fur ther formality other than the required unanimous resolution by the County Board of Commissioners all on terms as negotiated." Such lease or sale shall be for cash. The commissioners have previously adapted such a resolution. County commissioner chairman James Ledford said Monday that passage of the resolution enables the county to go ahead with the transaction between the county and American Greetings Corporation of Ohio in which 52 acres of the county's industrial park is to be sold to American Greetings. Ledford said the deed to the property is to be signed this week paving the way for American Greetings to construct multi million dollar manufacturing plant on the site in the future. The greeting card opera tion would employ 500-700 persons initially, with expansion plans which would incor porate hiring approximately 1,500 people. Oil Company Seeks Madison Leases The National Forests in North Carolina have received applications from Weaver Oil Company seeking to lease 79,936 acres of land in Graham, Haywood and Madison counties, George Olson, North Carolina Forest Service supervisor, has announced. This brings to 297,289 the number of acres on which leases are being sought in the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests, Olson said. The oil and gas lease applications continue to trickle in, he said, but so far no leases have been granted although affirmative action on some of the ap plications is expected, according to Olson The 297,280 acres comprise almost one-third of the one million acres which make up the Pisgah and National Forests The leasing of federal forest lands for oil and gas exploration is a multi-step process, Olson emphasised. Firms seeking leases first apply to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the Department of the Interior. BLM then transmits these applications to the U.S. Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The forest service prepares an en vironmental assessment which outlines how the surface resources within the national forests will be protected dur ing exploration activities. The forest service can then give its consent, and when BLM issues the leases the ex ploration can begin. The service completed the en vironmental assessment in September of I960 and has already given its con sent to most of the lease applications it has received (all from Amoco except the just-received requests from Weaver) and has forwarded them to BLM. More applications are expected. In fact, it is expected that almost every acre in the Pisgah and Nantahala may be leased. The prospecting leases are for 10-year periods and companies must pay $1 an acre a year for the privilege of exploration. So far a total of 143 lease application from Amoco and Weaver have arrived in the Asheville office of the National Forests in North Carolina. Here are the acreages on which leases are sought on a county-by-county basis: Buncombe, 14,448; Cherokee, 63,073; Clay, 4,397; Graham, 47,263; Haywood, 28,303; Henderson, 17,143; Madison, 47,477; and Transylvania, 75,185. The total acreage is 297,288. Olson has made it clear that explora tion for gas and oil must be done with sensitivity and care to protect the en vironment and so that it will not infr inge on other multiple uses of the forests such as timbering, backpack ing, camping, hiking, hunting, fishing and others. The public will not be denied access to any exploration area. Many persons might actually enjoy watching the ex ploration take place, he said. Oil companies began applying for the leases soon after U.S. gtolugisli told a meeting of petroleum geologists in Oc tober of 1979 that the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania to Alabama belong to a great land over-; thrust which has buried an immense area of sedimentary rocks which might contain oil and natural gas. Previously the region had been considered devoid of petroleum products Hunt Concerned Over State Block Grants v r* dent Reagan's proposal for Mock grant*, lawmaker! abo should gto states mare On i ibility and authority in ad mattering the money, N r Carolina Gov Jim Hunt testified in Washington^ chairmar oi the Nanon*: i ... ? r*? Association's I Committee on Human Resource!. "II programs are con solidated into block grants with greater state f1exib,lu> f ' > With high inflation. Hunt said, maintaining funding at current Imb I qpWuiti a M percent cut in real terms. Of the KM billion in gavtnp for fiscal IMS proposed by Reagan. 1m noted, state and local grants win bear $14 5 billion. or about 39 percent of _ited for I Of ! tm design for hj. be given the iiunt be allowed to over any funds from
The News-Record (Marshall, N.C.)
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April 16, 1981, edition 1
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