IAD ISO' COUNTY LIBRARY GENERAL DELIVERY. MARSHALL NC 28753 ? NEWS RECORD THE PEOPLE OF MADISON COUNTY SINCE 190? ? ? ? -,T ' . ^ 3 . '' ~ ? ' *' : -'_T Thursday, February 20, 1986 25c I ? ? ? ^ ? ? ? Community Calendar Shrubbery Sale Shrubbery, ornamentals, fruit trees and berry plants are available through the Madison County Extension Service 4-H Club program. A price-list can be picked up at the Extension office or obtained by calling 649-2411. Shrubbery will be available for pickup April 10 and 11. Orders will be taklen un til April L All proceeds benefit the county 4-H Youth Pro gram. Ivy Women To Meet An organizational meeting for the Greater Ivy Women's Club will be held Thursday. Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Greater Ivy Community Center. All former members and others interested in joining are invited to attend. Community Meeting The Greater Ivy Community meeting will be held Monday, Feb. 24 at the Community Center. All residents of the Greater Ivy community are urged to attend. Speaker will be Marilyn Cole of the Western North Carolina Develop ment Assn. Fire Company To Meet Ebbs Chapel Volunteer Fire Dept. will hold its annual meeting on March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the Ebbs Chapel Community Center, Mars Hill. Everyone in the district is urged to attend. County-wide Development Meeting May Be In May All parts of Madison County need to work together for development if any one town is to succeed, Ann Payne, assistant executive director of the Bristol-Kingsport -Sullivan County Industrial Commission told the Marshall Aldermen on Tuesday. Her visit spurred a call for a meet ing of all town officials and the Board of County Commissioners. Payne, who is originally from Hot Springs and offered to give the town of Marshall any development help she could, said that Marshall and the county in general have many assets businesses look for: good schools, a railroad, gpod roads into the county, a good airport within easy reach, and more. She said that "spin-offs" from the General Motors plant in her area are looking for places where the labor is less expensive for plant sites to manufacture parts related to the GM plant. Such small plants, she said, are likely to be pleasanter to deal with than very large plants. Some of these, she said, might be just right for the Madison County area. She enumerated recruiting tech niques she uses. ?yjier Tennessee area, including careful study of every kind of help available from the state and visits to the agencies which might be able to help. She suggested a video tape promoting , the area. Jesse Ledford, chairman of the 1 county commission, who attended the meeting, explained that many of the techniques she suggested were already in use in the county . He agreed with Mrs. Payne and the Marshall aldermen that a meet ing of all the town officials and the Board of County Commissioners to discuss development would be ben eficial to all. He said he would prob ably try to schedule swh a meeting for May after the primary, and in vite all those interest if town government. Stopgap Sign Rule Set: Weaverville Council OKs Zone Change Weaverville's Town Council on Monday night approved rezoning for a 22-acre tract on Weaver Boulevard for a new shopping center, but took first steps toward sharply limiting height rules for signs throughout the town. The council voted 3-0, with Coun cilman Howard Payne voting nay, to change the zone classification for the Buckner tract to C-2 commercial Councilman David Langdon was ab sent with flu Because the council's Long Range Planning Committee has not yet come up with proposed sign regula tions for the town, and there is cur rently only a mention in the zoning rules that signs may be no than the 35 foot buildings, the what Mayor Raece I stopgap measure," to place a 20-foot limit on the height of signs it wat ? may be no higher ot height limit for council decided. as was because lfwasinmeiinancianrv terests of the developers. He said the Long Range Planning Committee had not been consulted on the annexation idea. The area was annexed by the council earlier this month. Joyner was joined in opposition by residents of the adjacent Wildwood area. Town Manager Charles Home observed that the part of the tract that was already within the town limits before annexation of the latest tract would remain zoned as R-l residential. In other action, the council on Mon day: -Gave a plaque to Attorney William Reeves in commemoration of his many years of legal services to the town Agreed to let the Buncombe County Sheriff's Dept have use of the firing i range in Weaverville for another . year, dating from March, but on con. Grease, Water On Front I Burner, Sewer Rules on Back Marshall's sewer plant is "woun led and limping" because of too nuch grease and unnecessary rater, representatives of the State Dept. of Natural Resources and Community Development told a special Aldermen's meeting on ruesday. They suggested an ordi nance to prohibit the pouring of un :ontaminated water into the system, and a requirement for ;rease traps to be installed and xiaintained in food service estab ishments. Max L. Haner, Environmental Chemistry Consultant for the water quality section of NRCD, said that >ome days the plant, designed to treat 80,000 gallons, was flooded with about 200,000 gallons. If the un eontaminated water flowing into the system could be stemmed, he said, the plant would actually have excess capacity. In consultation with Morris Trammel of Waste Water Services, who supervises the Marshall plant, the town arranged for smoke tests of the sewer system to find water entry points and Roy Davis, re gional supervisor or Environ mental management for NRCD, said that the tests needed to be fol lowed up almost immediately with corrective action. "But grease is probably your greatest problem," Davis told the aldermen. The grease, which the sewer plant is unable to cope with, comes from school and restaurant kitchens Where There's Smoke ? There's Water ] Smoke should be pouring out of the tops of buildings, vacant lots, storm drains and into a few cellers in a part of Marshall on Friday, but Mayor Anita Ward wants to be sure nobody panics and calls the fire de partment. Smoke will be pumped into the sewer system, section by section, in a test to see where water is entering the sewer in inappropriate ways. At one time roof drains were hooked into the sewer and the smoke will t. ' reveal where this is still the case. Old sewer connections from torn down houses which collect water when it rains will be "smoked out" in vacant lots, and floor drains without traps will belch smoke. Sinks, toilets and other household appliances with traps should not be affected. Autry Black and James Marler will operate smoke equip ment borrowed from Waste Water Services, Inc., which supervises Marshall's sewage treatment plant. The smoke will not be harmful to breathe in reasonable amounts, says Morris Trammel, president of Waste Water Services. The town will make a map of smoke spots and may put markers on some. The aim is to block incur sions and keep water which does not need to be treated out of the town's swamped sewage plant, so that the plant will operate properly, says the Mayor. J without proper grease traps and from garages, those at the meeting agreed. The problem of both excess water and grease has become much worse since the Walnut Creek hookup was added to the system about a year ago Trammel said. Food service for the high school, which feeds about 500 people a day, and a shopping center feed into that system. It would probably be necessary to negotiate with food service estab lishments to see how quickly they would be able to comply, Haner said. The school, for example, would need time to go to the school board and get funds appropriated for the necessary grease trap. In the meantime, he said, it would be im Nuke Dump Foes Gird For Briefing, Long-Term Fight Never say "it can't happen here," urge members of the Madison County Nuclear Waste Education Commit tee, one of the county groups urging citizens to attend a Department of Energy public briefing on the possi ble nuclear waste depository at the junction of Madison, Buncombe and Haywood counties. The meeting is tonight, Thursday, February 30. at 7 p.m. at the Asheville Civic Center. Working to head off a waste depository of about 20,000 acres, with about a six-mile radius, citizens are continuing to do and have done all of the following: -Written letters to the newspaper, as the bulging letter?-to-Oie-editor section in this week's issue makes clear. -Circulated anti-waste-facility petitions door-to-door. of DOE's Draft on the (locally inallcoun is assembling a scientific advisor; committee to evaluate and critiqw DOE's research methods finding and conclusions An article in the NWEC newslette outlined the group's concerns wit! the question of unstable rock forma lions, possible water contaminatior steep curving roads, and said that i the group's opinion, Western Nort Carolina is in fact one of the mos likely sites to be chosen The group said it feared that th decision will be made as much o more on political or convenienc grounds as on safty, environment! and economic concerns; that tl siting of a Monitored Retreivab Storage Facility in Tennessee, tl ?ss of 1-40 and nuclear was I in South Carolina would mal Mnvpim-nl area d the que i the was portant to discuss what establish ments could do to cut down on grease immediately. The principal of the school, for example could talk to the cafeteria people and ask them not to pour any grease down the drain. Those people who already have grease traps must be asked to main tain them properly right away, he said. Trammel said the town would need to define "maintained" be cause adding chemicals to the grease would merely put it in sol ution and the sewage plant would be worse off. Westall said the grease traps would need to be inspected from time to time. He suggested an immediate letter to food establishments on the sub ject of grease traps. It is important that these should be large enough, he said. Westall said NRCD had been sending Marshall letters stating that its sewer system was not in compliance, and wanted to work with the town to help it come into >... compliancy. If that did not happen, however, at some point NRCD would have to take an enforcement action and negotiate a schedule of compliance. He said he would prefer to avoid that, and that he thought citizens would be glad to take actions to save their swamped sewer plant. The NRCD staff people suggested that Marshall put the grease and water "on the front burner" and put a more extended sewer ordinance on the back burner for more careful study. Snow Doesn 't Whittle Vacation E^ter "vacation for Madison Coun - ty schoolchildren will be a week long this year despite last week's snow day, according to School Superinten dent Robert L. Edwards. The school system can make up one 1 more missed day by holding classes on Memorial Day, May 26. Only if if another day is missed will Easter vacation-May 31 to April. 4~have to be shortened, he said. The system has used up 11.5 teacher workdays. ? On Friday, when it snowed again principals were authorized to decidi when their schools should close yr depending on the conditions in theii e areas, Edwards said. At 1:30 thi s State Highway Patrol reported icini conditions on Murray Mountain, am r county elementary schools wer li dismissed at around 2: 15, he said, aw i- the high school about 3 p.m. n Some drivers took buses to th h garage to put on chains, he said, an it since traveling was also slow, torn buses were as much as an hour and e half late getting home. While ther r were rumors that some students wer Fire Code Hearing Set Proposed fire code changes in Mars Hill will be aired at a hearing on Mon day, March 3 at 7:30 right before the regular business meeting of the aldermen in the town hall. New building or renovation regula tions and a permit system for those using combustable materials will be among changes up for questions or comment. "Our main object," says Chief Ed die Fox, "Is to make things safe." The town has not had a fire preven tion program except for educational work in the schools, and needs one. he says. Unless a life threatening situation is found, the new code would npt ef fect existing buildings until they are renovated or change hands, he said. Like new construction, renovations would have to meet a code which pro vided for minimum distances to exits from appartments. for example. A permit system is proposed for oc cupations using combustable or ex plosive materials or producing com bustable dust : woodworking, for ex ample, a paint shop, or welding and cutting operations A permit would cost $5.00 and be good for two years Short term permits would also be required for short term use of ex plosives and other hazardous materials, dynamite, for example Even a Haloween "spook house" decorated with crepe paper and straw would require a permit. But in such a case the fire company would probably issue the permit to an organization without cost as a courtesy. Storage of hazardous materials like acids and chemicals would also ned a permit. The hoped for effect of the permit system would be that the fire depart ment would be constantly aware of potential dangers, says Chief Fox. The code wuld also provide for an nual inspections to check the wiring and other possible problems in every business and in buildings occupied by [ more than two families. Information cards will be kept on file with the ' location of switch boxes and exits, for t example. Where new construction is propos j ed, the fire department would be able ^ to rule whether enough water would be available to the site of a large shopping center, for example to make it possible for the fire department to protect the area. * If the Board of Aldermen approves the changes to the fire code, they will e take effect 30 days after adoption. ?e Council Widen* Zone Jurisdiction ' ?. ?' ?' kf'. ?? 4

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view