TheN
ews
-Journal
Volume LXXXI Number 34
RAEFORD. NORTH CAROLINA
25 CENTS
Wednesday, December 6, 1989
Raeford to 'get out of the landfill business' next year
By Ken MacDonald
News-Journal associate editor
Sometime in 1990 the Hoke County landfill will close, and there
won’t be another to take its place—at least not in Hoke County.
That’s the current plan outlined Monday night at Raeford City
Council’s regular meeting.
Santa and Kizzie Cobb, 7, get together for a pre-Christmas gift discussion at
Tuesday's downtown light dedication ceremony. A small crowd turned out to sing
carols and officially dedicate the new ornaments.
City Manager Tom Phillips told council that an administrative
decision has been made to “get out of the landfill business” in
order to avoid stringent new regulations that will make landfills
much more costly.
Director of Public Works Mike McNeill says instead of a local
landfill, the city (and the county too) would join a regional com
pact much like one being attempted at the state
level to handle hazardous wastes. Several counties
would agree to route their domestic solid wastes to
a centrally located landfill that will be operated in
accordance with the new regulations, expected to
go into effect in mid-1991.
The regulations include two very expensive
mandates. First, landfills will have to be lined with
a thick plastic—on bottom and maybe on top. And
operators of landfills will have to be financially
liable for 30 years after the landfills close. Those
requirements, according to best guesses, would
increase the cost of operating landfills from the
$10 or $11 per cubic yard to $30.
For a regional landfill to work, Raeford and
Hoke governmental leaders and residents would
Garbage will be Reed's
greatest new challenge
"I'm going to be county man
ager when everyone has to
change the way they live..."—
Reed
County Manager Barry Reed
hasn’t been here long. Already
he faces what he believes will be
his biggest challenge—coping
with changes in handling gar
bage.
“Solid waste is definitely and
undoubtedly the biggest chal
lenge,” Reed said. “I’m going to
be county manager when every
one has to change the way they live. Plus, the expense is going
to be tremendous.” Reed believes the key in bringing about the
change is education, and he plans to continue teaching young
sters about the importance of the environment He and Acting
Health Director Mike Wood recently spoke to the Science
Club at the high school about the importance of recycling,
waste separation and reducing the amount of waste generated.
“Hitting the young people in school is where we need to go.
While they’re young, you can change them and get them to do
it differently,” he said. And Reed considers any influence this
(See MANAGER, page 3)
Barry Reed
have to devise radical coping measures.
Leaders might have to build a transfer station so that garbage
trucks wouldn’t have to make long journeys to the landfill. They
would instead drive to a transfer station and unload. The garbage
would be compacted and trucked by tractor-trailer to the central
landfill, which may be nearby, or as far as 50 miles away.
Citizens will probably have to begin sorting their garbage so
that only acceptable refuse goes to the landfill (see sidebar). Other
garbage would be recycled or sent to other disposal sites.
How will this regional landfill come about? The effort is being
pushed along by the Lumber River Council of Governments
(COG). The agency is asking local governments to contribute to
fund a regional solid waste planner. COG wants to have the plan
ner on the job as soon as possible and is planning to pay his salary
for at least six months. Funding is formulated on a per-capita basis.
(See CITY, page 4)
Rules of garbage collection
could change drastically
You pay a certain amount for your
water, and a certain amount for your
electricity. Soon, you may do the same
for your garbage.
With the cost of operating land
fills about to triple, local government
officials will probably have to devise
a method to penalize heavy garbage
producers, and reward those who
waste not and recycle.
At any rate, no longer will Hoke
County residents dump garbage in
dumpsters, nor will eity residents
simply fill their waste cans indis
criminately. All that will change,
though it’s not clear yet exactly how.
But officials who speculate say it
might go like this;
You can’t put a meter on garbage
like you can on water or electricity. So
city residents might pay a certain
amount per bag of trash collected. Or
they might purchase the bags from the
city. They might be penalized if they
put glass, paper, aluminum and other
recyclables in the same bags as, say,
kitchen scraps.
County residents would take their
sorted garbage to compactor sites
where a staff person would check to
see if allowable refuse is being pre
sented. If the garbage is not sorted,
the citizen would be penalized.
The whole idea is to reduce the
amount of garbage going in landfills
by recycling. And ensure that what
goes into landfills is safe. No toxic
chemicals, no dangerous materials,
no nuclear bombs.
Once the garbage is collected or
taken to compactor sites (five are
planned), the garbage would either be
taken directly to a regional landfill, or
trucked to a transfer station. At a
transfer station it would be further
compacted and trucked by tractor-
trailer to the regional landfill.
(The city and county might decide
to operate a “demolition landfill.” It
would be a place for branches, brush,
leaves and construction debris).
Ah, but you ask, “Won’t that en
courage people to take the easy way
out and dump garbage any conven
ient place?” To cope with that, offi
cials might seek increased fines and
maybe even a garbage enforcement
officer.
Whatever happens will happen
soon. The regulations causing all this
are being phased in even now. So get
ready. For the next two years, your
leaders will be “talking trash.”
Senate Bill 2 to bring sweeping changes to Hoke County schools
Sweeping changes will become evident in
Hoke County schools when requirements in
Senate Bill 2 and the North Carolina Schools
Improvement Program become effective next
year.
The schools improvement program, which is
closely related to Senate Bill 2 (also referred to
as the Performance Based Accountability Plan),
is an outgrowth of the effective schools research
and is premised on the belief that all children can
learn.
In a presentation to Hoke County School
Board members last week, Donna Cheek, a
consultant with the state department of public
/
Improvement Program
Donna Cheek (2nd from right) and Steve Hauge (right)
present the soon-to-be implemented North Carolina
Around Town
by Sam C. Morris
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The weather over the weekend was
cold. The high temperatures were in the
30s and witli the wind blowing at about
25 miles per hour it felt colder. The low
on Sunday night was about 20 degrees.
It has been in the 40s most of the day
Monday, but it got back into the 20s
Monday night.
The cold front will pass through and
warmer weather will be on tap for the
remainder of the week. The forecast
calls forbO-degrcc weather on Wednes
day. Then the highs will go back down
into the 50s. Lows for the remainder of
the week will be in die 40s to 20s, and
maybe snow or rain Friday.
The heavy frost over the weekend
has killed all the grass on the lawns in the
city.
* *
Don’t forget that the Hoke County
Committee of 100s will hold their an
nual membership meeting next Mon
day, December 11 at the Hoke County
Library conference room. The meeting
will start at 7:30 p.m. If you are not a
member and would like to join, come to
this meeting.
Harold Gillis, chairman, said that the
dues arc coming in about as one would
expect. If you haven’tpaid your dues, he
said to bring it to the meeting Monday
night.
♦ ♦ *
The Christmas edition of The News-
Journal will come out on Wednesday,
instruction said, “All children can learn. It is the
responsibility of the teachers and administrators
to teach all children...regardless of factors in
their background. This is what an effective
school is—no matter where they come ft'om,
their social background or the amount of money
in their life.”
Both programs are centered on improving stu
dent performance, although the school improve
ment program goes farther—it calls for a com
plete overhaul and restructuring of the school
system.
Accordingly, teachers and administrators can
no longer say “they are doing the best they know
how under the conditions from which they find
themselves in,” Cheek said. The current system
is “not working” as evidenced by low SAT
scores and other test results, and it is the teachers
and administrators responsi-bility to make
improvements, she said.
Cheek said it is the responsibility of teachers
and administrators to teach all children. ‘They’re
paid money to do a job—to teach all children.”
Cheek acknowledged that the new program
will take time saying it may take three to five
years to see a five percent improvement in
performance. She referred to the new program as
a process and not an event. “It never ends,” she
said.
The new program is innovative in that local
school systems, and more importantly, individual
(See SCHOOL BILL, page 4)
Fire professionals to test theory here
School’s Improvement Program and Senate Bill 2 to
Hoke County School Board members.
December 20. If you haven’t been con
tacted about a Christmas greeting for this
edition then call The News-Journal of
fice, 875-2121 and Tammy Ellis will be
glad to help you with a greeting.
As most of you know, this edition is
printed early so the deadline for an adver
tisement in the greeting section will be
noon on Tuesday, December 12. All other
ads will be on the regular schedule.
* * *
The Raeford Kiwanis Club is holding
its annual Pancake Supper on Thursday,
December 7. The serving will start at 5
p.m. The place is the Gibson Cafeteria at
Hoke High School. Tickets can be pur
chased at the door or from any member of
(Sec AROUND, page 6)
Raeford has been selected to host a
fire test that will bring firefighting
professionals from all over N.C., and
from as far away as California, to ob
serve.
A new technique, called positive
pressure ventilation, will be tested on
two abandoned Raeford homes to gauge
the effectiveness of equipment used to
blow smoke out of a burning house.
In the test, a person will dress in fire
proof clothing and will be situated on a
second floor of one of the test houses.
Coordinators will light a fire in a sofa or
mattress. The tester will measure tem
perature increases and the amount of
smoke that permeates the house. At an
agreed upon time, a powerful fan will
be aimed at the door of the house from
outside, “pressurizing the house with
air.” The technique is supposed to
change the air pressure in the house
forcing smoke, gas and heat out Be
fore, exhaust fans were used, but only
after a fire to help clear smoke.
The tester will measure the accu
racy and speed in which the tempera
ture drops and smoke clears from the
house. All aspects of the experiment
will be documented.
Coordinators have contacted the
Discovery Channel, several fire fight
ing magazines, and others to film and
report the experiment
Raeford Fire Chief Terry Tapp sees
several benefits with the new fire fight
ing techniques. The greatest, he believes,
is that the new technique may prove to
be safer for fire departments. With the
fan blowing into the house and clearing
the air, firemen will not be hindered by
smoke when trying to locate victims or
while trying to maneuver through a
home.
“We normally have to crawl in. With
the fan fired up simultaneously, we can
walk in and not stumble around every
thing. It would make a much safer attack
if used properly,” Tapp said.
(See TEST, page 4)
Upchurch re-elected chairman
With very little discussion, Hoke
County Commissioners re-elected Wyatt
Upchurch and Neill MePhatter as Chair
man and Vice Chairman of the board
respectively.
“I commend you for being chairman
and think you’re doing a tremendous job
and I’m glad we have you as chairman to
lead us on this board,” MePhatter told
Upchurch.
In other business. County Attorney
Duncan McFadyen told commissioners
that state officials have given Daisey
Vestel, 0 w ner of the Raeford Auto Build
ing, a list of requirements that must be
met to bring the building into compli
ance with state regulations. Commis
sioners have planned to convert the
building into office space for a number
of judicial personnel since November,
1989. The project has been delayed by
leaking gasoline originating from old
tanks that were earlier removed from the
building.
As an interim measure, commis
sioners recently leased the Hoke Realty
building (old Bank of Raeford) to house
judicial personnel until the necessary
repairs are made on the Raeford Auto
Building.
In other mauers. County Manager
Barry Reed told commissioners the
county health insurance fund was in
good shape, with over $39,000 in the
reserve fund. However, commissioners
were cautiously optimistic about the fund
balance because, as Commissioner Tom
(See COUNTY, page 4)