Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / April 26, 1990, edition 1 / Page 4
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Edward M. Sweatt and Carolyn H. Sweatt Publishers Edward M. Sweatt ....Editor Bob Home Managing Editor Susan Usher News Editor Rahn Adams & Doug Rutter Stajf Writers Johnny Craig Sports Editor Peggy Earwood Office Manager Carolyn H. Sweatt Advertising Director Tlmberley Adams & Valerie Lamb Advertising Representatives Tammle Galloway & Dorothy Brennan Typesetters William Manning ..Pressman Brenda Clemmons Photo Technician Lonnle Sprinkle.... . Assistant Pressman Clyde and Mattle Stout. Phoebe Clemmons Circulation PAGE 4-A, THURSDAY. APRIL 26. 1990 Time Of Reckoning Is Here And Now It has become obvious that Brunswick County faces some heavy decisions regarding disposal of the county's waste. Mismanagement, miscalculation or some unfortunate series of events have left the county with a landfill that is nearing ca pacity and no approved alternative landfill in which to turn. The current landfill off U.S. 17 between Supply and Bolivia has perhaps no more than two years left before it is full. The county is seeking state approval of a neighboring tract in which it could divert demolition material and extend the life of the current sanitary landfill to perhaps five or six years, according to county engineer Robert Tucker. If the neighboring site is approved as a demolition waste site, the county will successfully buy a little time to locate, pur chase and prepare a new landfill site. If the state declines to ap prove the demolition waste site, the county's problem will be severely compounded, because there will be very little time to obtain a new landfill site. In addition to hopefully obtaining approval of the alterna tive demolition waste site and getting a new landfill site, the county is going to have to deal with the possibility of establish ing tipping fees at the county landfill and the possibility of es tablishing a county wide recycling program. Setting tipping fees is a big step for any county. The fees re quire that users of the landfill pay for that use and, in essence, is a user fee. It means that those who use it most-from munici palities to large industrial and construction users and others-will pay the bulk of the cost. A tipping fee comparable to those in neighboring counties also means that landfill users from those counties will not dump their waste at Brunswick County to avoid the fee. If such dumping is done here, as is expected by county officials, Brunswick County taxpayers are footing the cost for the dump ing of waste from neighboring counties. Like a tipping fee, instituting a recyclying program is a ma jor step and no easy chore. However, with the diminishing availability of waste sites, numerous counties across the state have turned to recycling programs, most of them successfully. And Brunswick County, with its high water table, has a greater problem with suitable waste sites than most counties. Perhaps Brunswick County has simply postponed dealing with a problem that simply appeared to be years away. If that's the case, the county must now deal with the fact that time is running out and the problem cannot be postponed any longer. The answers never are easy and in this case some of the ele ments of the answer may be hard for county officials and resi dents to swallow. But the time of reckoning is here and now. Write Us The Beacon welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must be signed and include the writer's address. Under no circumstances will unsigned letters be printed. Letters should be legible. The Beacon reserves the right to edit libelous comments. Address letters to The Brunswick Bea con, P. O. Box 2558, Shallotte, N. C. 28459. Make Your Decisions By Choice, Not By Accident Every now and then I have a fit of conscience and wonder if I shouldn't have pulled a trailer onto the family's south 40 back home, gotten a job at the furniture plant and pursued a life of peaceful coex istence with my ambitions. But when you think you're smarter than the average factory worker and have a straight-A aver age in school to supposedly confirm your suspicions, you generally want to be noticed by the people whose names and pictures arc in the news paper every week ? the folks who own the big houses and have the important jobs and are driven to what are considered by society to be great accomplishments. That was my situation 10 years ago when 1 dropped out of college in my junior year. 1 was tired of wasting my lime and was ready to dive head first into the so-called re al world. Patience was not one of my virtues. And I guess I believed the myth that I could have anything 1 wanted in life, if 1 worked hard enough for it. I've worked hard ? probably harder than most of my old friends who have become successful pro fessionals?but I'm really no closer now to my dream than I was the day Rahn Adams I tossed my bookbag in the closct and tore up the class schedule for what would have been my next semester in school. When you're 20 years old, a semester seems like a big chunk of your life. My dream was to be a writer, a great writer. The next Great Ameri can Novel was wailing to be writ ten, and I had faith that I was the man for the job ? enough faith to gamble that I could find a steady day job that would allow me to sit home at night behind my typewriter and record for posterity whatever pearls of wisdom a 20-year-old col lege dropout could possibly impart. To paraphrase Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. But what Mr. Frost didn't tell us are that there are no shortcuts from one road to another once a particular route has been undertaken, and there arc no bypasses around the inevitable roadblocks that slop traific ahead. I've finally decided that the only sensible way to reach my planned destination is to turn around in the middle of this winding side road and backtrack to the main highway. To a 30-ycar-old college dropout, a semester or two doesn't seem like such a long t-me. If I sound as though I'm suffering through some sort of major mid-life crisis, you're only half right. Hav ing been in the news business for the better part of the past 10 years, my entire adult life has been a series of day-to-day crises, both major and minor. Not only have I had to worry about personal problems, I've been paid to struggle with the trials and tribulations of everyone from the Average Joe to the Better Than Av erage Biff. News reporting can be an interesting and stimulating job, but it is not for the faint of heart ? especially since neither Joe nor Biff generally appreciates any thing negative he reads about him self in the newspaper. I recently was reminded of that fact when an individual whose toes I stepped on in this column tactfully admonished me to judge not, lest 1 be judged. Actually, what the indi vidual said was more like the old Alistair MacLean quote, "Make your enemies by choice, not by ac cidcnt" I've found that the same is true with career moves. Before I conclude, look up in the left-hand comer of this page and note the heading. Opinion Page. And notice that there also is consid erable space here dedicated to Let ters to the Editor. Just as I have ex pressed my opinions about every thing from oat bran to the Sunset Beach Bridge, you ? the reader ? have had the opportunity to voice opinions of your own. And you know what they say about opinions, whether yours or mine. I've enjoyed writing this column over the past three years, and I also appreciate the valuable insight and experience I've gained by helping to cover both the good and bad news of Brunswick County for the Beacon. Still, at times I've felt like the ugly girl at the prom: They let me drink the punch, but no one will ask me to dance. And I'm itching to kick up my heels. AND THEY WONDEK vim it's so hard , TO PRY me loose! "BAR&X1R eg) 111? GftROUtVS C^vRTrwNJ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Don't Spoil This Very Special Vacation Spot To the editor: Having come to Sunset Beach from Winston-Salem pretty regular ly since 1961 . .we have noticed many changes here on this beautiful and very special and unusual island. When we first came down here we stayed at the Sunset Strip Motel. Later with our young daughter and her golden retriever dog, we lent camped on the east end of this is land, the cost of which was then on ly 52 per night and had a difficult time finding the manager to pay him before leaving. Later throughout these nearly 30 years we have rented collages up and down this bcach area for vari ous family gatherings. Two years ago we invested in an oceanfront duplex with eight other share own ers. We marvel at the quiet and friendly atmosphere here and hope this very special vacation spot will not be spoiled by the proposed high-rise bridge. Perhaps a solution might be to widen the bridge to al low two traffic lanes which would not prove as costly as the proposed bridge. Bill and Libby White Sunset Property Owners Winston-Salem (Letters continue, following page) Reflections After Wandering Through The Solid Waste Maze I've spent several hours over the past week or two sorting ? make that trying to sort ? my way through the county's solid waste maze. I got lost in the process, but did come out with a few thoughts about what I'd seen and heard. Starting off, the question was simple: I just wanted to know how the Clean County Department, the Keep America Beautiful (KAB) steering committee, the county's solid waste advisory board, and the solid waste department fit together, so I could includc that tiny piece of information in a news story. It seemed logical to me that these agencies should come togeth er under some sort of "solid waste" umbrella since each is tackling the problem from one aspect or another. It also made sense that there should hp some orw ncr?nn who could sit down and tell me how Brunswick County is addressing its solid waste problem. Not so, at least not exact ly. Most of their roles are still being defined. The only link this hodge podge of agencies appear to share other than trash is that all four re port to the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners through the county administration. Acting County Manager David Clegg comes as close to being the one person who knows about solid waste as I could find, though .there are plenty of folks with viewpoints and wishes. Last Tuesday he tried over the telephone to explain to me how each group fits into the overall solid waste picture. It would take a chart to properly describe this frag mented set-up, but I'll try with words only. First, the solid waste, or landfill department as it is often called, is charged with operation of the land fill, collection system (green box sites), and existing procedures that relate to solid waste. The depart ment also has a litter officer, whose charge is enforcement of the coun ty's litter ordinance, such as it is. Second, the solid waste advisory board is no more, disbanded after its initial year and replaced just last week with a three-member "blue ribbon" commission, all former members of the advisory board. The new panel will be charged with studying specific issues related to solid waste, but commissioners haven't yet decided what those is sues should be. Another twist in the solid waste maze is Robert Tucker, the county's new staff engineer. He is Clegg's "point man" for technical aspects of Senate Bill 111. This sweeping piece of legislation mandates that local communities, among numer ous other requirements, be recycling 30 percent of their waste by early 1993. Clegg says right upfront he's been hesitant to lead the county into commitments relating to the bill that can't be gotten out of easily. Why? I can even answer that: Because it could all change in (he near future. This means that while local mu nicipalities are waiting to see what the county is going to do before J 2L leaving the gate, the county is wait ing to see what the state is going to do. Frustrating? You bet, especially for volunteers who are anxious to see recycling take off in Brunswick County and are willing to do their share to make it happen. State legislators are under a lot of pressure ? from local govern ments and others ? to take a second look at the bill. The lobbyists gen erally seem to agree that, among other things: 1) the state shouldn't have man dated so much without also provid ing the means (i.e., the cash) to do it with; 2) the state should have given communities a chance to do things voluntarily and in their own way; 3) the General Assembly didn't realize what it was doing when it passed S.B. Ill in the first place; and 4) given the state's budget shortfall and that, it's an election year, state cash for pulling off S.B. Ill is not likely to appear during the coming fiscal year. Fourth, the Clean County De partment happens to be the vehicle Susan Usher through which the county applied for its KAB affiliate status. Its role in the solid waste picture is also still being defined. The KAB committee serves the department in an adviso ry capacity only. Clegg described KAB as a "wholly owned subsidiary" of the county, whose task, from his point of view, is mainly public education. That doesn't mean, he pointed out, that the KAB board can't recom mend ordinances and policies to the county commissioners. It just re flects what he feels should be the group's major emphasis. From the national KAB's point of view, ongoing public education is absolutely essential, but as just one aspect of the complete "KAB sys tem". Most KAB affiliates are heav ily into litter prevention and into voluntary recycling. As of 1988. their role was also expanded to in clude ? by demand of local govern ments ? involvement in long-term solid waste disposal planning. Affil iates now share information with the public and with local govern ments on solid waste disposal alter natives, though it doesn't advocate one method of dispoal or recovery over another. Each community, once armed with the facts, must decide that for itself. Most KAB affiliates are free standing, not-for-profit organiza tions. The permit application for our affiliate, now in the certification process, came through the county. And, as Clegg suggested in last Tuesday's telephone conversation, that special relationship has its plus es and minuses. On the plus side, the relation ship gives the KAB the county's of ficial support, money to get started on, and a direct avenue for making recommendations and suggestions through the Brunswick County Clean County department and the county county commissioners. Those are big pluses, given the KAB's mission, but it takes big pluses to offset the minuses, at least from where 1 sit. The way I see it, the relationship also means that the KAB has no choice but to move more slowly than some of its participants would like. Government seems to work that way, especially when dealing with something new, something that by its nature has to involve more than one agency's "turf" and some thing likely to cost money. C'est la vie. The county tie-in unfortunately also means that there is pressure from certain quarters to include on the KAB board members appointed not because of their interest in the issue or their specific abilitiers, but merely because of their political connections. That's too bad, be cause what the fledging organiza tion needs is broad-based communi ty support and board members who are willing to work together and to work hard for something they be lieve is good for Brunswick County. Personally, I don'l think it would hurt a bit if some members also happened to be politically as tutc and well-connected. There's no point having a committee if it can't make things happen. But one set of assets shouldn't replace the other. It's important that this panel not be tied to political parties, figures or causes. It needs to be allowed to set its own priorities and shape its own direction based on the research now under way as part of the KAB certi fication process. Certainly most of these solid waste projects are in their infancy, with lots of growing pains. And giv en enough time, they may all come together into something that vague ly resembles a master plan of ac tion. I certainly hope so, because Brunswick County residents have made clear in recent years the im portance of cleaning up and beauti fying our community. It wcu'd be a mistake to lose the momentum we've got going through the road side clean-up projects, recycling centers and educational programs. It would help if all the parties involved in solid waste find a forum for sharing information and work ing together ? maybe the new "blue ribbon" commission can help with that We also need to actively support the Keep America Beautiful pro gram and ensure that it is given a chance to do its job. And, it's important that the ordi nary, private citizens of this county keep reminding the people who set the county budget and make the de cisions of our concern.
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
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April 26, 1990, edition 1
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