On Sep 1, 2007 over 138,700 visitors had seen the truth about Kersey Valley on thedumpsite.
You are visitor number to this page.
High Point's state-of-the-art Approved Alternative Cover.
TRAFFIC STATS above...42% of TRAFFIC on Sat Feb 9, 2001, 9AM-3PM was dump related vehicles.
AN ACRE OF DUMP BUZZARD FECES A FEW FEET FROM HOME
Below is dump buzzard feces under a roosting tree area a few yards from Kersey Valley.
Many buzzards spent many nights here attracted by the poorly covered dump.
"We're afraid of the dump and what it'll do [to us]" --Seniors "H" in their mid 70s.
Like others, this elderly couple sold out at any price they could get to escape.
NEW SIDING ON OUR HOME --- Cost thousands of dollars
Two months later, a wet cloth shows the result of High Point's dump.
We're here 24/7 , so it's IN OUR LUNGS TOO!
Neighborhood children have breathed this all their lives.
EPA law: when a landfill is closed, garbage must be covered but...
when we showed differently, the anonymous "Final Permit Decision" NC DENR explanation and Assistant AG Nancy Scott's court argument claimed: "there may be a problem with implementation of.. cover"
<< 5 years after that.... no wonder they wanted to be anonymous.
DUMP FIRES There've been several.
Here, the "370", a trash compactor, caught fire.
NEW YEAR'S EVE
Dec 31, 2000, 5pm
a few feet from our home.
HIDING A LANDFILL FROM PRYING EYES?
Workers spoke on radios of hiding garbage behind banks of earth (top of photo background.) However, a little effort caught the uncovered Sunday garbage as a Kersey Valley dump guard crept up and watched us from behind a tree.
Yes, he was REALLY peeping from behind a tree.
Of course we photographed that too...
CLOSE TO HOME--A flock of passing dump buzzards relieved themselves on our front door and car.
2001 GALLERYClick on a photo to enlarge it. For more photos go HERE
BUFFER SCREENS -The photos below are from our front door. A legal condition of the permit called for buffer screens to prevent this. This was ignored and went unpunished by the NC DENR environmental watchdog agency. Perhaps it is a permit suggestion and not really a permit condition.
WATER FEARS -Leaking landfill and water table depletion fears.
SATURDAY JUNE 9, 2001"Our well water suddenly started smelling terrible. It has exactly the same smell as the dump. Actually, we live near two different dumps, Kersey Valley and Jackson Lake. One (Jackson Lake) doesn't even have any test wells. We're afraid they might get in our well so we've used bottled water for a long time to drink and cook but this is really bad. It's so bad we don't even know whether to bathe in it or not."
SUNDAY JUNE 10, 2001"Our well water seems to smell ok today but we still don't dare taste it."
- - 60year old senior Ms "D" personal communication
DECEMBER 2001 Fearing for their health and at considerable expense of some $2800, Mr and Ms "D" finally gave in, abandoned their well, and bought into an existing nearby city water main. This is the exception. Most elderly folks around this dump either don't have that option or can't afford it.
"We had no choice. Ever since they started the massive excavation for (Phase 3), the water in our well has steadily dropped. By the time the new section of dump opened, we lost our water from our well. My wife couldn't do laundry. We had to go somewhere else to take a shower. If we left it alone, barely enough came in to flush the toilet. I spent a lot of money to get someone out to see if it needed cleaning out. They checked it and said it was clean on the bottom down to bed rock and bone dry." -Mr. "D" personal communication
ROAD DAMAGE...
Heavy, high volume dump traffic destroys roads not built for it.
"The prime directive of landfillery is to make money." -- DUMPWATCH
High Point collects money from Kersey Valley but city taxes don't pay for this.
Completely repaved in 1997, being patched again. Garbage truck passes patch. DMV still trying
BEING GOOD! On the day shown below, they were really making an unusual effort at Kersey Valley. Why? A new permit was needed for Phase 3 and City Council members and officials were scheduled to drop by.
BUT COUNCIL DIDN'T SEE THE SCENES BELOW (or didn't want to see them)
"We can't go back to burying it in our back yards." --Guilford County Planning Board Chairwoman Mary Skenes
"It is still basically a Yard-A-Pult approach. [The Yard-A-Pult, invented for a 'commercial' on Saturday Night Live, invites disposal of waste by catapulting it over the back fence into the yards of nearby neighbors.] Our real waste disposal practices are not as different from this spoof as we would like to believe."
... Senator Al Gore, pp 156-157, Earth in the Balance
To show the scale of this devastation, we moved our cameras 1200 feet north, a block inside another residential area and photographed from some school kids front yard toward the dump. This has been in their lungs for life.
DUST AND MORE --A WITCH'S BREW TO BREATHE LONG TERM -
Landfill dust plumes are not just dust. but include resident and imported bacteria, viruses, small insects, and chemicals that can be carried by the wind. Since the conposition changes daily, no one knows the chemical and bacterial "weapons of mass destruction" that result from the brew. The smell is in there too!
"dirt in the air may be a pollution killer second only to second hand cigarette smoke."
-Ronald White, American Lung Association
WHATEVER IT IS, WE'VE BREATHED IT 24/7 FOR 14 YEARS!
It's in our lungs! We've been diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
OUR SCHOOL KIDS have breathed it all their lives.
IS THIS WORKER SCROUNGING - OR SAVING US AND OUR ENVIRONMENT?
Shred your papers before sending them to the dump? We recommend it at Kersey Valley.
What's that goodie down there? Maybe I can get it. Someone's medical or financial record
Don't walk too slowly Mr. Landfill Worker It's almost meal time
Dump buzzards roosting
A dust bank rolls toward us. Soon we'll show photomicrographs of this that winds up in our lungs.
Water truck buried in dust
Equipment Fumes & Soot
Dust Mite
School bus passes gate.
Sat. Mar 10, 2001 video shows noisy landfill trucks averaged passing our home every 1 min 15 secs.
State rules say landfills must be zoned heavy industrial. For purely political convenience, High Point officials wesaysoed Kersey Valley heavy industrial even though it is in our residential area.
INAUGURATION DAY While our new Governor was being sworn in, Kersey Valley waste was exposed that should've been covered by an "approved alternative cover," an official term for a plastic tarp. It is one of many landfill "make-it-sound-good" terms.
But that doesn't mean that it is used properly or that it does anything substantive.
Kersey Valley reality is so macabre, officials are often totally out of touch with it.
This IS our back yard --
IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN IN 2007 and GUESS WHAT? A NEW PERMIT IS NEEDED!
Seven years of dump buzzards out our door-
NO CHANGE EXCEPT FOR THE GARBAGE MOUNTAIN!
LEFT - Mar 5, 1995 View from our kitchen door of dump buzzards in our yard. Dump is in background.
RIGHT - Dec 24, 2001Same view from our kitchen door The now massive dump is in background.
