Chapel Hill has coal ash under its police station. Should people live there?
All but one Chapel Hill Town Council member backed more talks Wednesday about putting a new police department headquarters, more town services, and possibly housing, on an old coal ash site.
After eight years and roughly a dozen potential sites, the council is now taking a closer look at 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. — the home of the current Chapel Hill Police Department headquarters.
The existing building is too small for police needs, poorly designed and has old plumbing and ventilation systems, town staff said. A Municipal Services Center could house a modern police department, as well as the fire department and other town offices.
But first, the town and its development partner, Belmont Sayre, have to deal with the coal ash.
The council met Wednesday to learn more about the town’s options, the state Brownfields Program for redeveloping contaminated sites, and a memorandum of understanding that would define basic terms, land ownership and a planning framework. It also would start the town’s 12- to 18-month development approval process, while still giving the town and developer an option to back out.
Council member Adam Searing said he couldn’t support housing on top of coal ash. He would not move his family there, he said, adding that he suspected “most people on this (Zoom) call would not be willing to move their kids onto this coal ash dump.”
“The reason that I’m so disturbed by this is really that we as politicians are often very good at recommending a course of action for other people, but sometimes not so good at also being willing to take that course of action,” Searing said.
Council members Camille Berry and Michael Parker took issue with that, saying they could consider living there one day. Council member Tai Huynh noted many town residents live in worse conditions, some with mold and flooding.
The police department site is on a major Chapel Hill Transit route, Berry said, will be town owned, and “will be monitored much more heavily than many of our properties across this town.”
“I will tell my esteemed colleague that I haven’t had the privileges that you’ve had of choosing always where to live, but I do think deeply about where I live and where I put those who are in my care, where they live,” Berry said. “Right now, serving as a council member alongside you, I take that very seriously, as do the rest of our colleagues … so to level that accusation, I would say is extremely unfair.”
Coal ash health risks, remediation
Coal ash is a carcinogen and can be dangerous to human health, particularly if it is stored in lagoons or unlined landfills, or is exposed to stormwater runoff that leeches contaminants into nearby streams and groundwater.
Most of the town’s coal ash is buried under the police department and its parking lot, but some also was found just under the ground or peaking out of the soil on a steep bank overlooking Bolin Creek. Roughly 1,000 tons of that coal ash was replaced with clean dirt in 2020, and the bank was reinforced with vegetation and fencing.
Studies conducted by the town’s consultants found coal-related contaminants, including arsenic, lead, barium, chromium and selenium in the soil and groundwater. High levels of mercury also were found in the groundwater.
Under state rules, that would prevent the town from building single-family homes, townhouses and condos on the site, but commercial projects, including apartments, could be built once the site is remediated.
The studies did not find “significant impacts to stream sediment or surface water” in the creek, a town report noted, or any risk to pedestrians and cyclists using the Bolin Creek Greenway.
The state’s Brownfields Program has repurposed over 600 sites around the state, including 14 sites in Orange County where the work is in progress or completed. That includes the Wegmans store and the Trilogy Chapel Hill apartments (the former Crown Honda site).
Among other requirements, the state program would prohibit future use of the groundwater and soil disturbance at the police department site. The town also would continue monthly visits to the site to monitor any potential changes.
Town needs housing, police department
The town knows coal ash, debris and rocks were used in the late 1960s and ‘70s to fill holes created when dirt was removed from the site a decade earlier for construction projects.
The town didn’t know about the coal ash when it built the police department there in 1980. That information came to light in 2013, when town staff studied the future of its properties.
Multiple investigations have been launched to determine the extent of the contamination and the potential solutions, and in 2020, the town removed 1,000 tons of coal ash and soil along the Bolin Creek Greenway, just south of the police department.
The next step could be removing some coal ash, covering the rest with buildings, pavement, or 3 to 4 feet of clean soil, and building a retaining wall along the greenway. The $3 million to $5 million project would be done in consultation with the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.
The other option, supported by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Friends of Bolin Creek, is a full cleanup of the site, replacing contaminated dirt with clean dirt.
That could cost $13 million to $16 million and send 5,000 dump truck loads of dirt to a landfill in another county, said Keith Johnson, an attorney representing the town.
Housing, development options
In January, Belmont brought the council three potential options for redeveloping the site:
▪ $9 million, to clean up the coal ash, create public green space, and find a new municipal services center site.
▪ $54.8 million, to build a municipal services center for police, fire, parks and other town offices, and a parking deck.
▪ $44.4 million, to build a municipal services center, a parking deck and up to 275 apartments.
Condos and townhouses aren’t possible, because they either would be complex and expensive, or can’t be built on Brownfield sites, said Mark Moshier, with Legacy Property Group.
Retail and office construction, while attractive to the town, would be hard to finance, and tenants, if the town could attract them, might struggle without better visibility and access, he said.
On the other hand, a commercial market study of the surrounding area found that apartments could become part of a walkable “urban village” supporting businesses, including Root Cellar and Flyleaf Books, at the MLK Jr. Boulevard-Hillsborough Street intersection.
Negotiations timeline
The developer would submit a concept plan this spring to get more feedback, and the council could consider an economic development agreement (EDA) with details about cost sharing, a possible land sale, and other key issues.
That would be binding on the town and the developer.
An official project, submitted later this year, would prompt more public hearings, council negotiations for affordable housing, green space, and other community benefits, and eventually, a vote.
Belmont could manage the project and split the cost with the town for the coal ash cleanup, the parking deck and site development work. The town would pay for construction of the municipal center and, if a parking deck is built, lease spaces from Belmont. It also could sell any land used for housing or commercial construction to Belmont, putting it back on the property tax rolls.
The town has allocated roughly $34 million in future bond money to build the municipal center.
This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 8:02 AM.
