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HomeMy WebLinkAboutC.054.93008_1136689 Let's get back to the point. O'BRIEN: I'm just referring to the resolution also. A step further. HEDRICK: Let the Clerk have a copy of the resolution. DR. KOGOT: I moved here from Pennsylvania, having been in the proximity of Three Mile Island, having been near the chemical dumps that they have dumped into New Jersey from Philadelphia in 1978, watching the chemical dumps surrounding the Delaware River. We have a problem, the problem is we are generating a product that nobody wants. Nobody wants it in their backyard. I moved down here not because my parents have lived here for 300 years, but because this is a nice place to live. It's a wonderful place to live. If we bring a nuclear dump into this area, it's not such a nice place to live. It will be like Times Beach, or the other place near Niagara Falls or like the ground water problems they have in New Jersey. It is the duty of our county commissioners to keep this as a wonderful place to live for the people here, for the children of the commissioners and of the population. The way they can do that is to tell the Legislature that this dump is not to come to Iredell County or the surrounding counties. If it is a political process to get this thing out of the state or get it to the west, our Governor should have enough connections with the President to tell him to move it to some other state. That's a political problem. It is the duty of this ordinance to prevent this from coming to this county to keep this a wonderful place to live. Medically, there is no safe level of radiation. We live with radiation; we live with it every day. We will not expose women unnecessarily to radiation for X-rays when they are pregnant. There are certainly reasons why we do not. Let's try to keep it as minimal as possible, especially to keep it out of areas where we have high density population. Iredell County and this state are becoming a very dense population area. It's a nice place to live. Let's keep it nice. DR. MARKS: I appreciate the efforts of the county commissioners in hopefully opposing the location of a nuclear waste facility here in Iredell County. I have no political ambitions. I am not a member of the Sierra Club or of any political party. I come to you tonight as a concerned citizen, as a worried parent, and as a busy doctor. I see more than enough cancer, and I've seen plenty of cancer here in the last 71 years. I certainly don't feel that we need more radiation in our environment to produce more business for us. I think there's too many unknowns in this issue. There's too many unknowns in the technology and too many unknowns in the biological effects of radiation. I think most of what I would like to say has already been said regarding the safety of our community. I believe this is the utmost concern to myself as a physician, and I sure hope that the county commissioners will protect us from further problems with nuclear waste. JANET HOYLE: I have worked -------- We are a grass roots environmental organization made up of ordinary citizens. We have studied high and low levels of wastes -------for almost two years. I have some specific suggestions about the ordinance. I would like to commend the commissioners of Iredell County for becoming involved in the process. Mrs. Hoyle made some suggestions to change the proposed ordinance. Also I think it might be a possibility for you to discuss having a local option where a community county -level veto as a part of the ordinance. As you all know a county veto ---------------•--. But a community -level veto is a part of other ordinances that have been passed, including Mitchell County, which was past earlier this year. I think that that might be something you might want to consider including the Iredell ordinance. A community -level veto provides a way of protection. It also provides a statement of concerns of the county leaders. - Again, I commend you for your involvement. I hope you will discuss other issues such as whether or not North Carolina should stay in the Southeastern Compact and that you will consider passing resolutions and participating in the debate of the upcoming proposed rules that the radia- tion protection section, there will be public hearings, and right now there are plans for only one public hearing. One thing that counties can do, I think, is ask the State for more public hearings. MAC CORMAC: There have been five already, this is the sixth. JANET HOYLE: Those were public meetings. The Regulation Protection Section at this time plans only one official public hearing after a 30 -day comment. So if enough people across the state ask for more community involvement, you might have an opportunity to have larger number of public hearings. HEDRICK: I am going to ask Dr. Mac Cormac to make specific note in his mind that of all these comments, especially those with regard to seeing, and I am sure that his department will see that there are more public hearings in a better educational process informing the public of what's going on and what the next is going to be. MAC CORMAC: Let me clarify. There have been six public meetings, one public hearing. They were held in Charlotte, Asheville, Research Triangle, Wilmington, and the other two allude me at this hour. Those have been held. There will be one in Charlotte. Those have been held across the state, all regions. Those are public meetings. There is one public hearing. .pnl4 HOYLE: However, when the final rules are released by the North Carolina Regulation Protection ' Section, those will be the rules that actually apply to the facility, and at present there are plans for a 30 -day written public comment and then one public hearing held in Raleigh.