Our Road: Then -- E 21: Johnston County Gas Mask Protest and More

In this episode, Ken goes to Johnston County with Wallace Neal in the PCB truck to protest the state’s testing of the Weber plan to see if carbon can be used to treat the roadside PCBs in place. However, it is highly unlikely that the EPA will approve the carbon treatment plan which has only been studied in the lab and that will require perpetually monitoring 270 miles of highway shoulders.

Ken decides to have a little fun and wears an old, military, chemical gas mask and immediately gets the attention of news media reporters who are uneasy at the sight of Ken’s gas mask. He explains to the reporters why Warren County citizens are opposed to the Weber plan and to the PCB dump in Warren County and banters with EPA official Dave Hopkins and with a Johnston County health official. 

The Warren County Board of Commissioners meets with commissioners from the fourteen counties, and the counties decide to support picking up the PCBs on the roadsides and to haul them to an already EPA-approved hazardous waste landfill. 

As the state delays its decision on the Warren County PCB plan, it continues its circus to entertain the public with the in-place carbon treatment plan. At a conference in Durham titled: “Cancer and the Toxic Environment,” Ken and Sylvia Davis present a talk on the PCB situation in North Carolina. They learn about another cleanup alternative that the state doesn’t even seem to consider, a permanent detoxification method explained by Jesse Riley who says that he “does not favor excavation and burial of the PCBs in a landfill because it simply assembles a larger, more potent time-bomb in one place.” 

The take-away of this Episode 21 should get our listeners' attention as we explain how bad things could have become in Warren County and North Carolina if history had taken a different turn.