Our Road: Then -- E23: EPA Approves Warren Co. PCB Landfill, Ferruccio Cabin Break-in, "Anti-PCB Leader Warns He's Armed"

For once, the EPA uses the precautionary principle — something the Agency seldom applies to its decisions. Since January, 1979, the Hunt Administration has been looking to delay the EPA’s decision on the PCB landfill in Warren County and has been pretending to seriously consider the in-place carbon treatment of the roadside PCBs. Then the Agency decides to require a 50-year study of PCBs treated in-place with carbon.

It comes as no real surprise, then, on June 4, 1979, that Ken receives a phone call from Raleigh radio station WRAL FM asking him to comment on EPA’s rejection of the carbon treatment plan and the news that the EPA has just approved the state’s Afton Warren County PCB landfill plan.

The next day, Ken receives a phone call from Paul Pope whose family owns the property for the PCB landfill site. The state hasn’t actually paid him for the property yet. Mr. Pope threatens Ken as the “one who stirs the people up.” The next day, Mr. Pope’s son calls Ken and threatens him. That night, Ken, his brother Richard, and Deborah stay at Frances and Sylvia Davis’s house. The next morning Ken and Deborah find that their cabin has been broken into. 

Sheriff Davis and Deputy Bartholemew tell Ken and his brother Richard that law enforcement cannot protect them. Richard buys a firearm, and Ken already has one. Ken and Sylvia send out press releases stating that "PCB committee members are in a state of mutual protection and armed alert." The Ferruccio cabin break-in hits statewide news. 

Sylvia and Ken meet with District Attorney David Waters to see if there is any way he can help them get protection. District Attorney Waters tells Ken if anyone really wants to harm him, it is unlikely that that person would break into the cabin again and that it would probably be through a telescopic lens.