Salters residents claim contaminated water from landfill, demand action

KINGSTREE—A group of concerned citizens from the Salters community near the Williamsburg County landfill appeared before county council last week to propose terms for life after the landfill.
Adam Johnson presented members with a list of demands citizens would like to see met as the landfill begins to shut down its operations, due to close at the end of March 2010. In all, there were five matters addressed by Johnson, outlined in a letter presented to council before his verbal statement.

A large portion of Johnson’s argument centered on what he claimed is a water supply that has been contaminated by the unlined landfill. He asked that council hire a party outside of the county and state government to test the water for such contamination.

“We don’t’ trust anybody from DHEC in Columbia,” Johnson said.

According to Johnson, the group suspects DHEC has not been forthright with residence concerning the overall safety of the drinking water in the area. He claimed local politicians, for reasons not explained, were influencing DHEC to keep water from being properly tested.

“We have information where there are three wells that, just from water from the landfill, have been capped,” Johnson said. “The citizens have not been notified. That’s bad.”
County Supervisor Stanley S. Pasley said while the list of items presented would have to be examined and considered in regards to the feasibility and legality of some parts, he has looked into the matter of wells being capped and said he could not find any evidence to support Johnson’s claims.

“There has not been any evidence in terms of any of the monitoring wells,” Pasley said. “There (are) no wells that I am aware of—and these wells are monitored and were being monitored on a semi-annual basis and now they are being monitored on a quarterly basis—there is no evidence that there has been any contamination, based upon the reports that we have received, the official reports.”
Pasley then suggested that the matter be referred to the council’s committee on Education, Recreation and Welfare to investigate further and make recommendations to council accordingly. He also reminded Johnson that the county is in the process of closing the Salters landfill, half of which is scheduled shut down by the end of March 2010.

Pasley said, should everything go as planned, the entire landfill would be closed by 2011.

“In close proximity to that landfill, there have been persons that do have an unusual amount of physical problems,” Council member Eddie Woods said. “Whether that can be attributed to the landfill, I don’t know. One gentleman who lived very close to it, indeed, he has some serious problems…I think it would be fitting if we could do something.

“But we need to find out what we can legally do to help them, because they were thrust into a situation that was beyond their control,” he continued. “They’ve been forced to drink water that probably we wouldn’t want to drink, whether it is actually contaminated water or not, it wasn’t the best, purest water you could have. It’s common sense. The landfills right here, 200 feet from you, its not lined…There is a high incident of physical problems there, it would lead you to think that it has something to do with it.”

The council moved to pass the issue alone to the aforementioned committee, made up of council members Franklin Fulmore, Woods and Drucker.

“I definitely have empathy for the people who live (in Salters),” Council member Sam Drucker said. “They’re being asked to make sacrifices over the years that no one else in Williamsburg County has been asked to make because of a non lined barebones landfill that’s existed there for years and certainly they deserve some consideration.”

Other requests made by Johnson included that no residents in the community be asked to pay the usual “hook-up” to the county water lines being run into the Salters community and not be charged monthly for use of that county water once available. Also, it was asked that the county cover health care fees for adults and children that might have resulted from what contaminated water, in addition to hiring an independent company to test the wells where citizens currently draw their water. Johnson concluded by requesting Williamsburg County reimburse residents for the amount their declined property values due to the landfill.