I turned on the TV last night to watch the Guilford County Commissioners’ discussion of Sharpe Brothers’ controversial request to build an asphalt plant near Interstate 85 and Liberty Road and none other high-powered attorney Henry Isaacson was behind the podium arguing there was no better place to build it. As if I was expecting anyone else.
Still, this was a tough one, as both sides presented strong arguments both for and against building the plant within a mile radius of residential neighborhood. Isaacson presented experts who testified that the plant would present neither environmental nor traffic hazards to neighboring areas, while a resident presented an impressive homemade powerpoint presentation showing what he believed to be potential hazards.
In the end, Commissioner Steve Arnold summed up the situation best we he argued that he didn’t possibly see how residents coud be adversely affected when there was an interstate highway separating them from the asphalt plant. That’s a pretty solid point.
The meeting did have its humorous moments, thought. A speaker from the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League made a presentation based on third-party research outlining the death, disease and depression residents suffered when living ‘downwind’ from an asphalt plant in Salisbury.
Arnold, after questioning the validity of the information before him, asked the speaker to elaborate on the scientifically nebulous term ‘downwind.’
“Downwind,” she said, “usually refers to the direction downwind from any activities.” Right.
Arnold’s fellow Republican on the commission, Linda Shaw, wasn’t going to let him get away with it, though.
“I hate to say this, but Steve’s obviously never lived on a farm downwind of a hog pen,” she said.
Commissioners voted 9-2 in favor of the plant. That’s not good news for opponents of the Patriot’s Landing development. If an asphalt plant near a residential neighborhood garners such a lopsided vote, then a golf community near the Haw River would appears to be a shoe-in. And guess who’ll be arguing the devloper’s case.