part three and four of being a good neighbor.

\Part Three  

The cover up

This pic was taken on hill behind our house and looking toward the city of canton owned land. 

         So as years go by and the city of Canton in all of this time allows some drilling to go on as they begin to rape the other resources from their Pike township property and begin to cover up their liability. First the oil and gas then comes the coal. They begin in a systematic procedure unwittingly I assume,  but through the direction of others, of stripping the land of its wood and then finally all the coal, clay, and limestone, and anything they  can muster out of the land that they had once covered with crap up to four feet thick or more in places.

       This sewage, was I assume pushed into the bottom of the strip pits because the cover they used to finish grade those areas stripped was nothing like the topsoil that was once there. I would have to ask myself at this point why would you waste such a valuable resource as topsoil unless there was something wrong with it. 

      Somewhere along the line they were also talking to my mom and dad to secure land to strip adjacent to the City of Canton land.  This was land that was previously stripped and left lifeless by less than honest coal men earlier when my grandfather owned the land. The agent who signed the lease with mom and dad let it slip that the city had heavy metal in the sludge that was once spread over the farm and that now laid at the bottom of strip pits somewhere over there in a porous grave. Along with the screenings and condoms and whatever  else the city decided to rid themselves of. Where else would this land but in the same water aquifer  that would  naturally percolate through the hillside due to the elevation difference as it was usually located on what they called the #5 coal vein and on a bed of clay.

        This wouldn’t affect our farm personally  as our drinking water is above that water aquifer and a valley stretches out between us , but surely anyone on East Sparta Ave and below that level and along the creek could be impacted.

     Also there was a lot of areas that was never stripped as they lay below or above the #5 coal vein and these valleys remained pretty much intact with the sludge accumulations as thick as they ever were and in fact I had observed a black settlement in both ponds on the city property which I would assume was due to the runoff and accumulation of sludge in the bottom of the pond to depths up to a foot thick. This could be observed on my dog’s legs after entering the pond. I imagine if core samples were taken on various areas of that farm as it exists today I am sure you find that there is a considerable amount of decayed sewage that still exists there today.

      Another potential problem that existed when the sewage pond was built as a temporary means to handle the City of Cantons overflow problem , was the fact that this six acre lake sat over a porous water aquifer of sand and gravel  from which local residents have been drinking their water from and still do today. Although the pond is gone, I will personally verify it was built over sand and gravel as it existed in an alluvial flood plain that is one of the main reasons we are called the Sandy Valley area. This area was the remnants of glaciation and the following sweeping of sand and gravel in deep deposits all along the Nimisilla and Sandy creek areas of Ohio and extends down into the Tuscarawas River Valley area. Water or sludge sitting on this sand or gravel will leach through the soils and down into the water supplies and may still be affecting this whole area. Heavy metal can easily be associated with cancer and other problems of the body.  That six acre lake acted like a pump as the rain water that would land on the surface of the lake would eventually percolate down into the soils and eventually into the water aquifers of many a resident up and down East Sparta Ave..  As well any area along the Nimisilla Creek including the City of East Sparta which I assume secured its water from wells in the same water aquifer.

      I am no hydrologist and really don’t want to scare anyone, so just keep in mind that what I am saying is purely conjecture and only testing will confirm or deny the existence of heavy metals. Also spills from places such as Gregory Galvanizing and others who have been known to have fish kills in the Nimisilla creek are also partly responsible, as well a host of other businesses some gone, some still here today that I am sure contributed by using the Nimisilla Creek as their personal toilet seeing fit to dispose a variety of chemicals of who knows what for years.

    Still the City of Canton discharges effluent out of their sewage treatment plant  on a regular basis but claim their water is safe enough to drink. Yet they still pull their water from an outside water source near Beach City to supply Canton. Kinda seems a shame to waste all that good effluent water they are dumping in the creek when they could just as easily pipe it to the residents in the City of Canton and save money in transportation and treatment costs. A host of whatever a person dumps into a toilet, eventually ends up in the sewage treatment plant and eventually into the creek, all the while fresh clean water sources are used to irrigate plants and water lawns throughout Canton. Seems to me this is a resource they need to tap into and reduce their discharges into the Nimisilla creek.

     Also there was talk of converting the city owned farm into a park where residents from Canton could come and enjoy a day of sun and fun traipsing through the spoiled remains of what was left of the original city farm. Plans are still being made to turn the land over to the residents of Stark County in the form of a new park complete with a visitor’s center and a three headed frog pond. The three heads are due to due to high mercury content of the soil as it genetically transforms the frogs DNA and the resulting creature turns into a real fly eating machine. Purely hypothetical and not real or is it? They say frogs are the first to see the effects of pollution in the environment and can a measuring stick as to how polluted an environment has become.

      Regardless of that, and this is my own opinion but transferring the risk of potential environmental blunders from one governmental agency to another only serves to weaken the link and the responsibility of the original offender, as things tend to get mired in the muck when searching for answers as to why my kid now has a growth on his head. The liability of the original offender is lessened by the second governmental agency.

     This should be avoided and I still have question about how safe their property is, and if allowing a park where your kids will play and eat grass, or bugs laden with heavy metals or possibly fall into a pond, or eat fish from a pond, where the sewage muck with high metal content still exists .

        I imagine the city would like to shed their responsibility and transfer it to the Stark Parks department. I voted for the Stark parks and have supported them all along as I feel it is important to have green space for our children to leave as legacy to when times were pure. Transforming toxic sites into parks will do us no good. This is one area the city of Canton has raped pillaged and plundered and I think the city should still be a responsible tax payer and live up to the responsibility of assuring they have a clean piece of property to transfer to anyone. At whatever the cost it may be to them to assure a cleanup of this site.

      Because past administrations made bad choices does not eliminate the responsibility of present administrations from assuming the right course to take. So often I have heard that from officials. The ‘That was the way we used to do it, but now things are better attitude’.  Shirking the responsibility of government to accept what damage they did do. I have heard it from the city of Canton and I have also heard it from the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District on the spraying of radiation over land they owned, and still do on a hundred and sixty acre public hunting land in Tuscarwas county. It doesn’t matter if they do it anymore but instead the fact they did it once and got by with it. The radiation is still there and the heavy metals are still there.

Part Four

 What They Should Do

    Complaints and accusations are many but solutions are few. Testing is the next course before anything else should be done and comprehensive analysis of the potential of off-site migration of heavy metals in the water supply. We shouldn’t accept any offer from the city of Canton to purge itself through the offering of park lands and we should also thwart any attempt by the city to divest any responsibility of its lands owned, or actions taken by previous administrations to mar, change, or alter any existing feature of the land, excepting testing, to determine if what they are offering is a truly a salable piece of clean property. To further allow drilling and the resulting frac fluids to accumulate on their property as they go deeper in search of new gas fields with today’s modern technology and refusal of these companies to divulge their frac fluid ingredient list known to have carcinogens and heavy metals, would only complicate an already existing legal nightmare of determining who would ultimately be  responsible for cleanup if one is required.

     This should all come in a letter from our trustees alerting Canton to the wants and desires of the people of Pike Township, for city of Canton  to clean up their act and to ensure that the property is taken care of properly. Insist on a permanent injunction against the city to prevent any such action to be taken as in the case of further development of resources and to divulge any testing and cleanup of all lands they currently own in Pike Township and to assume responsibility for any action taken by previous administrations.