RFP Staff
♦ An email chain emerged in emails, obtained through RFP’s request for public information via NC General Statute 132, that brings to question if “mutually terminated” Doug Paris, ex-City Manager of Salisbury, NC in some way arranged for Mayor Woodson to avoid a large co-pay for remediation of contamination that leached from Vogue Cleaners on Long Street. The contamination field identified by the state includes neighboring businesses such as Rowan Helping Ministries and residences and Woodson had been making 2% co-pays for assessment. At the time of the email exchange, costly remediation of contamination would have been under consideration at the Vogue property as well as neighboring residences and businesses.
In 2010, Mayor Paul Woodson’s Vogue Dry Cleaners was assessed by the Waste Management division of the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (NCDENR). The state contractor Shield Engineering, Inc., discovered amounts of certain chemicals and toxins above acceptable standards.
What did that mean for the mayor and Vogue Cleaners? The North Carolina General Assembly enacted Dry-cleaning Solvent Cleanup Act (DSCA) of 1997 to clean up contamination from dry-cleaning solvents at both retail dry-cleaners and wholesale solvent distribution sites and to protect human health and the environment by preventing future dry-cleaning solvent contamination. DSCA and its amendments established a fund to assess and cleanup dry-cleaning solvent contamination at dry-cleaning and wholesale distribution facilities and authorized the program to develop and enforce rules to prevent dry-cleaning solvent releases at operating facilities.
After assessment, DSCA provides owners and operators with training and information to help them comply with environmental regulations. After the initial training, full compliance inspections are performed at facilities where violations were identified during the educational outreach visits to ensure corrections were made. Vogue would be required to change procedures and clean up the waste.
However, within six months, Woodson petitioned for Vogue to be certified in the DSCA Program. Much like other environmental programs, DSCA makes use of NC taxpayer monies for the majority of the clean-up and the entity who petitions pays a far smaller amount. Tax monies for these purposes come from what is known as a superfund, a large fund for cleaning up “brownfields” – which are sites identified as needing toxic clean-up.
During the next year, DSCA made an expenditure of $84,610.21 for assessments and monitoring wells and required Woodson to pay $1,692, or 2% of the costs. Woodson made two payments to DSCA over the next year, one for $728.75 in December of 2011 and one for $963.45 the following December of 2012 (View the invoice by clicking here).
In 2013, the time for the remediation was approaching. It would be a big clean-up operation (see the contaminant plume and the contamination field spreading by groundwater and air in the video presentation below), which would entail much more expenditures and a higher co-pay for Mayor Woodson. But as the fall of 2013 neared, something changed.
Mysteriously, NCDENR assigned a new project manager to the mayor’s account and Vogue’s DSCA account was placed “on hold”. When asked if he was responsible for this in an email from a coworker, ex-City Manager Doug Paris replied, “:-)” When the mayor asked if drilling that began by Probe Tech during the same period was “what you were talking about”, Paris wrote the mayor that it was not the same project. See the email exchanges below.
To view Vogue on NCDENR’s map of dry cleaning sites in the DSCA program, look here: http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wm/dsca/map
See a visual presentation of the contamination field that is still spreading through the groundwater from the mayor’s dry cleaning business in the following video.
For more information on DSCA Program’s Superfund sites, go here: http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wm/dsca
To access all DNCENR DSCA documents related to this case, DS800008, go here: http://portal.ncdenr.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=ad727cf9-9dd9-4658-83bc-cfbb488abd6f&groupId=38361
The Email Chain Indicating Doug Paris’s Possible Involvement In DSCA’s Putting Vogue On Hold:
From: Doug Paris <dpari@salisburync.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 4:06 PM
To: Wendy Brindle
Subject: Re: E. Council Street and Alley ROW Access
:-)
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 24, 2013, at 3:57 PM, “Wendy Brindle” <Wbrin@salisburync.gov> wrote:
> Is this something you worked out or did my prayers on how to handle this miraculously get answered? In any case, see below…
>
> Wendy Brindle, PE
> City Engineer
> City of Salisbury
> 704-638-5201
> wbrin@salisburync.gov
>
>
> —–Original Message—–
> From: Kellogg, Anthony [mailto:anthony.kellogg@amec.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 2:59 PM
> To: Wendy Brindle
> Subject: RE: E. Council Street and Alley ROW Access
>
> Hi Wendy-
>
> I hope you are doing well. So after all the back and forth, the Vogue Cleaners site has transferred management within the DSCA Program and the new Project Manager for the site doesn’t think it’ll be necessary to install a permanent soil gas point in front of 322 E. Council Street at this time. I apologize for any frustrations this may have caused and I appreciate all of your help with this. Please let me know if you have any questions.
>
> Thank You,
> Anthony
>
> —–Original Message—–
> From: Wendy Brindle [mailto:Wbrin@salisburync.gov]
> Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 7:13 AM
> To: Kellogg, Anthony
> Subject: RE: E. Council Street and Alley ROW Access
>
> Mr. Anthony,
>
> I apologize but I have class from early morning until late evening and have not had the opportunity to get back with you. Has there been an indication that there is a problem in the area? I’m asking because of the grab groundwater samples. Thanks
>
>
> Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S(r)4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
>
>
>
> ——– Original message ——–
> From: “Kellogg, Anthony” <anthony.kellogg@amec.com>
> Date: 09/10/2013 12:11 PM (GMT-05:00)
> To: Wendy Brindle <Wbrin@salisburync.gov>
> Cc: Patrick Ritchie <pritc@salisburync.gov>
> Subject: RE: E. Council Street and Alley ROW Access
>
>
> Hi Wendy-
>
> I talked to Patrick and he said that email would be the best method of contacting you this week. Sorry I wasn’t able to get back in touch with you a few weeks ago. I was in the field for the better part of two weeks and my messages apparently didn’t get forwarded. I called a few times last week but didn’t have any luck getting in touch with you. So maybe email is the best method for the both of us right now anyways. Patrick let me know the City Manager is hesitant to issue a ROW permit unless the vapor point is required by NCDENR. We’re conducting this work for the NCDENR DSCA program and have proposed this permanent soil vapor point based on results collected from the vapor sample from this location (February 2013) and the recommendation of the DSCA project manager for this site (Billy Meyer). Please feel free to contact me on my cell phone at 716-474-6247 to discuss in greater detail.
>
> Thanks You,
> Anthony
>
>
> Anthony Kellogg
> AMEC Environment & Infrastructure
> 4021 Stirrup Creek Drive, Suite 100
> Durham, NC 27703
> Phone: (919) 765-9976
> Fax: (919) 381-9901
> Email: anthony.kellogg@amec.com<mailto:anthony.kellogg@amec.com>
>
>
> From: Craig Powers [mailto:cpowe@salisburync.gov]
> Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2013 1:28 PM
> To: Kellogg, Anthony
> Cc: Chris Tester; Preston Mitchell; Wendy Brindle; Patrick Ritchie; Bryan Alston
> Subject: RE: E. Council Street and Alley ROW Access
>
> Anthony, I don’t know of any reason that this will be a problem. In the past we’ve approved these through our Engineering Department. If you could please submit to them a plan showing the locations and a detail of what will be installed. Submittals should be made to our One Stop Shop located at 132 N. Main Street and Preston Mitchell is the manager there. If you have any questions please let me know. Thanks,
>
> W. Craig Powers, P.E.
> Street and Stormwater Services Manager
> City of Salisbury
> P.O. Box 479
> Salisbury, NC 28145
>
> PH 704.216.2718
> FX 704.638.8584
> Email: cpowe@salisburync.gov
>
> From: Kellogg, Anthony [mailto:anthony.kellogg@amec.com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 1:18 PM
> To: Craig Powers
> Cc: Chris Tester
> Subject: E. Council Street and Alley ROW Access
>
> Mr. Powers-
>
> I hope you had a nice 4th of July and are enjoying your vacation. I talked with Chris briefly about some additional assessment work we need to conduct for the DSCA program in regards to Vogue Cleaners at the corner of E. Council and N. Long. Back in February we collected three soil gas samples within the E. Council ROW (in front of 322 E. Council). DSCA has requested that we install a permanent soil-gas point (flush mount cover about 8″ in diameter), for the collection of soil gas samples, as one of the grab samples we collected within the ROW of E. Council during our last sampling event. Additionally, we are looking to gain access to the alley immediately north of the building at 322 E. Council, for the purpose of collecting some groundwater samples.
>
> Do you see any problems with us installing a permanent soil gas point within the E. Council ROW and is there anything we would need to do in order to do so?
>
> Do you see any problems with us collecting some groundwater samples from within the alley just to the north of 322 E. Council?
>
> Let me know if there is anything else you may need from me.
>
> Thank You,
>
> Anthony Kellogg
> AMEC Environment & Infrastructure
> 4021 Stirrup Creek Drive, Suite 100
> Durham, NC 27703
> Phone: (919) 765-9976
> Fax: (919) 381-9901
> Email: anthony.kellogg@amec.com<mailto:anthony.kellogg@amec.com>
The Mayor’s Question Regarding Probe Tech Soil Sampling:
From: Doug Paris< dpari@salisburync.gov>
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2013 8:04 PM
To: Paul Woodson
Subject: Re: Drilling in area
No. The below is a seperate issue.
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 25, 2013, at 7:51 PM, “Paul Woodson” <pwood@salisburync.gov> wrote:
Is this what you were talking about ?
Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message:
From: “Welch, Randy D”< Randy.Welch@duke-energy.com>
Date: October 25, 2013 at 7:48:33 PM EDT
To: “Paul Woodson (pwood@salisburync.gov)”< pwood@salisburync.gov>
Cc: “Gilbert, Chris” <Chris.Gilbert@duke-energy.com>
Subject: Drilling in area
Mayor,
You mentioned to me today that someone had contacted you regarding drilling on your property there a Vogue Cleaners, I have verified with our project manager that this is not a part of our work. We will NOT be on your property or the property of RHM. I have copied our project manager with this email so he can answer any specific questions you might have. He will be going to the city requesting permits next week it appears.
Thanks again,
Randy
Randy D. Welch
District Manager, Duke Energy Carolinas
Cabarrus, Davie, Iredell and Rowan Counties
700 East Ritchie Road
Salisbury, NC 28146
704-638-4050 (O)
704-604-7935 (C)
Randy.Welch@duke-energy.com
24 Hr. Customer Service Line – 1-800-777-9898
