UPDATE April 23, 2024: No response yet to our November 2023 FOIA request for details on Alberdingk Boley’s wastewater spill into Bull Run (water supply stream), but a second Brownfield site has been approved along this same short stretch of Gate City Boulevard.
There’s a lot more data details about the groundwater contamination in engineering and soil reports for the site, a former Fortress Wood Products site addressed at One Metals Drive in a spotty zoning mashup that’s part Jamestown, part Greensboro. Fortress Wood Products is owned by the listing realtor, The Lester Group of Martinsville, Va.
Here’s more on the Alberdingk Boley Brownfield site (a former Burlington Industries factory):
Nov 14 2023: Another industrial wastewater spill into water supply stream Bull Run, a major feeder to Deep River and Randleman Lake & Reservoir, has taken place.
Alberdingk Boley, which has a front door address in Greensboro, NC, but sits in and discharges/emits to Jamestown’s groundwater and air, spilled 6,000 gallons of something on November 14th, 2023. This time, though, there was a short “public notice” on the Town of Jamestown’s Facebook page. Details HERE.
Sept 25, 2023: Jamestown residents learn of massive Alberdingk Boley October 2022 spill: at least 16,000 gallons into Jamestown tributary of Bull Run, which empties into Deep River. Details HERE.
Both Bull Run Stream and Deep River are Class IV Water Supply WOTUS waterways, however the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s recordkeeping is decades behind: All of Jamestown and its network of streams and surface waters is in the Randleman Watershed, including Bull Run. The information in the integrated data reports provided by the NCDEQ to the EPA mislabel these waterways as “Aquatic Life” and in some cases they are completely missing from the EPA’s maps. Images and details HERE.
ORIGINAL POST:
The Burlington Industries “Brownfields” property is UPHILL from the southeast corner of the D.R. Horton Kinsley development. Bull Run is closest to the corner where D.R. Horton plans to put up to 500 apartments and multifamily units. From an August 2006 letter to the NC Department of Environmental Resources regarding the old Burlington Industries property on West Gate City Blvd (shown in green on maps above):
“A stream flows through the north end of the property from east to west. Drainage on the northern, wooded end of the property is toward this stream. Drainage from the west portion of the property appears to flow into a stormwater drainage structure. A stream also flows through the southern portion of the property, from east to west, and drainage on the southern portion of the property generally flows toward this second stream. THE TWO STREAMS CONVERGE WEST OF THE SITE AND FLOW INTO BULL RUN CREEK.“
From the notice recorded at the Guilford County Register of Deeds, Book 5989, page 2647: Groundwater contaminants include arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, thallium, zinc, acetone, benzene, chlorobenzene, chloroform, 1,4 dichlorobenzene, 1,1 dichloroethene, 1,2 dichloroethane, ethylbenzene, tetrachloroethene, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, xylenes, trichloroethene, vinyl chloride, naphthalene, antimony. Soil contaminants include acetone, tetrachloroethene, ethylbenzene, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, xylenes, isopropyl benzene, trichloroethene, napthalene, 2-butanone, 1,1,1-trichloroethane.
A “Brownfield site” is an abandoned, idled or underused property where the threat of environmental contamination has hindered its redevelopment. The Brownfields Program is North Carolina’s effort to break the barrier to the redevelopment of these sites. The Brownfields Property Reuse Act of 1997 [NCGS 130A310.30 et seq.] sets forth the NC DEQ’s authority to work with prospective developers to put these Brownfields sites back into reuse.
The following files concern Brownfields properties at 6012 and 6008 High Point Road/Gate City Blvd where Alberdingk Boley and the GTCC Manufacturing building are located. Two fast food restaurants are planned for the front of the GTCC property, across the street from Publix. The contamination, which is not the fault of the current owners but is instead attributed to past owners, remains.
Historically the site was part of a larger approximately 65-acre tract owned by Burlington Industries. Burlington Industries is presumed to be the original and worst offender of contamination but some of these documents suggest it continued with successive owners.
The properties are subject to annual inspections to make sure no further contamination is taking place (no soils disturbed, no construction, etc).
When GTCC built a driveway on its property in 2014, the Army Corps of Engineers held it to very strict protective standards so as not to stir up the contaminants and further damage Bull Run and the smaller runoff streams.
This is from an August 24, 2006, letter (link is in the lineup below):
AZAS’ pre-purchase due diligence investigation has confirmed that groundwater contamination above North Carolina’s 2L standards exists on the site. The confirmed contamination on the site has impeded the sale or redevelopment of the property. The Guilford County Development Office identified at least two other potential purchasers for the site. Environmental Contamination was the primary reason that one company chose to pass on the site, and contamination played a role in the decision of the other.
The site is presently owned by DaimlerChrysler Commercial Buses North Carolina LLC which purchased the site in October 2004. The site is located near Guilford Technical Community College and New Guilford College Road, in Jamestown.
A stream flows through the north end of the property from east to west. Drainage on the northern, wooded end of the property is toward this stream. Drainage from the west portion of the property appears to flow into a stormwater drainage structure. A stream also flows through the southern portion of the property, from east to west, and drainage on the southern portion of the property generally flows toward this second stream. THE TWO STREAMS CONVERGE WEST OF THE SITE AND FLOW INTO BULL RUN CREEK.
About The Author
