Dump near Black neighborhood marks ‘injustice’ for KY town. Now it’ll be moved

Gov. Andy Beshear announced $2 million in federal funding Monday to help relocate the Paris Waste Transfer station from a predominately Black neighborhood to a different site.

The waste transfer station will eventually be moved to property donated by the Bourbon County Fiscal Court off Legion Road and the Paris bypass.

Monday’s announcement is a long time coming for residents of Paris’ West Side Neighborhood, who have spear-headed efforts to revitalize the predominately Black neighborhood in recent years.

Top of the to-do list was moving the transfer station, or town dump.

The $2 million is from a Community Development Block Grant awarded through Beshear’s administration. Beshear said at a press conference Monday in the Bourbon County Courthouse it will help the West Side Neighborhood be a safe, welcoming neighborhood for all.

It will also right a wrong committed decades ago, said Bourbon County Fiscal Court Judge Mike Williams.

“It’s been the biggest social and environmental injustice in our county,” Williams said after Monday’s press conference. It’s like so many public works projects in the 1960s — it was placed in an area that had little political will to fight it.

History of location

Originally the town incinerator, it was placed in the predominately Black neighborhood in 1965, according to records.

The effort to relocate the transfer station began in 2019, when former Paris City Commissioner Anna Allen-Edwards convened a group of concerned citizens which was the start of the West Side Neighborhood group. Paris funded a strategic action plan facilitated by EHI Planning Consultants. The remediation of the current waste transfer station and former incinerator site was identified as one of the top items of concern for the West Side Neighborhood.

Vanessa Logan, who is part of the new West Side Neighborhood group, remembers visiting her grandmother on the West Side when she was a child.

She remembers seeing the black smoke billowing from the incinerator and the smell.

Logan and Bill Alverson, a retired CEO of Traditional Bank, have worked diligently over the past three years to organize efforts to move the dump.

Logan and Allen-Edwards said when they ran into a road bump or a hiccup, Alverson used his knowledge of government and his thick Rolodex to keep the project moving forward.

“No one ever wanted it here,” Allen-Edwards said of the transfer station.

Allen-Edwards is also running for mayor.

It’s now a transfer station with trucks coming and going. In its study, EHI estimated that more than 30 trucks a day go through the West Side Neighborhood to access the transfer station.

Hudson said the roads to and from the station are narrow, often only allowing one lane of traffic.

Mike Smith, public works director for Paris, said because it’s nestled so far back in the West Side Neighborhood, it’s nearly impossible to find. Google Maps is useless.

“People get lost all the time,” Smith said.

“This grant is such a great opportunity to enhance the living conditions for not only the residents where the transfer station is currently located, but to all the citizens of Paris and Bourbon County. It will be located at a more convenient place for all,” said Paris Mayor John Plummer, who faces Allen-Edwards in the Nov. 8 general election.

What happens next?

Jamie Miller, Paris city manager, said the city is looking at a host of different funding options, including federal coronavirus relief money, for the remaining $2 million needed for the new transfer facility.

The city must have the new station built by 2024 as part of receiving the $2 million in community development block grants.

The immediate next steps toward remediation of the existing waste transfer station will be the completion of a Phase I Environmental Assessment to better understand the existing conditions of the site. Upon closure of the facility, federal funding will be sought for remediation of the site.

Williams said there is a lot of money in recent federal spending packages earmarked for environmental remediation.

The site was formerly Riverside Park, which was built for Black people during segregation. When segregation laws were struck down in the 1950s, the park eventually closed in 1962, according to the EHI report.

Hudson and Allen-Edwards said they are currently surveying hundreds of West Side residents to determine what people want at that site once environmental remediation is completed.

Also on Monday, Beshear also gave a $520,000 grant to the North Middletown Fire Department to replace the current fire station that is too small to house the department’s equipment.