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Protecting farms is focus of work funded by
$35,000
By Randall Rigsbee
Chatham
County will receive a portion of a $7.6 million grant awarded by the
Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund to
help North Carolina communities protect farmland or promote
agricultural enterprises.
Chatham
County’s allocation is $35,000, which the county will use to develop
a farmland preservation plan, said county grant writer Lisa West.
Work on the
plan will get underway in July.
"We’ll be
hiring a consultant experiences in producing these plans," West
said.
The work will
conducted with the cooperation of the county’s Agricultural Review
Board, N.C. Cooperative Extension, the Triangle Land Conservancy and
the Chatham county Economic Development Commission.
Also in
Chatham County, the Triangle Land Conservancy was awarded $664,300
to help purchase a conservation easement on 170 acres of Chestnut
Hill Farm, a livestock and poultry operation.
N.C.
Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler announced the grants on
Monday.
"We’re very
pleased to be able to help communities in their efforts to preserve
farmland and forest land. Our main focus is to maintain working
farms and create new opportunities in agriculture,," Troxler said.
"We received
more than 90 applications for grants requesting around $29 million
in funding. This demonstrates the high degree of interest in
farmland protection across the state," said Troxler. "Although we
couldn’t fill every request, these grants will strengthen efforts to
protect some of North Carolina’s most valuable resources, thereby
helping to sustain our state’s leading industry."
The money
will support 41 projects across the state.
In
neighboring counties:
· Alamance
County received $235,000 to help it purchase a conservation easement
on 120 acres of the Braeburn Farm, a livestock and poultry
operation.
· Durham
County received $398,000 to help the county purchase a conservation
easement on 165 acres of the Tilley Farm, which produces corn,
soybeans and tobacco.
· Durham Soil and Water
Conservation District was awarded $30,000 to help with the
preparation of an agricultural development and farmland protection
plan.
more- See Thursday,
June 26,
2008 paper:
Vol 88, No.29
Local
volunteers help
rebuild church
in Tarboro
By Milburn Gibbs
An Eastern
North Carolina church destroyed by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 was
rebuilt last week thanks to the volunteer efforts of 150 people from
North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
Many who
helped rebuild Tarboro’s St. Paul’s AME Zion church from the ground
up – approximately 45 of the volunteer builders — were from Goldston
Methodist Church and other Chatham County churches.
"The St. Paul
congregation was older," volunteer Steve Cunnup, a member of the
Goldston Town Board, said. "The church was completely destroyed."
Cunnup said
that the St. Paul’s congregation paid off all of its bills while
they rented another building for nine years. The church was founded
in 1865.
Chatham
County resident Charlie Fields was also among the local volunteers
lending a hand. He explained that members of St. Paul’s had seen the
Meshach’s Carpenters website and contacted local church members
about rebuilding their church.
Meshach’s
Carpenters is a faith-based mission disaster relief squad comprised
of church members from North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
Fields said
the Tarboro church was all but destroyed by the devastating
hurricane.
"Only the
slab remained," Fields said.
But progress
on rebuilding the church was rapid thanks to the efforts of the
substantial volunteer group.
"The 150 or
so volunteers had it nearly completed when we left after church
services held there on June 22," Fields said.
The rebuilt
church contains 2,900 sq. ft.
"We are
disaster recovery teams," Cunnup explained of the volunteer group
known as Mesach’s Carpenters, a number of whom are members of
Goldston Methodist Church.
Fields said
that the church undertakes a mission such as this every June.
"It was Father’s Day when we
finished," Fields said. "Thirty to 40 fathers from the churches were
in Tarboro on Father’s Day this year."
more- See Thursday, June 26,
2008 paper:
Vol 88, No.29
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Grazers
jeopardize program
By Randall Rigsbee
Ten years
ago, metal artist John Amero was first in line to obtain a "grazing
card" when Chatham County launched a program allowing residents to
remove and keep discarded items from solid waste collection centers.
Amero still
has the first-issue card –number 001 — and he’s used it a lot over
the last decade, rescuing various pieces of metal from collection
bins and turning them into art, or just finding something useful – a
guitar case, a tool — and giving it new life.
"I’ve found
innumerable items," said Amero. "I found a whole working chainsaw. I
still use it. It’s my best chainsaw."
That’s the
sort of use for which the grazing card program was created.
One man’s
trash is another man’s treasure, after all.
The program
has the same intent as the swap boxes at the county’s collection
centers where people can leave and take useable stuff.
The grazing
card was a way to control the county’s liability for those
interested in taking items from the center’s bulky boxes and scrap
metal boxes.
To obtain a
card, residents fill out a form which releases the county from
liability. The cost of the card is a one-time $10 fee.
Over the years, the program
has been a success, said to Bob Holden, director of the county’s
solid waste department.
more- See Thursday,
June 26,
2008 paper:
Vol 88, No.29
Area’s Hispanics face challenges with job losses
A Staff Report
Since
Pilgrim’s Pride closed several weeks ago, leaving more than 800
workers unemployed and also since school let out for the year, many
Hispanic families are grappling with the decision of whether to
return to their countries of origin, or to try to stay in North
Carolina and find new jobs.
Major Bill
Harman of the Siler City Police Department said he has noticed a
growing number of Hispanic residents leaving the area.
"I’ve seen
people walking downtown with suitcases," Harman said. "I’ve seen
trucks loaded up and headed out of town."
Officials say
recent rumors that the Hispanic Liaison is issuing visas to Hispanic
citizens hoping to transport children born on American soil to their
home countries are false.
Executive
director Marcia Espinola addressed the rumors in an interview last
week.
"We are
definitely not handing out visas," Espinola said. "It just isn’t
that easy to get a visa. You have to go through the government for
that."
She explained
the Hispanic citizens are actually lining up around the building
downtown to receive food.
"We have so
many people come to get the food that we can’t let them all into the
building," she said.
The Hispanic
Liaison distributes food from America’s Second Harvest on the first,
third and fifth Mondays each month.
"We started
this program last year," she said. "When we started doing it, we had
so much food we had to call people and beg them to take some. Now,
we have so many people, we run out of food."
Espinola said
a number of the Hispanic Liaison’s clients have left the area to
return to their home countries, or to find jobs in surrounding
counties.
"A lot of people have left or
are leaving because they are looking for work," she said.
more- See Thursday, June
26,
2008 paper:
Vol 88, No.29
Pittsboro gets funds
for water upgrade
By Bill Willcox
The Town of
Pittsboro has been awarded a $182,000 grant to help upgrade its
water treatment plant.
The grant,
from the N.C. Economic Development Center, was announced Friday. It
will be applied towards a $365,000 engineering project to change the
water treatment process from chlorine to chloramines.
The project,
by the firm of Hobbs, Upchurch and Associates, is expected to be
completed early next year.
Officials expect
chloramination to eliminate the problem of excess trihalomethanes (tthms)
in the water. TTHMS are a by-product of drinking water chorination.
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