‘Right thing to do.’ Dump in Black Kentucky neighborhood to move after 60 years

Gov. Andy Beshear, state and federal officials celebrated the groundbreaking of a new $4.6 million trash transfer station and recycling center in Paris that community leaders say will help correct a longtime racial injustice.

Hundreds of people packed a tent off of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard for Monday’s groundbreaking and announcement That’s hundreds more than the last groundbreaking for a solid waste facility attended by Beshear, he joked Monday.

“Today marks a huge step forward for Paris, and for the health and safety of Kentuckians,” Beshear said. “ We’re investing in every community across the commonwealth as we build a brighter future for everyone.”

Monday’s announcement was more than a celebration of a new transfer station and recycling center —it was a correction of a longstanding environmental injustice that took nearly 60 years to fix.

“For decades, there has been social injustice in Bourbon County,” said Bourbon County Judge Executive Mike Wilson.

Originally the town incinerator, the transfer station, where garbage is dumped and then hauled to a landfill, was placed in the predominately Black neighborhood in 1965, according to records.

The city’s main landfill, now closed, was also located on the Westside. In the 1960s, many public works projects —such as dumps and highways — were placed in minority neighborhoods like the Westside because Black residents had no political clout or money to fight it, Wilson said.

The same thing happened all over the United States in the 1960s, Wilson said.

But on Monday the community celebrated the beginning of the untangling of a longstanding social and environmental injustices.

“This is the right thing to do,” said Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris.

State funding key to building new transfer station

The effort to move the transfer station was discussed for years but began an earnest in 2019, when former Paris City Commissioner Anna Allen-Edwards convened a group of concerned citizens, which became the Westside 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 cocerns of the Westside Neighborhood.

The transfer station is tucked into the back of the Westside neighborhood. It’s not easy to get to. The streets are narrow.

In its study, EHI estimated that more than 30 trucks a day go through the Westside neighborhood to access the transfer station.

Phyllis Barnes, who attended Monday’s groundbreaking, lived in the Westside neighborhood when the incinerator and the landfill were open.

It was not a pleasant place to live.

“We had the trash trucks going through the neighborhood and they would live trash all over the neighborhood,” Barnes said. The burning of the town’s trash left a stinky thumbprint over the Westside neighborhood.

“We could smell it,” Barnes said.

A new site and clean up of Westside location

Building a new waste transfer station and recycling center takes a lot of money.

Finding a new location for the transfer center was a key hurdle.

Fortunately, the Bourbon County Fiscal Court donated the site for new recycling center. It’s on the by-pass, making it easier for trucks to get to and keeps those trucks from going through dense, downtown neighborhoods, Wilson said.

The state found money to fund the bulk of the construction of the new recycling center and transfer station.

In September 2022, Gov. Andy Beshear announced a $2 million Community Development Block Grant to help pay for the removal of the waste station. There’s been hiccups along the way as costs climbed.

Bids submitted in the fall of 2023 for the new transfer station came in too high. The city then scaled back part of the project. A second round of bids was released in February. W Principles was awarded the contract.

In addition to the $2 million Community Development Block Grant, the Kentucky General Assembly also awarded the project $1.5 million in the current-year budget allocations.

Paris City Manager Jamie Miller said the city is pursuing other grants and funding for the remaining $1 million for the transfer station.

City officials believe it will take a little more than 12 months to build the new recycling center and transfer station.

But Monday’s announcement and groundbreaking was just the beginning.

Now, those who have pushed for the transfer station’s removal from the Westside are pursuing federal, state and other grants to remediate and clean up the site.

Many Westside residents want the site to be restored to a green space and a park.

Miller said thanks to various federal funds, there are multiple pools of money the city can apply for to help fund the remediation of the Westside site.

“Right now there are unprecedented opportunities for federal funding,” Miller said. “So why not, Paris? Let’s make this happen.”