Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:
Question: (Note: This is a two-part question, about the same section of Sardis Road in southwestern Buncombe County)
Part 1: There is foul smelling sewage that is bubbling up from the ground directly outside the back door of a business at 24 Sardis Road in Asheville. It is streaming several hundred feet down a public street that contains both residential homes as well as a parking area for retail buildings. MSD has been notified, but I’m sharing this with your organization in case there is anything you can do to help with this public health risk.
Part 2: If you’ve passed by 24 Sardis Road anytime in recent weeks, you know that the parking lot is a disaster. Issues of concern include a massive hole in the middle of the parking lot, inadequate handicap parking spaces, and inadequate safety barriers along the edge of the sinkhole which sits very close to the busy and heavily trafficked Sardis Road. Also, there is a massive excavation machine oddly parked on top of a precarious looking mound of dirt that is over 10 feet high. This looks like a very serious accident waiting to happen, especially with rain and colder weather potentially causing the dirt to shift and the machine to fall mere feet away from a parking lot and a walkway at a retail building. Compared to the Merrimon Avenue sinkhole a few years ago, which certainly received media attention, it doesn’t seem like this issue is receiving any coverage yet.
My answer: Hey, don’t blame me. I love a good sinkhole story more than is really appropriate for any serious journalist.
Real answer: This one really is a mess. I stopped by the site last week, and it is a whopper of a sinkhole. I’ll also note that WLOS-News 13 had a story on it last week, so it’s definitely on the media radar right now.
From what I can gather, the sewer and sinkhole issues are separate, although both appear to be pretty serious.
Let’s start with the sinkhole.
The location, 24 Sardis, is a two-story commercial building with multiple tenants located on a .55-acre site, according to Buncombe County property records. It was built in 2004.
A large section of the parking lot is now consumed by a sinkhole the size of a small swimming pool, and construction equipment is on site, taking up even more parking spaces.
The property owner is listed as Thira LLC, attention: Peter Barlas. In a very brief phone interview last week, Barlas told me they’re “working diligently to get this resolved.”
“I appreciate your concern, but we’re working on everything right now as hard as we can,” Barlas told me.
He declined to go into any detail about what caused the sinkhole or what, specifically, they’re doing to address it.
The City of Asheville says this is not a city issue, as it started in a private parking lot and is not maintained by the city.
“A street crew went out and confirmed the problem was not the result of utility works in the area by Dominion Gas or City of Asheville,” city spokesperson Kim Miller said via email.
Asheville Water Resources Department spokesperson Clay Chandler said, “Water Resources has no involvement in this.”
Tenants in the building say the sinkhole appeared in July as about a three-foot by three-foot hole but steadily grew, and then filled with water.
“Parking has definitely been a challenge,” Jonathan Snipes, owner of Pinnacle Apothecary, told me.
Ryan Fenton, owner of 1 on 1 Physical Therapy, also on the first floor of the building, said the sinkhole started in July as about the size of two manhole covers. They’ve received little to no information about the sinkhole, or the ongoing work to fix it, he said.
“I don’t know what the holdup is,” Fenton said. “They dig, they disappear. They dig, they disappear. It’s kind of in the shape of a pool, so I tell people we’re putting in a therapy pool.”
Of course, he’s not really finding the situation all that amusing. Neither is Jonathan Price, co-owner of Crust Never Sleeps Bakery, another first-floor tenant.
“Nobody’s told us anything,” Price said.
Like the other tenants, Price has watched as the excavator has worked on the problem, making the hole even bigger, ostensibly in search of the origin, Price said. He expects that repairs should ensue.
“What I can tell you is, as tenants — and I think I can speak for all other tenants here — nobody has received any proactive communication updates, if that wording makes sense,” Price told me Monday. “There hasn’t been a single time where we received a call or text message or a knock on the door that said, ‘Hey, just so you know, next week, they’re really going to start tearing up that part of the parking lot.’ None of that.”
Price and the other two tenants I talked to said they keep hearing from workers the project will wrap up soon, but the hole just keeps getting bigger.
“I don’t think the hole is getting bigger on its own, but it seems very roundabout, as far as how the repairs are getting done,” Price said.
Since the sinkhole and work vehicles overtook about a third of the parking lot, Price said his business has dropped about 10 percent a month.
On Monday morning, Price said a crew had shown up to start pumping out the water. A landscaping company has been handling the work.
Orphaned Pump Station
Now, about the sewer issue. This also gets complicated.
Ken Stines, director of maintenance with the Metropolitan Sewerage District of Buncombe County, said the sewage issue goes back to 2000, and it involves a privately held pump station located near 22 Sardis Road. The former owner had financial issues, and the bank took over the property, subsequently subdividing the land.
Now, Stines said, “It’s unclear who owns the pump station.” It is not MSD’s, Stines said, although he did say MSD does own a nearby force main that’s tied into the pump station.
Force mains convey wastewater, under pressure, from a pump to a discharge area. Stines said the MSD board allowed this setup years ago because it’s in an easement, but he’s “not crazy about it,” and he said this kind of arrangement likely wouldn’t go through today.
Stines said they’ve been working with John Barlas (Peter Barlas said that’s his father) on the sewage issue, as the elder Barlas owns property that ties into the pump station.
“It’s upstream of him,” Stines said, referring to John Barlas. “He’s been trying to fix it and be the good guy all along, but at this point he’s kind of given up because nobody else will participate.”
Stines said John Barlas had approached them about building a new pump station that would tie into the MSD force main, but MSD did not want to go that route.
Gary Walicki is listed as the property owner at 22 Sardis Road, close to the pump station. He was not available for comment, but to be clear, Walicki does not own the pump station.
What should’ve happened more a decade ago, Stines said, is that before the bank subdivided the land, they should’ve created an association of responsible property owners who would fix and maintain the sewage system. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality would now require such an arrangement, Stines said.
I also reached out to the North Carolina DEQ’s Dan Boss, who is the assistant regional supervisor for Water Quality Regional Operations. On Monday he said he just learned of the sinkhole from the WLOS report, but DEQ’s concern is the sewage issue, which is a private sewage system.
“We’re looking into it,” Boss said Monday. “It is kind of a difficult thing to sort out.”
Boss said Stines’ description of the system is correct, regarding the subdivision of the land problem and the lack of clarity on who owns the pump station.
“It’s really the subdividing that is creating a little bit of confusion here,” Boss said. “And it’s going to take us some time to sort out exactly how to move forward with that.”
Boss said they’re just beginning to investigate, but he does understand there’s been at least one discharge event.
From covering several of these stories in the past, I can tell you these sinkholes are always harder to fix than you think, and the fixes generally take longer, too. So, stay tuned.
Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941.