AUGUST 2011 Guest Commentary
A Library Is The Heart Of A Community By Hali Taylor
After almost 90 years of op-
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Women’s Running freedom’s run PART OF SERIES OF EVENTS
erating out of the Old Market House, the Shepherdstown Public Library is planning to build a new facility. This new li- brary will be able to accommo- date not only the large increase in our population – it will also be able to offer a much wider range of services than have been feasible in the current structure. Children’s programs and performances, adult classes of interest to the community, literacy tutoring and increased access to technology will all be possible in a new space. Places for people to gather, to inter- act, to create, to study, or to be alone with a book in a com- fortable setting will be afforded by a new, appropriately sized building. What will happen to the cur-
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rent library? It will remain a library – the members of our community have made it clear that for them, it is probably the most important feature of our town, indeed the defining feature. A library in the physi- cal heart of the community is a strong statement and the peo- ple of our community wish it to remain so. It will still circulate books, provide newspapers and magazines, and provide com- puter access, and it will do so in a more expansive, comfort- able reading-room sort of way. Other functions have yet to be determined. So why has the old municipal
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The Observer the largest circulation newspaper in Jefferson County.
dump site been selected as the new location for a library? In the fifteen year search for a so- lution to the space problem, ev- ery possibility in town has been exhausted. When the dump site was offered – free of charge – to the library, the trustees enlisted the help of the WV Brownfields Assistance Center to determine the viability of the site. A study
done on the property in 2001 yielded a 700 page report de- tailing the contents and levels of contamination. (A two-page synopsis of that report and a 2009 follow-up are available in the library.) Five groundwater wells were sunk and monitored, and 26 test pits were dug and assessed for a variety of pollut- ants. Some contaminants, such as insecticides, were found, but this is not surprising, given our county’s agricultural his- tory. Site-wide, only arsenic was substantively above EPA residential standards, but as West Virginia’s state-wide background concentration is naturally above the EPA limit, it is unclear whether the arse- nic data represent contamina- tion related to waste at the site, or rather is a reflection of the natural geological deposition of arsenic in soil. Regardless, it will be remediated. In order to apply for EPA
cleanup funding, the land was transferred to the Jeffer- son County Development Au- thority. The $200,000 grant was awarded, and requires a $40,000 cost-share – this will be matched with funds from the Library and in-kind work performed by JCDA. The prop- erty will be placed into the Vol- untary Remediation Program, which will oversee the cleanup work being done by a licensed remediation specialist. Cleanup is tentatively scheduled to be- gin in the spring of 2012. Many people have asked why
the Library has not considered the Southern States property. Although its proximity to town is appealing the unavailability of the property rules it out. If you would like to discuss
any of these issues, please come to the library for a chat. We love answering questions!
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VISIT
Freedom’s Run Headquarters at
TWO RIVERS TREADS Center for Natural Running + Walking
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV 107 W. German Street
www.trtreads.org
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