Former Incinerator &Transfer Station
Excerpted from: A BRIEF FEASIBILITY STUDY: RELOCATION OF PARIS WASTE TRANSFER STATION AND BROWNFIELD SITE REMEDIATION PREPARED BY: WEST SIDE NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION
In 2020 the Paris City Commission funded the development of the West Side Neighborhood Plan in partnership with the West Side Neighborhood, Community Leadership, EHI Consultants and the Bourbon County Joint Planning Office. The West Side Neighborhood Strategic Action Plan (September, 2020) derived from this effort examined the impact of the built environment on access to economic opportunity with the goal of enhancing quality of life for its residents.
Of the many action items committed to in the 2020 West Side Neighborhood Plan was the relocation of the City of Paris Solid Waste Transfer Station. The community commissioned a Feasibility Study for the relocation of the Paris Solid Waste Transfer Station and the site’s brownfield assessment and remediation was also prepared.
To access the “dump” garbage trucks and other vehicles with trailer-loads have to drive through the West Side neighborhood. According to the City of Paris operational data, at least 30 vehicles visit the Waste Transfer Station daily.
Each vehicle utilizing the facility must drive through this residential area to enter and exit the facility. This locally unwanted land use (LULU) creates extrnality costs that negatively affect the neighborhood. These have historically included safety risks, noise, odor, litter, vermin, visual intrusion and the perceived discomfort of neighborhood residents.
Prior to the completion of the municipal incinerator at its current location in 1965, the site was formerly known as Riverside Park, which was a community park dedicated to the adjacent African American neighborhood of Paris during the years of segregation. The park’s most notable features were the baseball and softball diamonds where both sports were played throughout the summer and the open picnic areas. Also, on the first Friday in May, “May Day” was celebrated where it featured amateur baseball teams facing off with one another based out of neighboring towns such as Mount Sterling and Winchester.
Furthermore, the park had its own club called the “Riverside Park Club”, which was incorporated on 8/22/1930, where its purpose was to promote the pleasure and bodily health of its members by means of outdoor sports. Finally, when Kentucky’s segregation laws were struck down throughout the 1950s, the neighborhood residents now had additional options for the parks they can go to for recreation and Riverside Park eventually closed by 1962.
In 1965, the municipal incinerator and “city dump” was built on the western portion of the former Riverside Park
In 1982, “William Bill” Chief Reed Park was built on the eastern portion of the former Riverside Park and was dedicated on 9/6/1982
Over many years citizens of, Paris, Bourbon County and the West Side Neighborhood voiced their concerns about the current location of the City Paris transfer station, as not being a suitable location in the West Side Neighborhood.
This community engagement portal/website details the ongoing efforts toward relocating the City of Paris Solid Waste Transfer Station, and the environmental assessment, remediation, and redevelopment of the former park site area upon which it was built in 1965. THIS GRAPHIC provides an understanding of the timeline, events, and people in the Paris, KY community that took action to make this vision a reality.
