Raleigh Neighborhood Wants Builders to Clean Up Their Act

Residents complain that the home construction site on one side of their property is polluting a federally protected wetland on the other.

"This is pretty gross," says resident Carlyn Buckler. "I certainly don't want my son drinking this water."

For eight months Buckler has complained about the trash she finds in the stream behind her home. It is not just the unsightliness that bothers the molecular biologist, it is how that trash might affect the environment.

"They're all treated with bleaches, chemicals, dyes and these things can leach out into the water and eventually into our drinking system," Buckler said. "That's what we're concerned about."

Buckler says she has had trouble finding out who to contact to get the problem taken care of. She approached people on the job site, called the city of Raleigh and the Army Corps of Engineers about the mess. However, nothing was done.

"It's a constant runaround," Buckler said. "Nobody wants to be accountable for anything that's going on here."

But Buckler never called the construction company. Tuesday, a crew from Perry Builders was at the site to clean up.

"There's trash in the creek that I just saw," says Ryan Perry with Perry Builders. "However, the wind and the storm that came over this past weekend moved the trash in. It's our general practice that we always come back and pick up all trash. We would never leave trash in creeks."

There are actually two construction companies that have generated the trash in this wetlands area. It is worth pointing out that Perry Builders says it has only been building homes in the east Raleigh neighborhood since January. Carlyn Buckler's complaints go back eight months.