RISON - Rubble from the former Cleveland County Nursing Home at Rison will no longer be used as "rip-rap" to shore up county roads against erosion after the rubble was found to have trash in it, County Judge Jimmy Cummings said.Last year, Cleveland County paid a contractor $80,000 to raze the former Cleveland County Nursing Home building on Magnolia Street in Rison after it had fallen into disrepair and was becoming an eyesore to the community. Cummings said at that time that he wanted to keep the brick and concrete from the structure to use as riprap along ditches, creek banks and bridge/culvert abutments to prevent erosion. While large gravel/rock is often used as rip-rap, rubble like concrete and brick from demolition projects is often used as well. Cummings said he was hoping to use the debris from the old nursing home to avoid spending county road funds on rip-rap, which he estimated costs about $600 per dump truck load and most projects take several loads.The Cleveland County Road Department recently used some of the rip-rap from the nursing home for erosion control along Lonesome Dove Road in the Herbine community. Robin Peddy, a resident of the area, complained that the rip-rap looked like trash and described it as "illegal dumping." She said she even contacted the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) about it.Peddy said her biggest concern was with the styrofoam and other debris that was in the riprap. She said she feared a lot of that would wash away during the next heavy rain and end up on the pasture her family leases along Lonesome Dove to raise cattle.In an email she wrote to Cummings, Peddy said that "the materials dumped into that ditch contains far more wood, sheet metal, bathroom fixtures, conduit, plastics, styrofoam and down right trash than 'heavy rubble'." Peddy posted photos of the rip-rap on her social media page. Some of the photos sin gled out styrofoam from the rip rap that was floating in the ...
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