Don’t drink the water, don’t eat the spinach, and other advice in the news

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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It’s been quite a news week in and around Ashvegas. Let’s have a look at what’s hot:

Contaminated water
Terrie Foster, who’s been busier than we don’t know what, was out on the Cherokee Indian Reservation on Thursday to tell us that gasoline leaked into the water system there, forcing the closure of hotels, schools, restaurants and other businesses. Terrie didn’t say, but what about the casino???

People with mullets told Terrie that the lack of water is a real problem. Children beg for drinking water, and you can’t take a bath. People were being advised not to drink, cook or bathe with the water.

Terrie said the leak came from the Golden Eagle Exxon Station, which sits right across the street from the reservation’s water treatment plant – not good planning, that. Terrie said officials don’t know what caused the leak. But they isolated the problem and they’re supposedly flushing the system.

Terrie showed people loading up boxes of water, but didn’t mention the fact that the Cherokee have their own bottled water that they sell. Where does that water come from?

Manhunt continues
The manhunt for John “Woody” Woodring continued Thursday, with Russ Bowen working the story. He’s the guy wanted for turning a sawed-off shotgun on his estranged wife, killing her inside the REACH of Jackson County domestic abuse shelter.

Russ zeroed in on why it took cops three days to get around to searching Woodring’s Corvette, which had been impounded last week after somebody complained about it. Russ said police found notebooks, a video and letters to Eric Robert Rudolph and the father of actor Woody Harrelson, another convicted killer. The cops said they were methodically doing their investigation.

Russ also stood outside Woodring’s house and said that people in the neighborhood were scared to talk on camera. Russ also checked on how Woodring’s book was doing on Amazon. Woodring wrote “The Convict Speaks,” some book about killers on the run or something.

In another odd note, in Michelle Boudin’s version of this story that ran earlier, she noted that the shelter director said there wasn’t much that could have been done to stop Woodring from doing what he did because he’s an ex-Marine and he was determined. It was his military training, she said.

Then WLOSers cut to the video and show us the shelter – basically a trailer with a screen door. How much military training do you need to figure out how to break into that?

WLOSers also had the 911 call from the shelter.

Four dollar drugs
WLOSers buried probably the biggest story of the day – Wal-Mart’s announcement that it would sell prescription generic drugs for about $4 for a month’s supply. Talk about changing the landscape of prescription drug costs.

Anyway, Carolyan Ryan stood outside a Wal-Mart in the dark and talked to some crazy old people, who immediately started salivating as soon as she mentioned cheap drugs. Is that what we’re turning into? A nation of old, pill-popping crazies?

Carolyn talked to some independent pharmacist, who said yeah, this could hurt my business.

Carolyn said the cheap drugs will only be available in Wal-Mart stores in Florida right now. No word on when it could go nationwide. Hey Dad, think we could set up a little supply line between you and Ashvegas?

Break-in
WLOSers played up a break-in, but didn’t offer many details. Cherub Charu said a man broke into a woman’s house, tied her up and stole her money and her red Nissan Altima. The man wore gloves and covered his face, she said police told her.

Charu interviewed the woman’s father – yet another anonymous interview with a shadow and a distorted voice we couldn’t understand. This week, WLOSers have interviewed a number of shadows – supposed victims of domestic abuse, etc. – and frankly, we’re tired of it. A shadow does not make a compelling interview. Get somebody on camera, or move on.

Gas prices drop, Bush’s approval ratings up
WLOSers noted a correlation – as gas prices drop, President Bush’s approval ratings go up.

Around Ashvegas, gas prices are $2.25 to $2.40 a gallon for the regular stuff, WLOSers said. They also noted that some gas station offered a special, selling gas for $1.99 a gallon somewhere, just for Thursday afternoon.

In other news…
We scored a record low of 42 degrees Wednesday night/Thursday morning. The old record was 43… They’re trying to get petitions to get a liquor-by-the drink referendum on the ballot in Spruce Pine… Business owners who sell alcohol are learning how to recycle. A new state law that goes into effect in Jan. 2008 means that stores that sell beer, wine and liquor bottles will be required to recycle.

Data center comes to Rutherford
Big news for Rutherford County yesterday – Gov. Mike Easley came to Forest City to help break ground on a new data center there. Folks told John “Punnyman” Le that it was the biggest economic development news for them in years.

As usual, Le was short on details. All he told us was that a fiber optic pipeline will be built to this new data center, which will back up data in Raleigh and employ about 50 people. It’s going in an industrial park that county officials hope will now take off.

Le, is this data center funded by taxpayer money? How much is it going to cost? How big of an information pipeline is this? Details. We need details, not your mush about a new “high-tech frontier.”

In still other news…
The spinach “smoking gun” has been found – a pile of fresh spinach in a fridge of someone who got sick, which has helped investigators narrow their search for the e coli to three California counties… On the WLOS soapbox, kids got up and said they don’t like spinach … And Buncombe County has a new teacher of the year – Robin Smathers, a music teacher at Weaverville Primary School and Weaverville Elementary School.