Blight takes on many definitions.

For centuries, it’s been an old word associated with destroying plant life, not unlike the disease that caused the Great Potato Famine in the mid-1840s in Ireland.

And it’s probably safe to say that at one time or another, blight has affected everyone to some degree.

Here in Carbon County, a farm or two - or even someone who’s doted over a Victory Garden - has experienced blight of some type, wiping out a season’s crop or a backyard pepper patch.

At the same time, they’ve seen a new kind of blight here. It’s one that’s threatening their communities.

Since the early 1950s and possibly before, municipal blight has ravaged local boroughs and townships.

Old buildings cast aside by a dimming coal industry or vacant buildings that once housed mills and manufacturing dot the landscape. Homes where miners or factory workers once lived sit empty, having lost their luster and languishing in lost paint or a failing roof.

Their high weeds, broken windows or busted fences often attract copper thieves, who strip the prized metal from a building’s bowels to support themselves or their drug habit.

Owners sometimes pass away with nobody to take over a property, which ends up on a municipal sale list.

New owners purchase these sites - often unseen - and despite admirable intentions a lack of action eventually restarts the cycle.

These days, it’s an issue that’s all too common. At the same time, there are - for now - no easy answers.

Over in Ross Township, abandoned and condemned buildings were a hot topic earlier this month, and apparently have been for a long time now.

James Zahoroiko, Ross supervisors chairman, called them eyesores, dangerous and capable of potentially decreasing property values of neighboring homes.

Despite having ordinances targeting the conditions, municipalities struggle with enforcing them.

In Ross, the township has filed new complaints against properties that had already active, unresolved complaints.

Supervisors there say the problem has two parts. First there’s a need to comply. Local ordinances are basically laws that guarantee a certain quality of life in a community. Obviously, noncompliance lowers that quality.

The second part of the issue in Ross - and most probably countless other area communities - is the lack of enforcement capabilities.

Officials feel the zoning and code enforcement officer doesn’t spend enough time on the complaint and getting a property owner to comply.

A private firm, SFM Consulting of Walnutport, is contracted to provide zoning and code enforcement for six hours per week. The firm has several clients in the region as well as serving clients in other parts of the world.

The cases can sometimes get complicated, and sometimes, six hours per week might not be enough to handle them all.

Ross officials hope to discuss the situation with SFM, which receives $65 per hour for its services. But not even the experts in enforcing code can speed the current way blight is dealt with.

Enforcement is also an issue in Lansford, where council recently discussed hiring a Pottsville firm to help with inspections of the 740 rental units in the borough.

Lehigh Engineering proposed doing the inspections for approximately $83 each. At the same time, former code officer James Dean offered to do the inspections at $20 each.

Lansford has been in a quandary of late, recently proposing that it could hire constables to help enforce quality of life issues there. Borough police, however, claim jurisdiction and say the proposal must be negotiated due to contractual requirements. Details of a solution there haven’t been ironed out.

Besides the other than desirable aesthetics, these decimated buildings pose other issues.

As colder weather approaches, they sometimes become hosts to homeless individuals seeking shelter, a situation that puts those folks at risk - not to mention the lives of first responders in the event of an emergency.

The blight problem touches every municipality to some degree and each of them are doing what they can to fight back.

But a system that snarls progress and slows action only helps to exacerbate the matter.

In recent years there’s been a concerted effort by government at all levels to dig out from under the mess. Many of those initiatives have seen varying levels of success.

It took blight a long time to take hold in our area, and it’ll be a while before it can be beat.

It’s good to know that despite all its issues, there are plenty of good people fighting that fight.

ED SOCHA/TNEDITOR@TNONLINE.COM

Ed Socha is a retired newspaper editor with more than 40 years experience in community journalism. Reach him at tneditor@tnonline.com.

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.