Cape Fear Citizens Fight for a Safe Environment
by Valerie Robertson
It sounded like such a good deal, a big international firm building a state-of-the-ar t recycling facility in Navassa, a town that had thus far been sidestepped by the economic grow th fueling neighboring Leland. It was to be a great symbiotic relationship. The town would provide the land and the human resources, and in exchange the big corporation would give them money for infrastructure that would benefit them both: town-wide connections to water and sewer and a new f ire station. There would be 50 new jobs, there tax revenue for the town and, on top of it all, the town would be paid by the ton for material brought to the facility. It was promoted as a clean industry, and promised a financial and employment windfall for a town that sorely needed it.
So why was there such a strong grassroots effort to block the facility? What would make hundreds of area residents pool their skills to stop such a wonderful deal?
Cape Fear Citizens for a Safe Environment (CFCSE) had its beginnings when a few Brunswick County residents started asking questions about a proposed project to be located in their area... in some cases, right in their own back yard. The more they learned, the more concerns they developed, about the safety of the project as a near neighbor, about the misleading language being used to “sell” the project, and about the very financing arrangement used as an enticement. They concluded it wasn’t clean; it wasn’t in Navassa, and it wasn’t even a good business deal.
Plans for building Sims Hugo Neu’s facility were well underway by the time Mary Flynn received an official notice that the property adjacent to her was being rezoned as “heavy industrial.” Surprised, she assembled a handful of family and neighbors at the Goshen Baptist Church, where many were members, to talk about what was going on and what they could do about it. The proposed landfill site—a 750-acre piece of unincorporated Brunswick County six miles away from the heart of downtown Navassa—had already been purchased by Hugo Neu Corporation and annexed to the town of Navassa for the sole purpose of housing their facility. (Hugo Neu Corporation became Sims Hugo Neu Corporation in 2005 when it joined with Australia-based Sims Group Limited.) Folks who lived near the proposed site—nearer, in fact, than most Navassa residents—were alarmed that plans could have gone this far without their knowledge. They started to ask more questions.
Someone in the community volunteered the use of a cinder block building, previously a store, near the site. Elsie Peterson says, “We met there for a year on a weekly basis initially, trying to formulate plans, goals, and bring some organizational structure to our group.” Neighbor told neighbor. As they learned more about project plans they printed flyers and went door to door through Brunswick County neighborhoods. They handed out flyers to people exiting the local Piggly Wiggly. They distributed maps to show that the landfill wasn’t going to be in the original town of Navassa, but further out on Mt. Misery Road.
Veronica Carter became involved when she perceived that information about the operation was not being offered openly. The public announcement of the meeting to discuss satellite annexation was printed in the Brunswick Beacon, which serves southern Brunswick County. The meeting itself was held on a night that other municipalities had cancelled their meetings because of inclement winter weather, and there were only a few people in the audience. When it was time for the vote, it was 3-2 in favor of the facility, with the mayor casting the deciding vote: not everyone in town was for the project, even in the beginning.
Current annexation laws allow towns in Brunswick County to satellite annex parcels of land that don’t adjoin the town. Early critics of CFCSE protested that because the members were not Navassa residents, they had no business trying to stop Sims Hugo Neu. It took a year to explain to everybody that the landfill itself was not sited in the original town of Navassa, but in the newly annexed portion a few miles away: the people most affected by it were not Navassa residents, but the people whose property was much closer to the proposed landfill site. Current bills in process will, if passed, repeal the satellite annexation of Sims Hugo Neu’s 750 acres so that jurisdiction reverts to Brunswick County.
Veronica Carter was also concerned about the mismatch between the publicity used to sell the landfill to area residents and her understanding of what the facility was being legally created to be. The project was being promoted as a recycling facility, but in the state of North Carolina, a company can call itself a recycling facility even if it recycles only 5-15% of the material it takes in.
“People who first talked with Sims Hugo Neu thought it was going to be a recycling center,” Elsie Peterson remembers from that first meeting at the church. “They believed the facility would be of great benefit to the community, until they began to ask questions. They could not get answers from Sims Hugo Neu. I think that’s when red flags started with those who had talked with [Sims Hugo Neu] initially.”
Group members heard rumors they didn’t like: materials might come from abroad, materials might consist of auto shredder residue (ASR), which contains elements considered hazardous waste by the Environmental Protection Agency. But it wasn’t until they obtained a copy of the business agreement between Sims Hugo Neu and Navassa Mayor Willis, signed August 31, 2004, that they had written confirmation of some of the troubling rumors.
DANGEROUS MATERIALS
CFCSE members were concerned that the intended use of the facility described in the signed business agreement was not consistent with the recycling center described by representatives from Sims Hugo Neu (HNC). They believed the site would host dangerous materials, with insufficient provision for their safe transport to the site. Some of the terms of the agreement are listed below:
• Approximately 82 acres will be devoted to the Facility (possibly recycling) and approximately 400 acres will be designated residuals management unit (RMU), for storage of non-ferrous materials and postrecycling residue.
• Materials to be stored at the RMU include shredder residue (SR), the materials left over when nonferrous materials are removed from automobiles.
• Materials processed by the Facility “will originate from Sims Hugo Neu and other entities in the United States and other countries that are present or future members of the European Union.” Auto shredder residue (ASR) is starting to be banned in European landfills.
• Transportation terms open the way to receiving material by ocean: the site is located on the CSXT Railroad Line. The contract mentions “the potential dock site on the Cape Fear River within the Town,” thus opening the possibility of bringing in materials up the Cape Fear River. (Permits already obtained by Sims Hugo Neu authorize roads for heavy use—44 trucks per hour—but company assurances that this won’t be a problem suggest that perhaps the intent is to bring these materials in by other means.)
• Although the landfill itself will have a liner, Sims Hugo Neu officials haven’t adequately addressed the issue of how materials will be kept from blowing around on loading docks or staging areas while in transit, when they would be vulnerable to seasonal hurricane winds or leaching by rain.
“Yes, you’ve got to put stuff in landfills. We’re not at zero waste,” says Veronica Carter. “But you don’t put this type of landfill in a coastal community. It’s just an economic and environmental disaster waiting to happen.”
CFCSE is very concerned about the number of Sims Hugo Neu facilities in other cities that have a history of combusting spontaneously because of their ASR content. The Sims Hugo Neu plant in Rhode Island was closed because of numerous explosions and fires. Sims Hugo Neu representatives were insisting that their sites don’t catch on fire, when their facility at Terminal Island in California combusted. People in a 12-mile radius were evacuated, and it took the Los Angeles fire department 8 hours to extinguish the fire. (A 12-mile radius from Sims Hugo Neu’s proposed site would extend into Wilmington.)
In addition to the possible environmental problems imposed by the facility, CFCSE is concerned that the financial compensation being offered Navassa is not as good a deal as they’ve been led to believe. And the town is committing to provide resources, such as building and staffing a fire station, that might prove very costly in the long run.
FINANCIAL GAIN VS. COMMITMENT OF COMMUNITY RESOURCES
Below are some of the financial details outlined in Navassa’s business agreement:
• Navassa believes Sims Hugo Neu has promised them 40 or 50 jobs, but there is no written commitment to offer a specific number of jobs. The contract states that each Sims Hugo Neu entity “pledges to use its best efforts to employ residents of the Town, Brunswick County and the surrounding community.” Elsewhere the document it says they “shall use qualified personnel to operate the Facility and RMU.” CFCSE points out that some of these jobs may require a level of training not currently found in Navassa, and might go to new people moving in, not to existing Navassa residents. Recently, local employer Rampage Yachts went door to door in Navassa asking people to apply for jobs, so they could staff a third shift, and couldn’t get enough people to even apply for the jobs.
• Local reports are that Sims Hugo Neu will pay a price of $.50 per ton (2000 lbs.) for materials brought to the facility. This is misleading because the contract says payment will be $.50 per gross ton (2240 lbs.). Other North Carolina towns average $2-3 per gross ton.
• Sims Hugo Neu guarantees the Gross Tonnage Contributions to the Town—payment for materials received at the site—will equal at least $1,000,000 in the aggregate over the first 10 years of operation, an average of $100,000 per year. The Town of Navassa may verify the tonnage amounts by visiting the facility during business hours and reviewing the facility’s written records (not by weighing the material themselves).
• Obligations of the town include helping Sims Hugo Neu obtain road access permits, providing police and fire protection, potable water service and wastewater treatment, to the same extent as provided within the primary corporate limits of the town, and provision of utility services—water, sewer, and electricity.
• Sims Hugo Neu agrees to pay $100,000 towards construction of a new fire station. Veronica Carter comments, “I was a supply officer, and actually worked at Sunny Point, and I had just bought a fire truck for Sunny Point. Do you know how much the fire truck costs without any hoses and any of the little gadgets that you need? $452,000 and change. Giving you a fire station? Where are you getting the rest of the money from?” The station would be located not in the original town, but on the perimeter of the Sims Hugo Neu landfill. A fire station on site seems appropriate, but what will building, maintaining, and staffing the fire station cost the residents of Navassa in the long run?
• Sims Hugo Neu provides for cash flow issues that might arise—Sims Hugo Neu will advance Navassa cash for any infrastructure commitment the town cannot pay for in advance, which the town can pay back later out of their profits. Sims Hugo Neu does suggest that the town could apply for grants, but this seems an unlikely source of money, since Navassa has thus far been unable to write grants to apply for Environmental Protection Agency Superfund money to clean up the pollution left by previous fertilizer companies.
• Navassa expects tax revenue from the corporation, but a clause in the contract specifies that the town will cooperate with Sims Hugo Neu in seeking exemption from tax.
• Sims Hugo Neu will help finance the town’s cost of building agreed-upon infrastructure by paying $1,000,000. Of this, $200,000 shall be a grant and $800,000 shall be in Gross Tonnage Contributions in advance of said contributions being accrued (i.e., $800,000 is a loan to be repaid from future tipping fee payments).
• Sims Hugo Neu will provide insurance coverage “customary for a resource recycling facility.” It is customary for a stated insurance amount to be specified in such an agreement. Because Sims Hugo Neu has created its own definition of “resource recycling facility,” it is the first in North Carolina and so there is no precedent for insurance amount. (See fire sidebar.)
• There is a provision allowing Sims Hugo Neu to terminate the contract at any time, with an agreement to pay what they owe Navassa up to that point. There is no provision for Navassa to terminate the contract for any reason. The only way for Navassa (or its successors) to exit the agreement is for someone else, such as the Brunswick County Commissioners or the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) to step in.
LEGISLATIVE HELP
CFCSE members worked diligently to inform themselves about the project proposed by Sims Hugo Neu, and to spread the word as widely as they could. They collected more than 8000 signatures on petitions, more than five times the population of Navassa, showing support not only throughout Brunswick but in Pender County, New Hanover County, Onslow County, and Columbus County. This was enough to get the attention of legislators in Raleigh, and they have worked to keep this issue before their representatives. Representative Bonner Stiller, Senator Soles, Representative Carolyn Justice, and Representative Dewey Hill have all been supportive.
Because the group met with several other area grassroots groups, their combined voice was enough to spur legislators to pass the current state-wide moratorium on megalandfills. Bills are now in process that would repeal Navassa’s satellite annexation, and a bill introduced before the state Senate late in March would require that new or expanding landfills perform a demographic assessment of any area within five miles.
Sims Hugo Neu has pulled out, for now, but the moratorium is due to expire in August if there is not enough pressure to extend it. CFCSE encourages everyone to become informed about bills in process.
Involvement by individual citizens is still needed to make sure these issues are treated responsibly.
HOW THE CITIZENS GROUP GREW
Members of Cape Fear Citizens for a Safe Environment weren’t hard-core environmentalists. They were just individuals from all backgrounds and all walks of life, who came together because they were concerned about changes they thought would harm their neighborhoods. About half are retired; half have jobs. They are attorneys, school bus drivers, realtors—many are exmilitary—who have pooled their vocational skills for a common cause.
Several area groups—not just in Brunswick County—were early supporters. Residents of Old Wilmington and Sunset Park Homeowners Association both passed resolutions supporting the group, and others have since joined. Over time, the grassroots group evolved into Brunswick Citizens for a Safe Environment. As they received more support from people in neighboring counties, they changed their name to Cape Fear Citizens for a Safe Environment, to be more inclusive. In the early days they couldn’t get press coverage or air time, but as news reports of events at other sites came to light, their credibility increased.
They joined forces with the North Carolina Coastal Federation. They became a chapter of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, and then had access to that group’s environmental attorney. One step at a time, one task at a time, they built enough of a presence to make a difference. They have approximately 200 members, but their influence extends into the thousands. “It’s important that we pursue legislation in place that will make sure this doesn’t happen again, and that a municipality can’t force something that’s bad for their neighbors,” says Carter.
FUTURE OF NAVASSA
Although some bemoan the loss of the potential business, CFCSE members are relieved to have sidestepped this particular business deal. “There’s got to be a better company, a better product,” says Carter. Navassa has beautiful land, much of it unfortunately polluted by previous fertilizer plants. Perhaps the right developer would be willing to come help clean it up, and build subdivisions, which would bring in property tax. Instead of a barge offloading facility on waterfront property on the Cape Fear, offer a Brunswick County counterpart to the shops lining the river in downtown Wilmington. County commissioners and state officials have volunteered to work with Navassa to look at bringing appropriate industry to the town, and Senator Soles is committed to exploring economic development opportunities.
FOOTNOTE
Sims Hugo Neu recently decided to pull out of the project, but the important work of local citizens’ groups isn’t over until legislation is in place to protect citizens from this kind of business deal in the future. In Sims Hugo Neu’s April 5, 2007 statement announcing their decision to abandon plans for a recycling facility in Navassa, they wrote, “We look forward to returning to North Carolina in the future to help carry forward the kind of thriving recycling industry that will benefit both local communities and the state as a whole.” As of this writing, Sims Hugo Neu still owns 750 acres in Brunswick County. ?
Cape Fear Citizens for a Safe Environment welcomes newcomers to its meetings, which are held the first Monday of each month at 7p.m. at the Leland Senior Center. Directions are available at www.stopthedump.com, or by calling (910) 383-2007.
Opinions in the magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent management views.