2011: TOP 10 STORIES

NEWS-TIMES
Published: Sunday, January 1, 2012 2:05 AM EST

One of the most controversial stories of 2011 was PCS Phosphate Co.’s plan to construct a facility to offload, store and melt solid formed sulfur at the state port here.

The project, more than a year in the works, was kept mostly secret until Coastal Area Management Act notifications sent to adjacent properties owners became public in early July. Within days, a grassroots effort was organized and, following Gov. Bev Perdue’s intervention around the end of July, the plan was scuttled.

Gov. Perdue, during a visit to the N.C. Port of Morehead City, signed an executive order mandating that all future port development plans be studied to ensure compatibility with the surrounding community. The order broadened the scope of a state study of maritime industry logistics that had begun in May.

That study is scheduled to be completed in February. Until then all port development plans are effectively on hold. But PCS is still considering its options for meetings its sulfur needs.

The secrecy of the project was maintained ostensibly to qualify it for a state Commerce Department incentive grant program called the One North Carolina Fund. That program mandates “no public discussion” of qualifying projects until an official announcement is made by the state. But many opponents and others not opposed to the plan said the secrecy was mainly to head off potential controversy seen in past port development proposals while the environmental permitting process was under way.

PCS, which operates a phosphate mine in Aurora, is the port’s largest customer, accounting for nearly 1 million tons per year or 86 percent of the Morehead City port’s total tonnage in 2010.

PCS has handled liquid sulfur at the port for decades without incident. But the global market for liquid sulfur has changed and because it is needed for the Aurora mine’s processing operations, the company seeks a new way to supply the material.

A solid sulfur handling facility is still being considered for the Morehead City port, but the Clean County Coalition, the group formed to fight the melting facility, has said it opposes any handling of solid sulfur at the port.

Meanwhile, port officials and members of the Morehead City Port Committee, a nonprofit group of individuals interested in port business, have reached out in an effort to soften the opposition. The group hosted a tour of port facilities during the fall for members of the Morehead City Planning Board, which is in the midst of a review and rewrite of port and industrial uses allowed in the city’s zoning ordinance.

And the state’s maritime strategy study has indicated that port development prospects for Morehead City and Radio Island could include new facilities for containerized cargo operations or a grain and soybean facility. But such facilities are also being studied for other State Ports Authority properties in New Hanover and Brunswick counties.

From Website:  http://www.carolinacoastonline.com/articles/2012/01/01/news-times/news/doc4eff4490c707f663754085.txt

PDF file:  2012-01-01 Carteret County News Times 2011 Top 10 Stories

MOREHEAD CITY —City planning board members got an up-close look at various operations at the state port here Tuesday afternoon, just before the panel continued that evening its ongoing work of examining port and industrial zoning districts.

The board, during its latest work session set to study the Port-Industrial (IP) and Un-offensive Industrial IU zoning districts at the city’s Municipal Building at 202 S. 8th St., reached a consensus on the idea of creating a new “Industrial” district that would eventually encompass properties now classified as IP that aren’t part of state port properties or adjacent to waterways.

“We’re looking to simplify and consolidate,” board member Gordon Thayer said during the meeting.

Earlier in the day, during a meeting in the Maritime Building at the N.C. Port of Morehead City and later on a bus tour of the port, members of the State Ports Authority’s senior management team, employees and representatives of private firms and independent contractors that do business at the port explained their responsibilities, described the cargoes handled and how the facility functions as an economic gateway to the world. But the overarching message was that the port plays a vital role as an employer in the community.

MOREHEAD CITY — Minutes from a Jan. 11 closed-session meeting of the city council made public Tuesday reveal the entire board was advised at that time of PotashCorp-Aurora’s expansion plans at the state port, but there was no specific mention of a proposed solid sulfur melting plant.

The discussion was kept confidential at the request of a PCS employee who works at the N.C. Port of Morehead City, according to city manager Randy Martin, who also said he was aware of but hadn’t seen the environmental assessment related to the project at the time.

The minutes were released during the council’s October meeting held in the council’s chambers, upstairs in the Municipal Building at 202 S. 8th St. They revealed only that Mr. Martin told the council that an environmental assessment was under way for PCS to “expand their facilities at the state port on the mainland in Morehead City” and that Mr. Martin had been advised “that this would be a substantial investment in their current facilities and would be a positive impact in terms of jobs and a greater tax base.”

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MOREHEAD CITY — The general manager of the PotashCorp-Aurora facility said Thursday the company’s former plans to build a sulfur-melting facility at the state port would have been presented to the public differently if not for the confidentiality required in a state incentives deal.

Speaking during the Morehead City Port Committee’s monthly meeting at the Sanitary Restaurant, general manager Steven Beckel said State Commerce Department officials “encouraged” the company’s pursuit of an incentive grant under the One NC Fund, a program that requires matching funds from a local government entity and “no public discussion” of the proposed project until an official announcement is made by the department.

“We were not trying to do anything in secret, we were just following the path that we were presented,” Mr. Beckel said during the meeting, which included a question-and-answer session with the more than 30 in attendance, including opponents of the plan.

MOREHEAD CITY — PCS Phosphate, after abandoning in July its plans to build a sulfur-melting plant at the state port here, has chosen its plant site near Aurora as its preferred location for the plant, according to a Thursday report in the Washington Daily News. 

Representatives from PotashCorp Aurora, the company’s phosphate mining operation in Beaufort County that is the N.C. Port of Morehead City’s largest customer, presented a plan Tuesday during a Beaufort County Board of Commissioners’ meeting that would include two sulfur melters, smokestacks with scrubbing systems and associated piping to transfer molten sulfur throughout the Aurora plant site, according to the report.

The company said last week it is still considering Morehead City as a preferred option for a solid sulfur handling operation. The port has long handled sulfur in liquid form but market changes have forced PCS to seek alternative sources, of which solid formed sulfur is more economically advantageous.
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MOREHEAD CITY — PCS Phosphate Inc. is still working on plans for a sulfur facility here. But the company says any plans that move forward won’t include a melter and will be discussed openly with stakeholders in the community. 

The company has launched a new effort to allay lingering concerns about the material’s safety. PCS, which says it needs a way to get sulfur to its Aurora mining facility, is still considering Morehead City as a preferred option for a handling operation.

Representatives from the company held separate, unannounced meetings last week in Morehead City with local government officials and members of a group formed in July to oppose the company’s now-abandoned plan to build a sulfur melting and handling facility at the N.C. Port of Morehead City. The press wasn’t invited.

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RALEIGH — The N.C. Division of Air Quality said Friday it has released for public review a draft air quality permit renewal for PCS Phosphate that does not authorize sulfur melting and storage at the company’s facility at the N.C. Port of Morehead City. 

As reported in the News-Times on Wednesday, PCS Phosphate Co. has applied to renew its existing air permit for its facility at the port and requested the removal of all references to sulfur melting, handling and storage that were in its application submitted earlier this year.

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MOREHEAD CITY — The city planning board on Tuesday outlined a plan and set a date for the first work session to study what kinds of activities should be permitted in the port zoning district.

Also on Tuesday, state regulators announced that PCS Phosphate has applied for the renewal of its state air quality construction and operation permit, requesting removal of all references to sulfur melting, handling and storage in its application submitted earlier this year.

The action basically resets permitting for PCS operations at the N.C. Port of Morehead City to cover the phosphate handling and storage activity that has long been the largest share of port business.

But all allowed uses in the IP (industrial port) district – including current operations – will be subject to review in the city’s study discussed during the planning board’s monthly meeting in the municipal building at 202 S. 8th St.

Prompted by the recent controversy over PCS Phosphate’s now abandoned plan to build a sulfur-melting and handling facility at the port, the board promised open discussions and a thorough analysis of the district with input from the public and all stakeholders and set its first work session to deal with the topic at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30, at the same location.

Chairman Bill Taylor said the review of all allowed uses in the IP district, which includes 97 parcels covering 716 acres in three concentrated areas of the city’s jurisdiction, would be intensive and complex.

MOREHEAD CITY — The city council voted unanimously Tuesday to dismiss the city’s legal case – pending certain assurances – opposing the modification of the air quality permit allowing sulfur processing at the port.

The action came following a lengthy closed-session discussion with the city attorney at the end of the council’s monthly meeting, during which the council heard for the first time from both sides of the debate over PCS Phosphate’s future plans for a sulfur-handling facility at the N.C. Port of Morehead City.

TO THE EDITOR:
A letter to Gov. Bev Perdue: 

Madam Governor:

This letter expresses my strong opposition to the proposed sulphur plant in Morehead City. I am a resident and registered voter of Beaufort, North Carolina.

For many years I worked with and traveled and dealt with the environmental disaster caused by petrochemical plants in Louisiana, Texas, the states of the Persian or Arabian Gulf and elsewhere. I have carefully observed and been involved in sulphur carriage and production, which are a residual product of that industry. I can tell you from first hand experience that the proposed sulphur plant in Morehead City will be an economic, environmental and health disaster to that city, surrounding towns, Carteret County and North Carolina.

In Port Sulphur, La., a place that derives its income from sulphur, the atmosphere is so foul that paint does not adhere to houses because of the sulphur fumes and sulphuric acid produced by them. The rate of carcinomas in the population is far greater than the national average. The number of stillborns is greater than the national average. Each of these phenomena can be traced to sulphur and its effects.

Sulphur is an insidious element which cannot and will not be controlled by the proponents of the plant in Morehead City. The specter of turning the towns of Beaufort and Morehead City into other Port Sulphurs is real, palpable and dangerous. Do you really want that to happen to a town in North Carolina?

The property values of Carteret County will plummet if this plant is allowed to exist. Already, on rumor only, real estate deals are failing because of the proposal. Neither Carteret County nor North Carolina can afford that.

Beaufort is the third oldest town in North Carolina and for most North Carolinians it is a jewel of which they are justly proud. To be blunt, the proposed sulphur plant would irreparably injure that jewel for the sake of 18 jobs to those not of Carteret County. It would destroy a vibrant tourism industry. It would destroy a fishery and would greatly harm if not destroy our wetlands.

The way in which the proponents have gone about placing the plant is disingenuous at best and criminal in the worst case. There is an odor about their activities, which smacks of bribery and piece-off and corruption for profit. The profits of this chemical plant in Morehead City are staggering daily. Yet none of these monies will flow to Carteret County of eastern North Carolina. This is not the way your administration does business and is not the North Carolina way.

The company propounding the sulphur plant owns a phosphate plant in Aurora. The record is clear. Because of that operation the level of the largest aquifer on the East Coast has plummeted. Where there were artesian wells there are now dry holes. Deep wells are now necessary for both commerce and personal use. The ecosystem of the surrounds of the plant has been inalterably changed because of it. The Pamlico River has been inalterably changed because of it. The owners of the plant are not good corporate stewards in Aurora and will not be in Morehead City.

I urge you to not allow the sulphur melting plant to happen by not providing over your signature grant monies from the taxpayers of this state to start a process which, if begun, will be very difficult if not impossible to turn. If your interests are truly for and of the people of this state you will not allow this plant to commence and you will use your good offices to oppose it.

With best regards,

JOHN A.C. CARTNER

M.Sc., M.B.A., LL.M., Ph.D., Ch. Eng., Master Mariner
Proctor in Admiralty (U.S.A.), FSNAME, FRINA, FINMAREST
Admitted: D.C., U.S.A.; Member of the Law Society, England & Wales
Managing Member, Cartner & Fiske, LLC/Shipmasterlaw, LLC

A group of citizens interested in the state port here is stepping forward to educate the public on the economic and other factors that could be at stake if the recent controversy over a proposed sulfur facility leads to tightened restrictions on port operations.

MOREHEAD CITY – Fewer than three dozen attended a Friday celebration held by the group formed to oppose a sulfur facility at the state port here – a far cry from the 400 who attended the Clean County Coalition’s organizational meeting earlier this month – but organizers said their work isn’t done yet.

The group said it must continue to be involved in the public discussions of whatever plan PCS Phosphate develops as an alternative to the $95 million project originally proposed to handle, store and melt solid sulfur to be barged up the Intracoastal Waterway to its Aurora mining facility. It’s understood construction of a solid sulfur storage facility is likely to be proposed next and any handling of dry sulfur at the port is a concern, the group said.

Gov. Bev Perdue announced Wednesday that PCS Phosphate has “voluntarily agreed to abandon” its plan to build a sulfur-melting facility at the state port here.  The governor also used the opportunity to sign an executive order “to assure the public that North Carolina ports intend to be good neighbors.”

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About 400 attended the organizational meeting Tuesday of a citizens group, called the Clean County Coalition, held at the Crystal Coast Civic Center.