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THE FIGHT IS ON [The Wilson Daily Times, N.C.](Wilson Daily Times (NC) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 14--The city of Wilson's fight to stop or delay plans to locate a poultry processing operation to southern Nash County has just begun. The city has hired an environmental attorney, Clark Wright Jr., with David Hartman Wright attorneys in New Bern, to help challenge the project and represent the city's interests in protecting its watershed and public water supply. Wilson is prepared to file lawsuits to address the city's concerns in a series of moves by city leaders who say that the proposed location of Sanderson Farms on N.C. 97, near the Wilson County line, would have been a done deal had city leaders not questioned the project. "(We plan) to resist this with every tool and avenue we have at our disposal unless and until an adequate disclosure is made of the direct and indirect impacts that are associated with this," Wright said. The city's concerns started after learning Nash County leaders were trying to lure Sanderson Farms to a 150-acre site on N.C. 97. Sanderson Farms has not announced if it will open its next plant in Nash County but plans to hire 1,100 workers and invest $95 million in its next location. "I think what offends me most, legally and personally about what I've seen with this, is how little information was voluntarily disclosed until the city and the riverkeepers put up a cry," Wright said. "If we would have not put up an outcry, starting in the end of last year, this could already be a done deal." Wright, who has an extensive background in environmental law, formerly worked as an attorney for pork-producing companies, including Smithfield Foods, as well as hog farmers and environmentalists from 1991 through 2001, when state laws were being formed to regulate the hog industry. State laws, Wright said, have far less regulation for the poultry industry and chicken farmers remain largely unregulated. The lack of regulation is a big concern for Wilson leaders since at least 85 contract chicken growers, with 12 chicken houses each, could open in the area and provide Sanderson Farms with more than 1 million birds a week. The chicken growers are not required to have a lagoon or a land application area for its waste, as hog farmers do, officials said. Chicken farmers are able to collect chicken waste as dry litter, with either sawdust or hay, which is used as commercial fertilizer. "When the 500 chicken houses come into being, they don't even have to get a permit at all," Wright said. "All they have to do is show they have a certified animal waste management plan and they're permitted." City leaders, in hiring an environmental attorney, are mostly concerned with the impact the poultry industry could have on public water supplies and the long-term effects of the environment absorbing the byproducts of waste, including nitrogen and phosphorus, that some fear could enter rivers, streams, city reservoirs and groundwater. "Historically, our state has been reactive in establishing regulations and the swine industry is a perfect example," said City Manager Grant Goings. "What we are saying is that when drinking water supplies are at risk, we can't afford to be the example that creates regulation in the poultry industry. We believe that a project of this magnitude will have tremendous impacts on the future of our community. Specifically, we will do anything in our power to protect our drinking water supply." FULL ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY City leaders want a quality and unbiased environmental impact study performed before the Sanderson Farms project moves forward. If anything stands in the way of a study, the city of Wilson will consider having one completed. "I'm not going to take it off the table as an option for the city of Wilson to conduct any manner of environmental studies that need to be performed," Goings said. "What we want to see happen is to have the project slowed down to give time for enough thorough environmental research and study to be completed and we believe when the true cost of this project, and I'm not talking about the financial cost, are publicly disclosed, we believe you will be hard pressed to find many supporters out there." BACKGROUND The Wilson City Council has committed to spending up to $1 million to defend its water resources, which includes a $50 million investment to build the Buckhorn Reservoir, a 7 billion gallon source of water for city residents. In addition to hiring Wright, the city has also had soil samples studied on land not only where Sanderson Farms proposes to locate in Nash County but in other areas to determine if other areas were compatible for the operation. City leaders have also joined with Nash and Wilson residents in hiring a public relations firm, Campaign Connections, which launched an automated telephone poll asking registered voters of their support or opposition to Sanderson Farms. In November, the city and 34 residents also filed a lawsuit alleging the Nash County commissioners failed to follow state zoning rules when the 150-acre site was rezoned from single-family residential and rural commercial to a general industrial zone. City attorney Jim Cauley is representing Wilson in that case. Brian Bowman, Wilson's public affairs manager, and Cauley, have not fully disclosed the city's current costs, including Wright's attorney fees. Goings said the opposition to the project could become more widespread as additional research, study and investigation is completed and publicly disclosed. "We believe when the truth comes out, you won't just have people in communities that are located in close proximity to the operation that are concerned," Goings said. "We believe when all the facts and the true cost are put forth for public viewing, that the vast majority of people are going to have great concerns." CONSENT DECREE Clark could pursue several environmental-related lawsuits on behalf of the city. One possibility is seeking the enforcement of a consent decree Nash County previously entered into with the city of Wilson related to the Buckhorn Reservoir. "There is a consent decree that was the result of prior litigation between Nash County and the city of Wilson over the Buckhorn Reservoir that contains language where Nash County promised for decades to not do anything to impair the water quality in that drinking watershed and also Nash County, in that consent decree, promised to cooperate with the city of Wilson fully on any water quality issues dealing with that watershed," Wright said. "It can be enforced by a judge by injunction." The city could also take legal action that would require full disclosure of the project and potential environmental impacts, which is required by state and federal environmental policy acts, when applying for government grants that could be used as incentive money for the Sanderson Farms project. Nash County has already applied for U.S. Economic Development Administration grant funding for Sanderson Farms, a process that was called into question by several state agencies over concerns that environmental impacts were not addressed. "(State Environmental Policy Act or National Environmental Policy Act) related litigation (would) require compliance with the disclosure requirements in the national and state environmental policy acts related to the grant process or any other further processes that involve a federal agency and its approvals or state and public monies," Wright said. "The next layer of the fight would be to challenge any permits issued by any of the state regulatory agencies on the grounds that they don't fully comply with the statutory requirements under those permits." NUTRIENT SENSITIVE Concerns linked to the city's environmental legal defense include negative environmental impacts on the watershed and the increase of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river basins, which are classified as nutrient sensitive due to an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus, Wright said. The nutrient sensitive designation led to caps being placed on how much nitrogen can be released into the river systems by cities, industries, the agriculture industry and other discharge systems related to man's development. Adding to the existing pollution problem will only further harm the river systems, Wright said. "The fundamental problem that the city has ... is that you cannot import thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands over time of new additional pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus into the nutrient impaired watersheds of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river system without serious, adverse consequences long term," Wright said. "You just cannot. "Long term we cannot grow without solving the nutrient pollution problems in both of these river basins. For this region to prosper, we have to solve the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution problems and this is just counter, in every way, shape and form, to being able to work on that." [email protected] -- 265-7818 To see more of The Wilson Daily Times or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wilsondaily.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Wilson Daily Times, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544) |