File this in the “it could have been so much worse” folder: The Apex hazardous-waste storage plant that burned early this month had no fire-suppression equipment installed. None. Because it wasn’t required by the state.

The EQ Industrial Services plan, in the event of a fire, was that employees would extinguish it. What if a fire broke out when nobody was there? The events that began on the night of Oct. 5, including the evacuation of nearly half of Apex’s residents, reveal the answer — a fire that burns out of control for nearly two days, spreading a toxic fog over the town and sending 44 people to emergency rooms, most with breathing problems. It may be a miracle that nobody died or suffered serious injury.

Apex fire officials let the fire burn itself out. Given the weather conditions — including rain that washed away the greenish-yellow cloud generated by the fire — that was probably the best decision, certainly the safest for firefighters.

The cause of the blaze may never be known, because most clues to its origin were destroyed. Nor is it likely anyone will know what chemicals were incinerated in the fire, because EQ’s records were housed within the building as well.

EQ officials say their plant lacked firewalls and fire-suppression equipment because the state didn’t require them. “We are highly regulated,” spokesman Robert Doyle said. “I can’t stress enough: In the business we are in, we know we have to meet the state requirements to do business.”

In this case, state requirements are ludicrously lax. Allowing a large cache of toxic chemicals to be protected by a plan that trusts fires will break out only during business hours would be a joke, if the potential consequences weren’t so deadly. Allowing such poorly protected facilities adjacent to residential neighborhoods compounds the danger.

The federal Chemical Safety Board is investigating the Apex fire. Board chairman Carolyn W. Merritt appears, so far, the only official speaking up about the clear danger. “The fire in Apex raises a number of questions,” she said, “including whether better fire detection, protection, firewalls, and separation measures could improve the safety of hazardous waste facilities — especially those close to residential neighborhoods.”

Apex caught a huge break with wind and weather. Extensive testing has found no trace so far of toxic waste residues.

But a state government that depends on dumb luck to protect its residents from what happened in Apex is a blood-chilling embarrassment.

Fix it, please. Quickly.

Copyright 2006 - The Fayetteville (NC) Observer

BRUNSWICK COUNTY -- A one-year moratorium on landfills is in place right now in North Carolina. State lawmakers wanted committees to look at the impact the projects have on the state.

It turns out two committees will be studying the landfill issue. One committee will look at the environmental impacts, another committee study why waste management companies appear to be targeting poor, minority communities.

Over the last few years Hugo Neu opponents have tried to get legislation passed to keep the company from building a landfill in Brunswick County.

But some lawmakers blocked those bills, including House Representatives Thomas Wright and William Wainwright.

Rep. Wainwright said, "If there's a problem you need to take that up with the Town of Navassa."

So some landfill opponents were shocked and disappointed when they learned House Speaker Jim Black appointed Wright and Wainwright to serve on the Committee for Environmental Justice.

The committee's job is to study why so many waste companies are trying to build landfills in North Carolina.

Now landfill opponents are pleading with these state leaders to talk to the experts and see for themselves how some landfill companies target poor, minority communities like Navassa.

Landfill opponent Veronica Carter said, "Hopefully both representative Wainwright and Representative Wright will reach out to them. Hopefully they'll reach out to their constituents, all of the constituents, not just the ones who may gain monetarily from this, and again, not be penny wise and pound foolish."

Phone calls to Rep. Wainwright and Rep. Wright were not returned Wednesday. But we did talk with local Rep. Danny McComas. He's on a separate committee that will study the environmental aspects of the proposed landfills.

McComas says there is no need for North Carolina to start importing waste here from all over the world and if it's up to him Sims Hugo Neu will not be setting up a landfill in Brunswick County.

Rep. McComas said, "It is coming to my attention every day, even as we speak. I still get phone calls, I still get e-mails, I still get people talking to me about it, and I look over here, we don't need to have Mount Flushmore."

After these studies are complete the two committees will make recommendations and possibly introduce new legislation to change the way the State regulates landfills in the future.

WILMINGTON -- An easy victory Tuesday night for Pat Delair in Wilmington's City Council election could mean big changes for where the City is headed.

Delair's campaign focused on re-directing the largely pro-growth council.

After Mayor Spence Broadhurst left office Pat Delair launched a campaign to fill the vacant council seat.

Despite presenting the City with a petition council members decided to appoint J.C. Hearne to fill the void.

After running on a platform challening everything from the convention center, to the City's handling of the sewer problem, Delair won Tuesday night by about 1,900 votes.
The special election is over. For Wilmington's soon-to-be City Council member that means cleaning up and deciding what to do next.

Delair campaigned on shaking up the Council. Three issues near the top of her list are: stopping the convention center, keeping Hugo Neu away and not allowing two-way traffic on Front Street.

Already she says two of those issues are nearly set in stone.

Concerning the convention center Delair said, "That's not in my hands. Americans for Prosperity is floating a petition. I said I would support them."

Delair said, "Front Street's a done deal. I didn't support it when they brought up opening it up to two-way traffic. They're going to have to find funding."

Delair also says the City can't control what Navassa does.

"I don't think that we'll be able to stop that, but I think that perhaps we can put a resolution forth to not allow them to bring the recycled material through our neighborhoods."

At City Hall she's getting a mixed reaction. The Council supported her opponent J.C. Hearne, appointing him to a vacant seat.

Mayor Bill Saffo even appeared in a Hearne campaign ad.

Still, Delair says, she's sticking by her goal of changing Wilmington's direction.

"I'm not going to agree with them on everything, we're not all going to get along like they've been doing," Delair said. "That's not what I'm there to do."

Delair is the first to admit that she's not sure how many of those goals will work out.

Her term lasts only a year. In fact, Wednesday she said she's saving her campaign signs to run again next year.

Representative Mickey Michaux single-handedly blocking a bill that would keep the Hugo Neu landfill out of Brunswick County

Rep. Mickey Michaux

He's the lawmaker who's single-handedly blocking a bill that would keep the Hugo Neu landfill out of Brunswick County. For weeks Representative Mickey Michaux has refused to return phone calls, letters and e-mails from concerned residents who live near the proposed landfill.

Michaux never returned calls from NewsChannel 3 either. So today we followed residents to Raleigh as they tried to make their desperate appeals in person.

A handful of residents Tuesday caught Rep. Michaux in the halls of the State capita Despite the urgency of their problem and the fact that Mr. Michaux had a sit-down meeting with their opponents, Michaux gave Brunswick County residents less than two minutes of his time.

Richard Beatty lives next-door to the proposed landfill. Beatty said, "It's really frustrating. You just want to be heard. I'm trying to get heard and I can't get heard."
Beatty's property is literally right next door to the proposed landfill. He says it will be devastating if Hugo Neu is allowed to build there.

Brunswick County Representative Bonner Stiller agrees. He sponsored a bill to block the landfill and is furious that Durham County Rep. Mickey Michaux is interfering.
Rep. Bonner Stiller said, "He doesn't live there, he doesn't work there, he doesn't even know where Navassa is. He probably doesn't know where Brunswick County is."
Though extremely reluctant to talk to us, some prodding from local senator R.C. Soles finally convinced Rep. Michaux to give us an interview.

When asked what the biggest pros are of bringing this landfill to Navassa, Rep. Michaux said, "I don't know. I don't have the slightest idea. All I know is what is going on is precedent setting, and I don't think you want to set a precedent in the short session, when you can't devote full attention to it."

The bill in question would give zoning control over the proposed landfill site to Brunswick County commissioners who oppose the Hugo Neu facility.
Even though the bill passed unanimously in the Senate, House Representative Michaux says taking power away from one municipality and giving it to another is an unprecedented concept he's not comfortable with.

Concerned Brunswick County resident Veronica Carter said, "All new laws are a precedent. They are precedent setting."

Local lawmakers say they still have a few tricks up their sleeve to block the Hugo Neu landfill before this legislative session wraps in the next few weeks.

Hugo Neu still doesn't have the necessary State permits to build their controversial facility. If they get them, groundbreaking is probably still a few years away.

Concerned that North Carolina will become a dumping ground for out-of-state trash, some state senators want to put a temporary halt on new landfill permits.
Five giant privately owned landfills proposed in rural eastern and Piedmont counties, if approved by the state, would make North Carolina one of the nation's top importers of garbage.

A bill by Sen. Clark Jenkins of Tarboro would direct the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources to hold off taking applications and issuing permits for new landfills from July 1 through Jan. 1, 2008, to provide time to study state standards.
The largest landfill, proposed in Camden County by Raleigh-based Waste Industries, would bury up to 3 million tons of trash a year in the state's northeastern corner -- creating a mountain of trash 270 feet high and visible for miles. Much of the waste would be shipped from other states. Other landfills are proposed in Hyde, Columbus, Brunswick and Richmond counties.

Jenkins said the flurry of applications for large landills had raised concerns among some senators about the adequacy of the state's regulations. He said a hiatus is needed for a state environmental study panel to review whether changes are needed in areas such as financial requirements for landfill owners, design standards for landfills in areas prone to flooding and public notice laws for local governments considering landfill applications.
"I personally just resent the fact that North Carolina gets to be the garbage dump for New York," Jenkins said in an interview. "It's something we need to stop and look at. I don't think that is something little Camden County needs. I have a real question how it would impact the environment. You have big, important bodies of water around these sites and very porous land."

The bill would allow expansion of existing landfills and modification of permits for the types of waste going into them.

"The bill seems to recognize that we would need to have permitting activities to handle the waste stream in the state and be able to issue permits," said Dexter Matthews, director of the Division of Waste Management.

Matthews said state reviewers had not approved the suitability of any of the sites for the large landfills -- the first step in the permitting process.
Can't stop garbage

Courts have ruled that garbage is a commodity that states cannot stop from crossing their borders. That has led to the growth of interstate shipments to places with more open space.
Private solid waste companies have been drawn to North Carolina by its cheap rural land, the absence of a surcharge on garbage that some other states levy, and the state's central location on the East Coast. Much of the trash the regional landfills would take would be shipped by barge or train from the Northeast.

Gov. Mike Easley has proposed in his budget request a $2-per-ton statewide fee on solid waste, which would generate about $20 million. Money generated from the fee would be used in part to help clean up the 700 inactive landfills and 70 abandoned polluted industrial sites across the state and provide grants to local governments for cleanups. The governor's budget also proposes a new landfill permit application fee that would help fund 14 staff positions in the Division of Waste Management.

Staff writer Wade Rawlins can be reached at 829-4528 or wrawlins@newsobserver.com.

Raleigh | New fronts opened, and an old one reopened, Thursday in the fight over the Sims Hugo Neu recycling project.

In the state House, Rep. Bonner Stiller, R-Brunswick, filed a bill that would effectively kill the landfill and recycling center planned for 750-acre tract off Mount Misery Road in northern Brunswick County that is in the Town of Navassa.

In New York, executives of Sims Hugo Neu, the global recycling giant, said they were re-tooling their public information Web site and had warmed again to the idea of a town meeting on their proposal.

In Wilmington, two opposition groups - Brunswick Citizens for a Safe Environment and the Alliance of Brunswick County Property Owners Associations - announced a joint effort to stop Sims Hugo Neu from developing the site.

The Stiller bill is identical to the one filed last week in the state Senate by Sen. R.C. Soles, D-Columbus.

It would take planning and zoning control over the property from Navassa and give those powers to the Brunswick County Commissioners.

If one of the bills were to become law, the project would come to a halt since a majority of commissioners oppose the project.

"This bill gives Brunswick County two opportunities to rid our area of the impending Sims Hugo Neu facility," Stiller said in a statement. "With the cooperation of the Brunswick delegation along with the support of the New Hanover delegation, we can send a loud message to Sims Hugo Neu as well as any other trash facility that has ideas about locating in Southeastern North Carolina."

Company officials said their proposal, which would build a facility to store potentially recyclable materials from junked autos, would bring jobs and tax revenue to Navassa and northern Brunswick County.

"We are going to educate people to the true nature of our project" said Executive Vice President Bob Kalman. "We want to be welcomed and we want to bring true economic development to the area."

The company opposes the two bills.
"The people of the town of Navassa have a right to zone and plan as they see fit," he said.
There may soon be a hearing on the Soles bill. He moved the bill into the Commerce Committee he chairs.

It's unclear when there will be a hearing in the House. Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, sent Stiller's bill to the House rules committee.

Typically, such a bill would have been assigned to a House local government panel. Often bills are sent to the rules committee to be held without action until the end of the session.
"We'll just have to wait and see," Black said.

Kalman said a new and improved version of the company's public information Web site - www.northcarolinarecycles.com - would be running by noon today.

He also said that the company was "reinvigorating the idea of a forum." The company pulled out of previous public meeting, citing threats of legal action from opponents.

On Thursday, a news release went out from the two opposition groups, saying they will press for passage of the bills. They, in part, will use their Web site, www.stopthedump.com.
"We want to see the will of the people who are affected by this project prevail with the passage of this new legislation." Penny Patterson said in a statement.

Mark Schreiner: (919) 835-1434
mark.schreiner@starnewsonline.com