Three towns, two ways of looking at a coal pile 



Some say the face of Carteret 

 County is black with coal dust. Others 

 see no coal dust there at all. 



By a similar quirk of optics, the 

 mound of coal rising at the State Port 

 coal terminal shows two different 

 shapes to people watching it from win- 

 dows in Beaufort, Morehead City and 

 Atlantic Beach: Some see a mountain 

 of prosperity; others, a heap of bad 

 news. 



"I can see that coal pile from my 

 house, and that's not the view I came 

 here for," says George Hammond, an 

 Atlantic Beach resident. "I don't like 

 the noise, the harassment of the trains, 

 and the dust in the air. And, I don't 

 like knowing that I might need to get 

 to a hospital some day when a coal 

 train is blocking all the crossings." 



Hammond is a retired engineer who 

 spends much of his time these days 

 working with Carteret County 

 Crossroads, a group campaigning 

 against the development of coal ter- 

 minals in the county. Hammond says 

 the group's 300 members plan to press 

 the state to prepare thorough environ- 

 mental impact statements, not only for 

 terminals proposed for Radio Island, 

 near Beaufort, but also for the opera- 

 tion already under way at the State 

 Port in Morehead City. 



Hammond says that his group is 

 angry because coal came rolling into 

 the community over their objections 

 and without, he says, enough study 

 beforehand. The group cites a 



Photo by Bill Ray, Winston-Salem Journal 



previously untested law, section 143B- 

 437 of the state's General Statutes, 

 which states that "the Department of 

 Commerce shall conduct an evalua- 

 tion, in conjunction with the Depart- 

 ment of Natural Resources and Com- 

 munity Development, of the effects on 

 the state's natural and economic en- 

 vironment of any new or expanding in- 

 dustry or manufacturing plant 

 locating in North Carolina." 



But Clint Abernathy, assistant 

 secretary of Commerce, says that the 

 law was satisfied when the coal ter- 

 minal, built by Alla-Ohio Valley Coals, 



But coal company spokesmen say 

 the coal, its dust and runoff are being 

 contained on the site. They suggest 

 that coal might be taking the rap for 

 other sources of air pollution. 



And Don McMahan, superinten- 

 dent of bulk handling at the port, says 

 that coal is a safe commodity for the 

 port to handle. 



"When they first told me we'd be 

 handling coal, I didn't know what the 

 dust problems might be," McMahan 

 says. "But I've found coal to be won- 

 derful to work with. It's easy on the 

 men, it's heavy enough to handle well, 



"When they first told me we'd be handling coal, I didn't know 

 what the dust problems might be" — Don McMahan 



received its permits from other agen- 

 cies. 



"The facility at Morehead had to 

 get both an air quality and water 

 quality permit," he says. 



Opponents of the facility argue that 

 its effects reach far beyond concerns 

 over air and water quality, and Ham- 

 mond says he believes the facility has 

 not taken adequate measures to 

 protect the environment. 



"People are complaining about the 

 dust, and if you can see the dust in the 

 air, then you know some of it must be 

 getting into the water," Hammond 

 says. "And nobody knows yet what 

 that might be doing to fishing around 

 here." 



and it's comparatively clean. If we 

 didn't keep it wet, the dust would 

 blow, but we use firefighting equip- 

 ment to keep the piles hosed down. My 

 office is fifty feet from the coal pile, 

 and I don't have that much problem 

 with dust." 



McMahan says water from the piles 

 seeps into two settling ponds where 

 coal particles settle to the bottom. The 

 water is then recycled through the 

 pumper onto the piles, so that there is 

 no discharge. When sludge in the 

 ponds builds up, it is mixed with coal 

 shipments and loaded on outbound 

 ships. A dike-like embankment around 

 the site prevents runoff from con- 

 taminating the waters of the Newport 



The state's first load of export coal went out on the Chihaya in May, 1981 



