Photo by Ron Chappie 



Workmen use water hoses to control dust at the terminal 



Trains and trouble at mayor's door 



estuary, McMahan says. 



"It's helped the port," McMahan 

 says of the coal. "We were set up here 

 to handle phosphate, but the 

 phosphate shipments never have come 

 up to the levels we expected, so we 

 have the capacity to carry coal. It's 

 meant about forty-five new jobs and 

 sixteen others part-time." 



During 1981, the State Port at 

 Morehead City showed a profit for the 

 first time since 1967. Coal exports get 

 the credit. 



All of the coal shipped out so far has 

 belonged to Alla-Ohio, which leases the 

 site of the new terminal from the state. 

 The coal is mined mostly in West 

 Virginia and Kentucky and travels by 

 rail to the terminal, where it is loaded 

 on ships bound for Europe. The 

 product is called steam coal, because it 

 is used to fire steam-generating power 

 plants. Steam coal is less dense and 

 somewhat less hazardous than 

 metallurgical coal, which is mixed to 

 order on the docks. The Newport 

 News and Hampton Roads area of 

 Virginia handles most of the country's 

 exports of metallurgical coal. 



The first coal ship from North 

 Carolina loaded 62,635 short tons on 

 May 8, 1981. McMahan says that the 

 port shipped coal at a rate amounting 

 to 2 million tons per year until finan- 

 cial troubles forced Alla-Ohio to sus- 

 pend shipments in November, 1981. 



But between the coal fields of Ap- 

 palachia and the covered conveyor 

 that feeds the big ships, coal is raising 

 a ruckus along the rail line. In New 

 Bern, townspeople are worrying about 

 75-car coal trains rattling their historic 

 district, which the railroad bisects. 

 And in Morehead City, where trains 

 and traffic share Arendell Street, the 

 town's main avenue, trains turn and 

 unload at the State Port nearby, 

 sometimes tying up as many as nine 

 city blocks for 20 for 30 minutes. There 

 are 36 grade crossings on Arendell 

 Street alone. 



But the coal terminal's defenders 

 say there will be ways to unsnarl both 

 the traffic and the critics. 



"We'll get accustomed to coal," says 

 Roy Stevens, director of the Carteret 

 County Economic Development 

 Council. "I can think of things I'd 

 rather have here than a coal terminal. 

 But right now, that is who is 

 interested." 



—Neil Caudle 



From the mayor's office in 

 Morehead City, Bud Dixon can rock 

 back in his chair and watch the coal 

 trains rumbling down Arendell Street. 

 Dixon lives and works on that street, 

 within rattling range of the coal cars 

 coming in and out of the State Port 

 nearby. 



Lately, Dixon has been feeling the 

 weight of those cars in more ways than 

 one. He is the mayor, but he is also the 

 president, by appointment, of the 

 Atlantic and North Carolina Railway 

 between Goldsboro and Morehead 

 City. He presides over the State of 

 North Carolina's controlling share of 

 the railroad, which is leased to 

 Southern Railway. So state officials' 

 enthusiasm for a new coal industry has 

 not been lost on Bud Dixon. But 

 neither has his own town's dread of 

 coal. And he has doubts about how the 

 costs and benefits of exporting coal will 

 balance out in his community. 



"We know that Morehead City can- 

 not take any more transportation 

 problems than it already has," Dixon 

 says. "And the majority of our people 

 here are against coal coming in. They 

 associate it with what they've seen up 

 at Newport News. They just know 

 that coal is a dirty commodity, and 

 they don't want it, period. 



"We're not really in a good location 

 for industries like this to come in and 

 develop," he adds. "We have always 

 relied on tourism and commercial 

 fishing for much of our economic 

 growth, and those industries just can't 

 stand too much industrial develop- 

 ment around them." 



But while strong voices sound off on 

 both sides of the issue, Dixon says 

 there's not much he can do right now 

 but wait. He waits for the results of a 

 study, conducted with a $30,000 grant 

 from the state, of how the trains will 

 affect the town's underground utilities, 

 tourist trade, emergency services and 

 property values. He waits for the N. C. 

 Department of Transportation to 

 finish its study of rail traffic problems 

 in the New Bern-to-Morehead City 

 corridor, a study on which the develop- 

 ment of Radio Island as a port is 

 waiting. And, he waits for Southern 

 Railway, the state and the coal com- 

 panies to agree on just who should foot 

 the bill for solving the transportation 

 bottlenecks. 



Meanwhile, he goes to meetings 

 where officials and coal company 

 representatives assure him that 

 nobody wants to see six heavy coal 



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