COASTAL OBSERVER

Residents who lived for years wrapped in fumes from the International Paper Co. mill in Georgetown say they are wary of plans for generating power from biomass on the site where the production of paper ended last year. And it doesn’t help that those plans are being discussed outside the public view.

“We’re very much concerned,” said Everett Carolina, a former County Council member whose district included the IP property. “We want our elected officials to be transparent as we go through the process.”

The mill closed at the end of 2024. The biomass plant was discussed in January at a closed meeting of state and local officials following the Chamber of Commerce’s annual legislative breakfast.

State Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, who supports the plan, said it is the best use for an industrial site that would require extensive environmental cleanup to be converted to other uses.

Carolina organized an impromptu meeting earlier this month at the Soul Saving Station on Hawkins Street, which adjoins the mill, to discuss ways to assess the environmental impact of the project. He was expecting about 10 people.

About 60 showed up, and many of them said more would have if they had known about it.

It was a survey by the newly-formed Citizens for Georgetown that brought the citizens of Georgetown together, Carolina said.

The group, led by another former council member, Tom Swatzel, who is also a political consultant, commissioned a survey that found a large majority of respondents oppose a biomass plant, particularly one described in the survey as “bringing more pollution, low-wage jobs and no real plan to clean up the land or fix the crumbling infrastructure.”

Respondents were selected countywide from likely voters, and they said they would be “less likely” to support a candidate for local office who “only supports a biomass plant as Georgetown’s future.”

Goldfinch dismissed the survey as an effort by the unnamed potential buyer of the Liberty Steel mill to acquire the IP property as well.

Swatzel, who lives in Murrells Inlet, is the only named member of Citizens for Georgetown. Carolina said he views the survey as a welcome effort by Waccamaw Neck residents.

“The question is, have you ever come to the West End?” he asked.

On Hawkins Street alone, 35 people have been identified as dying from cancer or respiratory ailments, Carolina said. 

Lafaye Moultrie, who still lives on the street, said her father was one of them. He died 58 years ago of sinus cancer. He worked at the mill’s woodyard.

“I’m telling you what I’ve been through, and we’re not going to stay idle,” she said.

Sheldon Butts, a former City Council member, said officials should be talking to the public directly about plans for the IP mill and the steel mill property, not talking with the media.

“Our state elected officials, who haven’t been interested in Georgetown for years,” Butts added.

Marvin Neal, an official with the state and county chapters of the NAACP, agreed, but said “don’t wait on elected officials.” People should do their own research.

Leo Woodberry, a pastor and head of the New Alpha Community Development Corp. in Florence, said there is plenty of information on biomass plants. None of it is good, he said.

“It’s an industry that contributes little to the economy of this town,” he said. “You don’t need industry like this.”

Woodberry also serves on the board of the Asheville, N.C.-based Dogwood Alliance, which works to protect forests from logging. He told Georgetown residents that the production of wood pellets to burn in biomass plants is a particular concern.

Touring one plant in England that burns the pellets, Woodberry recalled thinking, “this must be what hell looks like.”

“It’s almost like Flint, Mich. That’s how I look at it,” going from one industrial use to another, said Brad Campbell, who does volunteer work in the city’s West End.

And it is that neighborhood, bounded on two sides by heavy industry, that pays the price in quality of life and health, Woodberry said.

“That’s another reason you should be cautious about any facility,” he said.

Goldfinch – who was not invited to the meeting, Carolina said – has said the IP proposal is only for generating electricity to sell to Santee Cooper, not for producing biomass pellets.

Shawn James, who worked in the power plant at IP for 31 years, said it burned wood waste such as sawdust and limbs along with natural gas and coal.

“A lot of people don’t understand that we have a self-sufficient power plant there,” he said. 

The sulfurous smell and particulates that emerged from the mill’s smokestacks was the result of the paper-making process, James explained.

“There are several different forms of biomass, and some of it’s bad,” James said, adding to Woodberry, “you made a good point. Keep an open mind.”

But residents said they have seen the impacts first-hand.

“There is no price that you can put on losing a loved one,” Moultrie said.

Wesley Gibson said wastewater ponds on the mill site that will also be used by the biomass plant were cited in the past for polluting the Sampit River.

If Goldfinch thinks biomass is a good thing, Neal said, “why not in his area?”

The plant should be a concern to the entire county, Woodberry said. “It might be in the West End, but the wind blows and the water flows.”

He said the proposed biomass project was a change to bring people together and that the people who live closest to the plant need to tell their story. Officials vote for jobs, Woodberry noted. “All they know is what they’re being told by the company that’s coming in.”

Carolina said he hopes to have a larger meeting in a couple of weeks.

Neal said that was good, but agreed with Butts that local elected officials should be holding meetings.

“Don’t let people use your tax dollars to give you cancer,” Neal said.