Portsmouth under consideration for sulfur factory

PORTSMOUTH

The Virginia Port Authority is quietly negotiating a deal to build a chemical plant on the Elizabeth River, a project that was rejected just six months ago in North Carolina amid public protest.

PCS Phosphate, a unit of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, has been in talks with the Port Authority about a possible plant at Portsmouth Marine Terminal, said Tom Pasztor, a company spokesman, on Monday.

The plant would melt sulfur pellets, creating molten sulfur that would be transported by ships or barges to the company's facility in Aurora, N.C. There, it would be converted into sulfuric acid and mixed with phosphate rock, creating phosphate fertilizers and other products, Pasztor said. The plant would employ about 10 people, he said.

On its website, Potash calls itself the world's largest fertilizer company. It proposed building the project in Morehead City, N.C., last year, but withdrew it after a backlash from the community, which found out about the project through an environmental filing.

"The project was not particularly well understood," Pasztor said.

Portsmouth is one of a number of East Coast locations that PCS Phosphate is considering, Pasztor said.

Officials from the company and J.J. "Jeff" Keever, senior deputy executive director/external affairs at the Virginia Port Authority, briefed Portsmouth City Council members about the plan last week, Portsmouth Councilman Bill Moody Jr. said Monday.

"We still need to do due diligence, but from the way they presented it, it's pretty much self-contained," said Moody, adding that the officials said there would be little to no impact to the community.

"They assured me this would be odor-free," Moody said. "You wouldn't know it was there."

Pasztor said the company's goal is "to be absolutely transparent in our dialogue with the local community," but

Keever on Monday declined to confirm that any discussions were under way with PCS Phosphate.

"The Virginia Port Authority has been in negotiations regarding a potential use of Portsmouth Marine Terminal," he said. "These have been very confidential discussions."

Keever said the authority had "tried to do the right thing" by briefing community groups about the possible venture. The Port Authority's board is to be briefed on the proposal at its Jan. 24 meeting, he said.

Ron Nading, vice president of Shea Terrace Civic League, said he attended a briefing Friday, attended by four or five other civic league representatives, from company officials and Keever.

He said Keever told them he did not want the media to learn about the project until after the deal was done.

Another resident at the briefing, Park View Civic League President Tony Goodwin, disputed that account Tuesday. He said Keever told them he didn't want the project in the press only until Jan. 25, after the port authority's board could be briefed on the project.

"I commend them for bringing it to the citizens," Goodwin said.

Nading, a retired Navy chief petty officer, said he was skeptical of the assurances they gave that there would be a minimal impact on the community.

He has concerns about odors, the plant's wastewater, the potential impact of a natural disaster and the secrecy with which this has been treated. His concern grew after he learned of the opposition to the plant in North Carolina.

PCS Phosphate ran into controversy last year when it tried to develop the sulfur melting plant in Morehead City.

After opponents and local governments organized against the plans, Gov. Bev Perdue announced July 27 that the company was withdrawing its proposal. Perdue also signed an executive order that day requiring community approval of any developments at the state port in Morehead City, where PCS Phosphate had wanted to build its waterfront melting plant.

Part of the problem, according to state officials and media reports, was that few people knew of the plans or the fact the N.C. Division of Air Quality already had approved a permit for the project.

A neighboring business discovered it after receiving a small notice that PCS Phosphate, with an existing off-loading center at the port, was seeking a permit modification to an existing one under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

The business owner started asking questions of state regulators and the company and soon determined that a new industrial plant was in the cards. Concerned about environmental impacts, odors, noise, possible accidents and potential damage to the local tourism trade, residents howled at the prospects of their potential new neighbor whom they knew little about.

"Our area depends on good water and air quality; we lose that," Neal Littman, general manager of the Morehead City Yacht Basin, wrote in a July 21 letter to the local paper, The County Compass. "This PCS chemical factory is not economic development - it is an economic and ecological disaster for Carteret County."

Tom Mather, a spokesman for the N.C. Division of Air Quality, said Monday that the agency issued the company a permit because it believed the proposed plant posed little risks and complied with existing rules. While the PCS facility would have discharged sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, metals associated with fossil fuel combustion and hydrogen sulfide, the net impact would have been minimal, Mather said.

"We didn't think it would be a big problem," he said. "It was more of a perception thing, really. No one probably would have known it was there if the facility was managed properly."

Robert McCabe, (757) 446-2327, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com

Dave Forster, (757) 446-2627, dave.forster@pilotonline.com