Northern New Hanover Kids Get Schooled (near Titan)
A sharp-eyed Mom from the Porters Neck area recently called us to report that the new K-12 campus for northern New Hanover County is roughly three miles from the proposed Titan cement plant. A quick call to the school board (910-763-5431) confirmed that construction of the new school is already underway in Castle Hayne on Holly Shelter Road. The elementary school is scheduled to open in August 2009 and is designed to hold up to 700 children. The middle school will open in 2010, and hold about 800 students. They did not have data on the high school, but one can presume it will be at least as large if not larger than the middle school. That would mean that at least 1500 and perhaps as many as 2400 kids will be spending six hours a day three miles from the fourth largest cement plant in the U.S. Family’s who live in a large swath of Northern New Hanover County, including the Porter’s Neck area , will be redistricted to this new school next year.
The sharp-eyed Mom, furious that these children would be located this close to such a large pollution source, actually called in to the Curtis Wright show one morning when Wright had a representative from the School Board on air to discuss the redistricting. The School Board official said he knew nothing about the new school’s proximity to the proposed cement plant. Just one more example of poor planning on our county’s part, because the Titan proposal was never brought before the county’s planning department.
As we’ve noted elsewhere on this site, a ground-breaking study conducted last spring by researchers at the Texas Health Science Center showed for the first time a link between autism rates in Texas public schools and the distance to industrial sources of mercury. “We suspect low-dose exposures to various environmental toxicants, including mercury, that occur during critical windows of neural development among genetically susceptible children may increase the risk for developmental disorders such as autism,” the authors wrote. According to the article on the study in Science Daily, “The new study findings are consistent with a host of other studies that confirm higher amounts of mercury in plants, animals, and humans, the closer they are to the pollution source. The price on children may be the highest.”
KS
Titan plans to use rail traffic for a significant portion of its transportation needs. It can be assumed that huge amounts of raw material (possibly fly ash from the Sutton Power Station) and finished product (cement) will be transported using the existing rail line in Castle Hayne which crosses Holly Shelter Road near the new schools. Citizens must assume the worst because Titan has refused to meet concerned citizens in a public forum, even though Titan promised the County Commission that the public would be kept informed of everything. What Titan has done instead of having public forums, is to appear before the public only in tightly controlled, extremely limited meetings that do not allow valid questions such as these from the general public. What effect will this tremendous amount of rail traffic have on existing traffic patterns in Castle Hayne? What effect will the endless train horns and crossing signal alarms have on these new schools? What effect will this immense amount of train traffic have on school bus and staff/student safety and traffic flow arriving or leaving school? In addition to the immense amount of rail traffic, what about the flood of industrial size dump trucks needed to maintain the fourth largest cement plant in the nation?
Oh, I forgot to add the coal and coal combustion products (180,000 to 220,000 tons/year per TItan), possible use of scrap tires per Titan, and any limestone mined off site. Add all this up over just one year and it makes a gigantic mess of Castle Hayne traffic and quality of life. Over fifty years…….
I am finding all these stories and issues very difficult to swallow. We moved to Wilmington just this year and after an exhaustive search for school and home settled in Porters Neck. Both, for the schools (as we knew them to be at the time) and the area. It appears that all that we has changed and will continue to change right under our noses. We asked all the right questions, researched the School Board information and looked seriously at district and zoning lines. NONE of this - Titan nor the planned redistricting were brought to our attention. We have now, physically and mentally, invested in our new community and feel at bit betrayed by system that is supposed to support its residents. Between Ttian and the anticipated growth at GE - I agree traffic is yet another mess to consider.