Riceboro Mayor Chris Stacy says a planned log fumigation plant outside the city limits has been canceled after outcry from local residents and elected officials. The plant would have used a chemical, methyl bromide, which is highly toxic to aquatic life, eats the ozone layer, and has been banned for other uses.
Stacy told The Current that he spoke with a regional manager for Weyerhaeuser who told him the South Newport project would not go forward.
Weyerhaeuser Senior Director for Advocacy and Philanthropy Nancy B. Thompson issued this statement:
“Weyerhaeuser cares deeply about the health and safety of the communities where we operate. After listening to the concerns of leaders and citizens about the potential impact of our proposed log fumigation facility near Riceboro, we have decided to withdraw our plans for an export yard operation in Liberty County. Although we believe fumigation would have been done safely and in full compliance with all state and federal laws, as we have demonstrated at multiple other locations, we recognize that we should have engaged with the local community and addressed potential concerns earlier in the process. Weyerhaeuser has a long history of operating in Georgia. We are proud to support local jobs and the region’s thriving forest industry, and we will continue to seek locations for the export yard that benefit local landowners and the broader community. In the meantime, our work on the proposed Jelk’s Pasture Planning Area, a separate project in Liberty County, will continue with the goal of creating an important economic development hub in the area.”
Weyerhaeuser, which owns tens of thousands of acres of forest in and around Riceboro, had applied to Georgia EPD’s Air Protection Division for an expedited permit to use methyl bromide, a highly volatile and toxic chemical, to prepare logs for shipping overseas. Weyerhaeuser’s EPD air permit application places the site just outside the city limits in unincorporated Liberty County.
About 40 citizens and activists from both Liberty and McIntosh counties showed up last week for a press conference at Riceboro City Hall, where local, state, and county officials urged them to flood the Georgia Department of Natural Resources with letters against a proposed log fumigation plant.
Stacy told The Current that Weyerhaeuser had approached the city in 2021, seeking permission for increased truck traffic in and out of its timberland inside the city limits. When the city turned down its plans, Stacy said the company moved its proposed operation just outside the city limits and tried its luck with the county.
“When they came, I don’t think they every had to explain how the process was going to work. And I think the chairman was saying the owner should’ve explained what’s going to be the process. So we never — when I got on board, the problem we had was they couldn’t never come up with the numbers. They said it’s gonna be six trucks coming in and eight going out. You know, that ain’t no good math right there. Unless they’re making trucks. And then they say that they will, when they got in there, we weren’t going to put a turnaround in, and turn off of 17. And when they got back, they needed an accelerator lane for the big trucks coming around that curve to pick up. So they said that all the trucks are gonna turn right. And it’s gonna turn right off the highway, and then turn back right to get on the highway. And then they wanted to try to move it on Sandy Run Drive. They came back, said they’re gonna move it somewhere else. And then after that happened, they went to the county, they said, ‘We’ll go down there where we don’t have to deal with Riceboro.’ And by 95 without a turn lane, without a deceleration lane.”
Pastor Tommy Williams lives in Riceboro and is the pastor of Hope of Glory Pentecostal Church in McIntosh County. He served on Riceboro’s city council for 39 years and was mayor pro tem for 12 of those years. “It’s close. To close for comfort, right. And the original plan was to put it like a mile from my house….nothing never came up about the fumigation and what they’ll be doing there, other than it was gonna be a woodyard. And they didn’t tell us how they were gonna process the wood. No one asked that question. But the major concern then [for Riceboro] was a traffic issue. So the attention of the city was on the traffic and not the production of the product. So therefore, we were able to ban them because of the traffic would be a safety hazard, the big trucks in and on on the highway right in that curve there. So we fought against that, but then when they went back to the county and talked with them, I think from what I’m hearing is, it was kind of like the same issue but not traffic, but it was just the idea that they were gonna put a woodyard down there.”
That disconnect between zoning and the environmental protection permitting process meant residents and some elected officials were caught off guard, he said.
“Not no one questioned the details about well how are y’all gonna process, are you just gonna cut trees and make lumber out of it? And then ship it? Are you gonna treat the trees and what are you gonna do with it? And it’s a treatment-type process, what they’re doing, and it’s a specific treatment that needs to be done to go overseas, I guess. So it’s not good. From what we’re hearing and what we’re reading, it’s very harmful. And not only will it affect us here in Riceboro, we just the closest one to it. Matter of fact, we may be better off than the people further down the road. Because no doubt, when whatever they let up in the air, when it goes up, they come back down. It’s going to affect areas further than us, you know.”
Williams’ wife, Leilia, expressed concerns about the potential for a workplace incident to cause damage outside the company’s property.
“You’ve got people now who are living so loosely with their mentality problem, so many people with mental problems, that they get mad because you fire them, they decide that they want to just go do something stupid, it’s there for them to do it with. You see? So you just don’t want to take no chances. I’d just rather it be just not done.”