Beaufort County, Washington and Chocowinity are about to make yet another blundering mistake | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    There are currently two issues on Beaufort County's front burner: The Pantego Wind Farm and the Southside Industrial Park. Both of these issues, and the way the Board of Commissioners is dealing with each, offer classic examples of why Beaufort County is in such bad economic shape today. Here's why.

    First, the wind farm. The idea there is that an Illinois company proposes to build a wind electric generating facility on about 11,000 acres of land in eastern Beaufort County. At last report the company, Invenergy, does not have anyone to buy the electricity it may generate because it is too expensive, compared to what existing utilities can purchase electricity for from other sources. The numbers necessary to make the wind farm (any wind farm for that matter) work are dependent on very large federal subsidies, in the form of "alternative energy tax credits" which Invenergy will get from the taxpayers and sell to investors. The proceeds help them construct the facility.

    But the problem with that right now is that the subsidies have been scraped by Congress and politically it is far from certain that they will be re-instated.

    In the meantime the cost of producing electricity from natural gas has gone down drastically, thus making wind power much less attractive.

    At the same time the policy being pursued by the Obama Administration is and has been to drive up the cost of generating electricity by conventional sources, particularly coal, such that the alternative producers can then sell their electricity at a competitive price. Translation: Alternative energy will necessarily cause the cost of electricity to skyrocket. Those were the exact words of one Barack Obama.

    Now we learn that the basic premise of alternative energy--to reduce carbon emissions--is not supported by competent science. That is to say, wind energy will not have an appreciable effect on the amount of carbon dioxide resulting from its generation of electricity. It will not save the planet.

    So what you have is a situation where money is being borrowed (mostly from China) to provide subsidies and the cost of electricity is going through the roof while the original intent is never going to be realized.

    So, why would Beaufort County be involved in this scam? We think that is an excellent question.

    Here's the answer, we believe: So we can build a big new shiny jail and office complex for the Sheriff's Department.

    The addition to the tax base is being viewed by some commissioners as a way to pay for a new jail. Of course the big problem with that is that if the Pantego Wind Farm is not successful at some point after the county has borrowed $20-30 million the tax base will disappear and the taxpayers will be left holding the bag.

    Then there's the second issue. The county is proposing to extend a sewer line from the existing Chocowinity sewer system to the industrial park/rest area south of Chocowinity on US 17. It will cost $1,182,500, subject to the actual costs being determined by the bidding process. The Town of Chocowinity, as the owner of the sewer line has a commitment from the state to fund $1,103,080 while the County will put in $79,420 for the second pump station.

    The line will connect to Chocowinity and thence to Washington where the sewage is treated.

    Now there are some (Gang of Five) who will try to tell you that "it's not much county money" that's footing the bill. And that is true we understand, but that does not matter. It is costing the county taxpayers, the state taxpayers and the federal taxpayers and who among us is excluded from that mix? The issue is that it is a bad business deal.

    The sewer line will serve a cotton field. There are no tenants in the Southside Industrial Park and it is only wishful thinking that there will ever be enough tenants there to pay the cost of running the line much less the annual operating costs.

    Some will also try to tell you that the line will service the proposed DOT rest area. And while that may be true it begs the question of whether we need a rest stop at that location at this point in time. We think not.

    Already we are hearing local business leaders talking about how Washington and Chocowinity can attract traffic off US 17 into those two towns. A rest stop at that location will only make that more difficult, if not impossible. The by-pass, located where it is, was a terrible mistake, as Commissioners Hood Richardson and Stan Deatherage have been telling us from day one and this blunder will only be compounded by adding a rest stop across the road from the Industrial Park. We have not evidence that a rest stop will ever produce enough economic activity to ever pay for itself.

    The industrial park is a pipe dream based on prior decades when manufacturing was in its heyday. But even a simple Bing search will produce dozens of articles that overwhelmingly demonstrate that those days are gone. You don't have to pour over tombs of studies on manufacturing to know this. Just look at what has actually happened in Beaufort County since the two industrial parks have been built. We have spent over $6 million and have less than a hundred jobs to claim for it, and even that is dubious. Yet the "build it and they will come" snake oil still sells with five of our County Commissioners and the Washington/Chocowinity city councils.

    Even if the golden age of manufacturing returns, it will be years before it happens sufficient to pay for the expenses the cities and county have spent on this snakeoil.

    So even if one accepts that the sewer line may someday pay for itself, the question is "why should we build it now rather than waiting until there is an actual need?" And the same is true of the rest area. It serves no useful purpose for Beaufort County and in fact will be an albatross around our economic throats.

    So why are we doing this? Why are we playing footsies with Invenergy, when chances are Invenergy will not exist five years from today. Why are we promoting a more efficient way for "tourists" to avoid our commercial centers that need customers? And why are we spending more millions on failed industrial parks?

    This is insanity. We continue to do the same things we have always done but expect the outcomes to be different.

    Let us put it another way. There is not a bank or private investor anywhere who would lend money on any of these three projects given the pro formas of each projecting an adequate return on investment to pay for any one of them much less all three. Why should the taxpayers spend their money at this point in time for such insanity?

    Not only are these projects bad business deals, it becomes alarming when you consider the opportunity costs. For example, were the sewer line run east of Cypress Landing or west of Chocowinity in support of residential development centered on taking advantage of the undeveloped riverfront land between Cypress Landing and Blounts Creek or to encourage "spillover" growth from the Greenville job engine one does not need to be a Noble economics laureate to see that either of those two strategies would have infinitely more potential for return on investment than running a sewer line to a cotton field.

    Folks, there is an election coming in May and November. We hate to be crass about it, but if we vote to return commissioners and council people who continue to make such absurd business decisions we have no one but ourselves to blame for remaining a Tier 1 county.