What’s the price of closing S. W. Snowden? | Eastern North Carolina Now

What’s the price of closing S. W. Snowden?

BY:  Delma Blinson

The closing of S. W. Snowden school has revealed much of what is seriously wrong with Beaufort County politics.  Unfortunately, it is not an isolated incident, but it is illustrative of what needs to be done if Beaufort County is to thrive and become the great place it can be; to live, raise a family and run a business…and hopefully someday, be all that it can be.

Allow me to make my point clearly:  The closing of S.W. Snowden is not the problem.  Snowden is but a symptom.

The obvious issue with Snowden is that declining enrollment rendered it impossible to continue to operate, given the way North Carolina funds schools.  I’ll leave it to others to figure out who is to blame for this, although allocation of funds is an obvious problem.  But the real problem is much more complex.  I would put much of the blame on Nutrien.  

Nutrien is systematically exploiting the resources of Beaufort County but offers little action to help the county develop for the benefit of all its residents.  There is no long range plan for the day that surely will come when phosphate is no longer mined in Beaufort County.

Certainly, Nutrien is the largest property taxpayer.  But while that may sound good to some people, it actually is not as good as it could be.  The day will come when Nutrien, or its successors, will leave Beaufort County with little more than a big hole in the ground…not so much because it depleted all the ore, but because a changing market may render continued mining here unfeasible.   But that is a topic for another day.  The greater question is:   What will be left when the mine closes?

Back to Snowden…the school was closed, and now the burden falls on young children to pay the price by long school bus rides each day.  The real reason for this is that the Superintendent and School Board have not prepared for what has happened to Richland Township.  That fact will become a stone around the neck of Richland Township as more parents choose to send their children places other than the Beaufort County Schools.  For each one of those students lost by Snowden, the community will lose nearly ten thousand dollars per year.  That is a cumulative loss, each and every year.

So, the issue I raise is not one of the cost to keep Snowden open, but rather the cost of a declining tax base, which will put a burden on every county taxpayer. Closing the only public school in southeast Beaufort County will surely have a devastating impact on that area, but the impact will be felt on all of Beaufort County.

To illustrate what I’m saying consider this: Suppose Nutrien had proposed that Richland Township be deleted from Beaufort County and made into an autonomous region.  In other words, suppose the annihilation of Richland Township from the tax rolls of Beaufort County.  "Too far-fetched" some might say.  But consider the huge hole in the ground becoming a wasteland because the market for phosphate shifts to other places or some other country providing the phosphate much cheaper than it can be extracted from Beaufort County.  “Impossible!” you might say.   But that is exactly what happens in mining counties all across the nation.  Just study West Virginia and the coal industry, or Nevada and the silver mining industry. The list goes on.  The end of the Gold Rush did not crush California.  So ghost towns are not endemic to mining.  The problem comes when the decision-makers do not prepare for the mines to close.

The way this catastrophe will happen is for the phosphate in Richland Township (and across the Pamlico River, also) to become too expensive for any mining company to sell it in a competitive market so they will leave those big holes, literally and figuratively.  

My point is simple: The day will come when phosphate is no longer a cash cow for Beaufort County.  It is not whether it will happen, but rather when it will hit.  Beaufort County needs to be beginning now to prepare for an alternative to its dependence on Nutrien.

So, the real question surrounding Snowden is how Beaufort County can ensure a diverse economy in the southeast section of the county.  Put another way, the real issue is how Richland Township can be economically sufficient without Nutrien/phosphate?  And that brings me back to Snowden.

What is Richland Township’s future without phosphate?  And therefore, what will be the impact on that future with no public education in the region?  More specifically, what will be the “lost opportunity cost” of not having a viable economic and educational system in that portion of the county?  If you want to see that future, visit the coal mining counties in West Virginia.  Then ask yourself if we can afford for that to happen to Beaufort County.  When you look at it that way it becomes easy to see the burden a phosphate-depleted region will have on every Beaufort County taxpayer.

The answer is obvious.  Beaufort County must begin now to diversify its economy/taxbase and wean itself from phosphate/Nutrien/or its successor economy.  The future of Beaufort County is dependent on replacing our dependency on phosphate.

I have been asked “what should have been done about Snowden?”  My answer can be simply stated: Snowden should have become a magnet school, heavily subsidized by Nutrien.  Aurora should become a mecca for economic growth without dependence on Nutrien.  I’m not smart enough to project what could replace phosphate in southeast Beaufort County.   But I am smart enough to know that doing nothing to develop a diversified economy will leave us with nothing but a big hole in the ground and kids riding school buses for hours each day…what few kids there will be left.

I will close with a sincere wish.  I wish the County and Nutrien had worked out a “depletion tax,” the proceeds of which would have been devoted to the economic and educational development of Richland Township.  Had that happened 20 years ago, Snowden would not be being closed.  Instead, it may well be the premier school in Beaufort County with a waiting list to enroll.  

But for that to happen it will require a much wiser school superintendent and school board than we now have.