Portsmouth site off the table for sulfur-melting plant

Published 10:36 am Friday, January 20, 2012

Facing growing public protest, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan announced Thursday that it is withdrawing a site on the Elizabeth River near Portsmouth, Va. as the possible location for a sulfur-melting plant, according to a report in Friday’s Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Va.

This is the second time that the company has eliminated a possible site for the operation because of public outcry.

Meanwhile, the company is still exploring other options for the plant – options that still include the PotashCorp Aurora location, according to Tom Pasztor, senior director of corporate and government relations.

“We still have several options open to us,” Pasztor said in a telephone interview with the Daily News.

Pasztor did not say what those options are or where the Beaufort County plant site ranks in the order of preference of those options.

The Virginian-Pilot last week reported that the company was in talks with the Virginia Port Authority about locating the plant at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, which, the newspaper said, had been dormant for about a year.

As in Morehead City last year, the news of a possible siting of a sulfur-melting plant in their community “was met with immediate and loud protests from residents worried about odors, environmental risks and the impact on property values,” the newspaper reported on Friday.

In its Friday report, The Virginian-Pilot sites a letter from Steve Beckel, general manager of PotashCorp Aurora to Portsmouth Mayor Kenneth I. Wright dated Jan. 18, which reads, in part, “We appreciate the fact that the Portsmouth City Council allowed us to be part of its Community Meeting last night. As you know, we had folks from our company at that meeting to listen to the viewpoints of local citizens and address them to the extent that we could … For a variety of reasons, including initial feedback from the community, we have decided to eliminate Portsmouth as one of the options we are considering, and to conclude our discussions with the Port Authority in Portsmouth.”

The sulfur-melting operation had been scheduled for a meeting Tuesday of the Virginia Port Authority board. That item has been removed from the agenda, at Beckel’s request, according to the Virginian-Pilot report.

In late 2010, PCS Phosphate proposed to build the plant and a sulfur pellet storage facility – a project that would have had 18 full-time employees – at the state port in Morehead City. That was the preferred of five alternative sites for the sulfur-melting project listed in an Environmental Assessment filed with the N.C. Department of Administration in December of that year.

But public outcry over the effects on the environment and the effects of two 125-foot smokestacks on the esthetics of the Morehead City waterfront led to the eventual opposition of Gov. Bev Perdue and prompted the company in early 2011 to halt the plan.

As in Morehead City, opponents of the possible siting of the plant in Portsmouth said they feared foul odors and pollution associated with the project.

After abandoning its Morehead City plans, company officials met with the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, and then identified the Aurora plant site as the preferred location. Under the plan presented to county leaders, sulfur pellets would be shipped by barges from the port in Morehead City via the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway to Aurora, where the sulfur would be melted and transferred to storage tanks.

But after studying that plan, company officials told the Daily News the increased costs of that plan were leading them to consider other options.

The Virginian-Pilot report can be read on the newspaper’s website at