By Andy Brack
The Brack Report

The longer South Carolina stays a national dumping ground, the longer it will take for folks to think the state is anything other than a backwater.

At issue now is the numbskullian notion to keep open a low-level nuclear waste dump in Barnwell County. The 235-acre facility is slated to close to waste from all but three states (South Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut) in July 2008, but a key House lawmaker is backing a bill that would keep it open through 2023.

Add to that a slick lobbying effort, a legislative bus tour and a slicker Web site that tells half the story (www.truthaboutbarnwell.com) and you’ve got all the makings for old-time snookery from South Carolina politicians.

For the company and its political backers, such as House Agriculture and Natural Resources Chairman Billy Witherspoon, R-Conway, it’s all about money. If there’s less waste going into the dump, the company, Barnwell County and the state will lose money.

If the landfill closes to all but three states, the company admits on its Web site that it will operate at an estimated $3.65 million deficit.

Additionally, Barnwell County, one of the poorest in the state, reportedly will lose about $2 million in revenues if the site doesn’t remain viable.

The landfill reportedly also has generated more than $430 million for public education since the mid-1990s, when a deal was struck to keep it open through next year.

But shouldn’t the debate over Barnwell be over something more than money?

Shouldn’t it be about the state’s values and its future?

By keeping the dump open, we would be broadcasting a clear message to the rest of the country that it literally can dump on us. Common-sense public relations and marketing suggest if that’s the image you’re projecting, you might not attract the cream of the crop in future investment.

There’s something else that’s key to keep in mind: the “market forces” often lauded by conservatives.

Wouldn’t keeping the dump open to all states essentially serve as a backhanded bailout for a private company?

The owner, a Utah-based group called Energy Solutions, is a for-profit company. It wants to keep using a South Carolina resource to make money that goes to Utah.

If it doesn’t have enough volume, in this case more waste from other states, it can’t stay profitable. But how is that the state’s problem?

For all the hullabaloo over the Barnwell issue, there’s actually little chance that it will see the light of day. Why? Because the S.C. Senate stands in the way of any possible House bill.

“If they try to revive that facility, a small group of us senators are set to filibuster over any attempt to reopen that dump,” said President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.

So let’s stick to the original plan and keep the landfill only open to the three states in the low-level nuclear waste compact.

Then let the market and the corporate world sort out the economics.

If the Barnwell site can’t hack it, it can close.

At the same time, the state’s slowly reinvigorating Commerce Department could swoop in with a plan to help the county replace lost revenue and jobs. In our book, it’s worth a short-term subsidy to send the message that the state isn’t going to continue to get dumped on.

In more ways than one, South Carolina has done its fair share of disposing of other people’s waste, for more than 50 years at the Savannah River Site and 36 years in Barnwell. It’s time for someone else to take the responsibility and for South Carolina to take action to end old stereotypes.

Sticking to the plan on Barnwell is one way to prove to people who want to invest in South Carolina that we don’t want to be considered just a dumping ground.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of the S.C. Statehouse Report (www.statehousereport.com), a forecast of business developments in the S.C. Legislature and state government. E-mail him at brack@statehousereport.com.

SUBSCRIBE | REPRINTS | CONTACT US

Phone: 843-849-3100    Fax: 843-849-3122