State port cleared to build military yard; residents fear arsenic, lead contamination
The Mississippi State Port Authority has secured the right to develop 16 acres of dormant property in North Gulfport for military storage and shipments, despite appeals from residents who fear arsenic and lead contamination.
Several residents, a neighborhood church, and the nonprofit North Gulfport Community Land Trust in the predominantly Black community appealed the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s decision in 2019 to permit the project. The MDEQ Permit Board on Friday rejected the appeal after two days of testimony from both sides.
The project site sits on 145 acres where a fertilizer plant, the source of the contamination, operated in the early 1900s. The port acquired the property for around $3 million from Hancock Bank in 2009, after the bank entered a consent decree with MDEQ to excavate and bury beneath a clay cap the soil that contained dangerous levels of arsenic and lead.
The property, much of it wooded wetlands, has been sitting undisturbed for 70 years. Residents wanted it to stay that way. They are worried that disturbing the land will allow arsenic and lead to leach into groundwater and run off in storm water into area ditches and Turkey Creek, recently named one of the 10 most endangered bodies of water in the country.
But four engineers who testified for the port said that wells installed on the site have been monitored for years and show no migration of arsenic and lead from the capped area. Both MDEQ staff members and port engineers said there is no reason to believe the project will disturb those contaminants.
Experts testify for North Gulfport residents
Experts for the resident and groups appealing the decision testified the port and MDEQ do not have the data to back their claims about the project’s safety.
A geophysicist who testified for the residents, Steven Emerman, said sampling from the wells shows only levels of lead and arsenic, not whether the contaminants beneath the cap are migrating.
The project also would destroy 3.5 acres of wetlands, which absorb contaminants.
Groundwater, which is under the surface, flows south from the project site to the northwest under the capped area. A change in the chemistry of the groundwater caused by construction could mobilize the contaminants, Emerman said, which would eventually wind up in Turkey Creek.
“I’m not predicting this is going to happen,” Emerman said. “I’m saying nobody knows if this is going to happen.”
Two other experts, a geography professor who works on environmental justice issues and an engineer, backed Emerman’s assertions. The professor, David Padgett of Tennessee State University, said children could be exposed to contaminants because surface water flows in areas where they play and walk.
He said no monitors are located off the project site to ensure the contaminants stay on the property and no environmental justice review has been conducted.
The 16-acre project was designed so that surface runoff from an area to be paved will flow south into a detention pond and, eventually, into Brickyard Bayou. But the project will not change the flow of groundwater.
The port’s property is at the northeast intersection of 34th Avenue and 33rd Street, just two blocks west of heavily trafficked U.S. 49.
The port wants to put the storage and shipment yard on the property because it sits next to the Kansas City Southern rail line, is outside the flood plain and is a short distance from the port. The yard will mostly handle Camp Shelby shipments for the port, which has a Strategic Seaport designation for military shipments.
Before voting to deny the appeal, the Permit Board went into an executive session, closing the meeting to the public, to discuss potential litigation and the location or relocation of an industry.
