By Kayne Darrell
I am only one. But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
- Edward Everett Hale, 19th century author and clergyman
This quote by Edward Everett Hale is the ideal place to start a story about Titan Cement. A story about how a community joined together and traveled on an eight-year journey to stop a polluting cement company from building a plant in a small town on the outskirts of Wilmington. It’s a journey I hitched my wagon to for most of those eight years, and it’s a story I’ve always believed is worth sharing.
The story begins in April 2008 at a New Hanover County Commissioners meeting. The commissioners had just voted to invite Titan Cement, a multinational, billion-dollar corporation, to build a plant in Castle Hayne on the banks of the Cape Fear River. Cement plants happen to be one of the dirtiest, most polluting industries on the planet and this one, if built, would be one of the largest in all the United States. And yet, the group of so-called “business leaders” who persuaded our elected officials this was a good idea had never bothered to do any research on the impacts this kind of industry might inflict. Not a single environmental expert, scientist, nor health care professional was invited to the table when they made their ill-advised decision.
Fortunately, some of those experts and a few savvy citizens caught wind of this upcoming vote and showed up at that meeting. However, the commissioners ignored their pleas to delay the vote until the crucial research was done.
While those folks surely left that meeting feeling frustrated and angry, they refused to accept defeat. They could have given up, could have told themselves it would be impossible to win a battle against a company of this size. Instead, they turned their anger and frustration into action. They did the important research that no one else had bothered to do, and then did everything they could to share those facts with the rest of us.
And those facts were alarming. If built, Titan Cement would:
- Destroy over 1,000 acres of irreplaceable wetlands
- Spew as much as 12 million pounds of toxins and pollutants into the air we breathe for each year it would be in operation
- Emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a major source of global warming
- Drain millions of gallons of water from our aquifer – as much as 16 million gallons per day (that’s more than our entire county used in a day in 2008), depleting our water supply and potentially contaminating our drinking water
- Expose over 8,000 students who attended school within five miles of Titan's proposed plant site to pollutants every day.
This proposed plant would be built just a few miles from my home. I wasn’t sure what I could do, or how I could help, but I knew I had to do something. How could I not get involved after reading those facts?
It didn’t take long to put a team together. We began by reaching out to our local Sierrans in the Cape Fear Group, and to other like-minded groups. Their response was overwhelming and enthusiastic! We initiated letters-to-the-editor campaigns, had petition drives and held neighborhood canvasses. We met with our elected officials at the local, state and federal level. We organized rallies, fundraising events, marches, and phone banks. We bought yard signs and billboards.
Our grassroots movement grew. And it grew! And as we continued to raise awareness and educate the public, our efforts caught the attention of a national funding organization, who offered to support our work with a large grant. Two years after that fateful county commission vote, the Stop Titan Action Network (STAN) was formed.
STAN - comprised of the N.C. Sierra Club, Cape Fear Riverwatch, N.C. Coastal Federation, PenderWatch, Southern Environmental Law Center, Duke Environmental Law & Policy, and Citizens Against Titan - was an impressive, determined group. Our relentless public outcry and the combined expertise within STAN made us a force to be reckoned with.
Leaders like Zak Keith, an organizer with the N.C. Sierra Club, helped motivate and inspire us. Lawyers with SELC held up Titan’s air permit in the courts. The community was galvanized when Titan Cement filed a SLAPP suit (a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against two citizens. It seems our drive and determination were beginning to be seen as a serious threat, and the company's message that we were “a small, vocal minority of environmental extremists” was no longer working. (Titan dropped the suit a year later.)
Of course, it wasn’t always easy. Eight years is a long time to commit to any cause. But we never gave up hope, no matter how many times the opposition told us that we were wasting our time. No matter how many times we were told that you cannot beat the billion-dollar corporation. Eight years of being told that Titan Cement was coming to destroy our wetlands, pollute our air and waterways, threaten our drinking water and our wildlife habitats, our health and the health of our children - and there was not a damn thing we could do to stop them.
I’m really glad we didn’t listen to all those folks! Because, of course, we DID stop Titan Cement. And we stopped them because we never stopped believing that we could. Because, while none of us had the power to do everything, each of us believed we had the power to do something.
Of course, everyone who cares about the environment realizes there are stories just like this one – thousands of them all over the world - of people and organizations coming together to stand up for what’s right and fighting to protect what’s important to them. My hope is that maybe - just maybe - our story will inspire others. I want to believe that our story’s success will help others realize that we all have that power. That each of us has the ability to write our own story about how we became a part of something larger than ourselves. And that each of us - while only one -can refuse to let what we cannot do interfere with what we can do.
And, while it's a pretty good story that we stopped the corporate titan from coming here and threatening to destroy so much of what we love, there’s also another story to tell. That’s the story of what did happen to us because of Titan Cement. Because, along the way, we have grown into a community of citizens who are now informed, engaged and, most importantly, empowered. A community that has found its voice and has found the strength and conviction to stand up and demand that voice be heard.
I believe the ripple effects of that change will have powerful and positive impacts, not just for years to come, but for generations to come. And that’s what makes this such a great story!
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Kayne Darrell is a Sierra Club member and retired radiographer who lives with her husband in Castle Hayne. They have two sons and two young grandchildren. She will continue to be a defender of the environment for them.