With its meager start as Station
Number 6, Jesup is a built-by-trains town.
Among my most vivid childhood memories is lying in my bunk bed,
listening to train whistles and being rocked to sleep by the rumbling rails
next to our tiny apartment in the back of NeSmith Funeral Home. The click-clack
had a calming effect on a 10-year-old boy.
That
was then, but that changed in January
2016. With the surprise discovery of
Central Virginia Properties, LLC’s request to build a wetlands-destroying rail
spur to haul in toxic coal ash, future train whistles posed the potential to
pound sweet dreams into environmental nightmares. Until The
Press-Sentinel reported Republic Services’ subsidiary’s stealth move to
haul in up to 10,000 tons per day of poisonous waste, I was just like most of
you—asleep.
I
don’t have to repeat every detail of this 15-month saga, our modern-day version
of a David-and-Goliath battle. You know
the horror and outrage that’s dominated talk around supper tables and coffee
corners in Wayne County. Even schoolkids
dropped piggybank coins into the grassroots legal fund to fight dangerous,
what-others-don’t-want trainloads in Republic’s private Broadhurst
Environmental Landfill, which is 10 miles from our beautifully restored,
historic train depot.
Since
this alarming revelation, I have been among the many whose sleep has been
disturbed for more than a year. At
bedtime last Tuesday, I was still staring at the ceiling. My mind continued to race, as if it were
competing in the Daytona 500. By
Saturday, my pillow seemed a little softer.
Why could I
relax, just a bit?
In
a Wednesday visit with Republic’s area president, Drew Isenhour did what he
said he would do: keep his word. That sit-down was our third. Our first didn’t go very well. It was clear that we were two locomotives
roaring toward a head-on pile-up. The
loyal solider of Republic made it clear the $9 billion waste-management giant
knew what it was doing. I made it clear
that the community couldn’t and
wouldn’t give up its pushback. We
believe the ultrasensitive watersheds of the Altamaha and Satilla rivers are a
horrible place to dump toxic waste.
Money would never ease our fears.
During
our second face-to-face, Drew presented some hypothetical what-ifs. Those who heard his suggestions unanimously
shook their heads, but I could see Drew was trying. Over his 30-year career, starting as a truck driver,
he found his niche as a people person, a problem solver—the proverbial fellow
with the broom and shovel, cleaning up messes others had made. Indeed, Republic’s tactics had caused, as my
mother would say, a “Mell-of-a-Hess.”
Drew acknowledged as much, giving rise to my respect of him.
One
of my heroes is the late Robert W. Woodruff, who built Coca-Cola into a global
powerhouse. My parents were married in a
house—next to the country store which my grandfather operated—on Woodruff’s
Ichauway Plantation in Baker County. And
every time I sip from one of those iconic glass bottles, I can hear the “Boss,”
as he was affectionately known, saying: “There’s
no limit to what man can accomplish when it doesn’t matter who gets the
credit.”
Republic’s
April 6 announcement to withdraw its rail-spur and coal-ash plans sent a wave
of cheers across Coastal Georgia. And
who gets credit for that? Get out your
pencil, because the list—under the heading of “Teamwork really works”—is longer
than those four proposed mile-long rail-spur tracks. This community’s concerns were embraced by
thousands of people we don’t even know.
A legion of people earned gold stars. You demonstrated your faith in the
mantra of that British bulldog, Winston Churchill, who growled: “Never, never, never give up!” That accolade belongs to Drew Isenhour,
too. Just as we did, he wanted an
amicable resolve.
So,
where are we now?
Republic
did the right thing by listening and responding. For now, we can rest easier. However, we cannot waste this crisis.
Wayne County and Republic must benefit from the past 15 months of turmoil. What just happened is a giant step in the
right direction, but click-clack. There’s still a trainload of work yet to be
done here, as well as in Atlanta and Washington.
We must stay
awake.
You know what
happens when you snooze.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
