By Trista Talton | Excerpt from Coastal Review Online | July 16, 2020 | Read the entire article here.
NAVASSA — The first round of restoration and conservation projects designed to offset environmental damage at the former Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. site have been selected, with work to begin on some of the alternatives as early as this fall.
In all, 10 restoration alternatives are included in Phase 1 of the Kerr-McGee Natural Resource Trustees’ final restoration plan and environmental assessment.
The alternatives total more than $12 million worth of land purchases and work, including habitat restoration and enhancement. That figure is about half of the $23 million in restoration funds the trustees received in a 2014 settlement.
Five of those projects are within Navassa where, for nearly four decades, a wood-treatment plant was operated under various companies. Wood at the plant was treated with creosote, a gummy, tar-like substance.
Habitat restoration specialist Howard Schnabolk with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, said projects could have been found way up and down the Cape Fear River from the site, but the goal was to keep the focus closer to the Brunswick County town.
“In this case we were able to identify several projects right in the community in Navassa and then we have a few on the outlining edges, but it is a goal to get close to where the injury was,” he said. “We slowed down considerably to try to do projects in the town.”