Community Welfare
The Concerned Citizens of Rutherford County (CCRC) is a local community-based group located in Rutherford County, North Carolina. It is the most established grassroots group fighting wood chip mills in North Carolina. Since June 1995, CCRC has been in the midst of a large battle opposing first, the construction and second, the operation of a high- capacity free standing chip mill (Broad River Forest Products' Chip Mill) located in Union Mills, North Carolina. This mill is owned by Willamette Industries of Portland, Oregon. There are many issues that violate citizens' sense of community:

• excessive truck traffic on narrow curvy roads
• logging trucks being overloaded and unable to stay on the proper side of the road, and the unsafe conditions that this places on residents daily
• self inspection of logging trucks
• deterioration of roads and bridges at taxpayer's expense
• local tourism which communities depend on to support their economic and aesthetic base

• excessive noise from chip mills that are not enclosed
• compromised air quality again from chip mills that are not enclosed
• water degradation as a result of excessive clearcutting which causes erosion, siltation, and sedimentation
• reduced property values
• decreased stocks of fish and other wildlifee to clearcutting which affects fishing and hunting due to siltation and sedimentation
• compromised recreational areas as chip mills promote cutting of forestlands
• a general disruption of the peace and serenity (tranquility) that everyone is entitled to in their communities

• open meetings when the agencies and stakeholders are convening
• at least a thirty day notice period before the first public meeting is scheduled
• public forums in which the public can participate by listening, asking questions, and submitting written comments to the agency representatives
• public hearings to address the permitting process, NEPA, Environmental Assessments (EA), Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), the Clean Water Act, and other types of regulatory areas
• public announcements to keep citizens informed of upcoming meetings, forums, and hearings
• a reasonable time frame for submitting written comments

• To look at the use of taxpayers' money to construct, reconstruct, and repair roads that support and promote the chip mill industry business rather than having the industry take the responsibility of paying for its own damages. The result of roads being destroyed are due to the excessive logging truck traffic that occurs on a daily basis while traveling to the chip mill site in a given community.
• To look at the use of taxpayers' money to provide large tax incentive packages for corporations, industries, and businesses to locate and build in a given community. Until this study is completed and its findings are made public, we recommend that the states involved shall refrain from providing tax incentive packages to construct or expand chip mills, orientated strand board plants (osb), and medium density fiberboard (mdf) facilities. We would also recommend that the thirteen states involved in this study require that all chip mills (osb and mdf facilities) be granted a one-year, site specific NPDES stormwater permit.
• To provide more tax incentive packages for good forest stewards that are truly interested in protecting wildlife, forest diversity, and water quality.
• To establish a state by state land management plan that will stipulate areas where residential communities, industry, recreation, and protected areas i.e. watersheds, wetlands, and preserved lands are located. It is inappropriate to build an extractive industry in the middle of a community neighborhood.
• To construct a model survey that evaluates quality of life issues-noise, truck traffic safety, devaluation of property-and how extractive destructive industries i.e. chip mills affect these issues economically and aesthetically.
• To construct a model survey of an "industry profile" that attracts an industry to a given area. The obvious items for an industry would include: water, road accessibility/transportation, utilities, and quality of its labor force. (None of these items were even available to Willamette Industries when they decided to locate in the community of Union Mills in Rutherford County). However, the unspoken items that specifically attract this industry to a given area which are not included and need to be evaluated are: how economically distressed an area is, low voter registration rates, high illiteracy rates, an average salary base of $16,000 or less, and lack of any zoning regulations or laws.
• To determine how chip mills affect the economic base of a county that relies heavily on tourism and recreation e.g. in Rutherford County, North Carolina, tourism is a $82.96 million industry, employing over 1000 people. The Willamette Industries' chip mill in Rutherford County pays approximately $38,000 in taxes per year, "contributes" $8 million in revenue to Rutherford and the surrounding counties (which encompasses the 25-125 mile sourcing area) and employs only 7 people. An evaluation of economic and aesthetic tradeoffs need to be incorporated into this study.
• To require that timber companies who promote chip mills, other facilities using wood chips, and the industrial clearcutting process inform each individual state environmental agency (such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in North Carolina) when they will be clearcutting a specific area and where these cuts will occur. Ignorance and uncertainty are no longer excuses for postponing actions to prevent harm from industrial clearcutting. A performance bond must be required by the industry for any part of its involvement. This way there is fiscal liability for the industrial operation when something goes wrong.
• And lastly, to establish a moratorium on any new and/or expanding chip mills until the completion of this study. Since there are currently few safeguards in place, precaution should predominate when the Southeast's ecosystem is in jeopardy. The recent influx of chip mills in the Southeast since 1985 threatens to overtake any gains that this study could produce for the next two years if more chip mills and other facilities are allowed to be built. In July 1998, a group of one hundred scientists indicated that scientific uncertainty was a valid reason to place a halt on the granting of permits to new or expanding chip mills until this study is completed and the results made available to the public. It is the responsibility of the decision-makers to implement measures that will preserve the integrity of our forestlands.

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