December already—how fast the days move this time of year. Fast-forward, our days speed ahead from feasting on turkey with family and friends on Thanksgiving—that most congenial of holidays—to this hectic time of gift-gathering.

That is, if one celebrates Christmas.  At my house, we're opted out.  With no 'young-un's' expecting gifts, we've hunkered down with piles of tempting books and mugs of hot chocolate. I'm diving into Steinbeck's Log from the Sea of Cortez and after that I'm going to re-visit Grapes of Wrath. Given the shape the economy's in, I figured maybe I could pick up some pointers within its pages.

Turning our back on the the clarion call to shop and buy, we're instead celebrating these days and nights of decreased light with a peaceful inner light that says seasons greetings in a more elemental way.

All summer long, I'd craved these quiet nights of early darkness and hot chocolate

Piling on quilts and comforters, reading in bed while the world snoozes, with no buzz of mosquito or fly to interrupt my travels with Steinbeck.

Answering my body's cry for carbs, I make a hearty potato soup, bake bread, pile on the pasta.  Who am I to resist what nature calls me to do.  After all, doesn't she know best?

For the antidote for carb-fired fat gain, I force myself from hearth and home and bicycle to the gym to do penance on the treadmill and elliptical. See me go,  chubby little hamster.  Run carb lady, run.

Soon comes the winter solstice

The shortest day of the year, when light and darkness are equally balanced.  There's a magic there I do love. The candles in our windows shine forth, we decorate our homes with Christmas lights, light the eight candles of Hanukkah's Festival of Light menorah—we acknowledge, we celebrate and welcome the miracle of the coming of the light.

We throw another Yule log on the fire and gaze into the ancient blaze.  The dog and cat come and huddle close enough to sizzle fur, their eyes drowsy with contentment.

Our flames and lights shine forth, inside and outside our homes.  We've survived the darkness.  Here once again, come the longer days of light.

Each dear family member and friend is the flame that warms me just now

True, they warm me all through the year, but most especially now. These days of darkness, when it's shivery cold and that North winds blows with a bite, I'm protected by their laughter, the time we find to spend together.  Our conversations that range wide and free. Lost in giggles, or lost in thought, we travel far.

Maybe this is why the call to seasonal shopping leaves me cold   All year I think of them, and they of me.  We give each other little gifts.  Maybe a book.  A newspaper clipping of interest.  A loaf of banana bread. A link to a funny video we know will make them laugh.

My world would indeed be dark without their brilliance. Since I cannot find 'friendship,' 'love,' 'grace,' or 'laughter,' at the mall or in any cyber store I've yet located, I turn my back on this particular shopping season and instead put the water on to boil for the tea pot.

Bad consumer am I

Nothing that requires batteries will be sent from my household to yours.  No waffle irons or anything that slices, dices or chops.  The Gross National Product will just have to slouch along without me.  I'm investing in Gross Personal Friendship.

You know who you are.  I love you.  A  big hug, wrapped in red ribbons, is saved, just for you. Seasons Greetings.

Bring on the light.

BEAUFORT, NORTH CAROLINA

December 6, 2011

Temperature:  72 degrees

Wish you were here

With a vivid blue sky,  whisper of a breeze, and temperatures hovering in the low 70's, today your editor abandoned her desk, her computer, the indoors and headed out for a bicycle photo safari through pretty Beaufort Town.

Do you blame her?

As I pedaled down Ann and Front Streets, I thought how fortunate I am to live in this place, this community, and at this time of year.  Red-bowed Christmas garlands draped on white 18th-century homes and deep pink camellias in bloom greeted me along the quiet streets.

I pedaled the full length of Ann, then headed for waterfront Front Street.  If I were lucky today,  the Carrot Island horses would be out, or maybe I'd spy a frolic of dolphins leaping about.

But no, I didn't see a one of either creatures today- nothing was stirring. But no matter, a snack was on my mind.

Since it was in the 70's, and since I needed a little rest from my pedaling, I sought out the General Store for a scoop of double chocolate ice cream and a spot on their porch.  The store held no customers.  A shame, really, I thought, with weather like this.  Sitting on the porch, I let the world go by and followed the shape-shifting soft clouds hanging in the Carolina blue sky.

Missing you, come walk with me?

Mustering my energy, I walked across the street to the Town Docks. They, too, were deserted and again I thought, if I lived in a frozen weather place, I'd de-camp and come to Beaufort Town this time of year.

I'd come for the Beaufort Historic Association's Candlelight Tour, I'd come for the American Music Festival's Vivaldi concert at the Library, and I'd surely come for a scoop of double chocolate ice cream eaten on the porch at the General Store.

I wander over to the docks and do some window shopping for a boat so I can pretend I'm soon to lift anchor and sail off to the Bahamas.

Fish House Christmas

But then--why?  It's so beautiful here today, the soft breezes and sun have unknotted my tight shoulders. The Carolina blue is so very blue, the clouds so cottony.  I'm content.  Sail off to the Bahamas?  Not today, maybe tomorrow? So beautiful it is here today.

True, there's a certain fetching ketch at the docks that looked distinctly tempting...but that's a dream for another day. Truth told, I'm feeling too lazy to do more than pedal slowly home.

My little Beaufort Town.  So wonderfully preserved, it seems a Currier & Ives Christmas card brought to life. Minus the snow and sleighs.  No horses for me today. My steed is a 1970's candy apple red World Tourist bicycle. Five gears, but I seldom change them; not many hills in Beaufort Town.

That's me, a would-be “world tourist” who now travels the world Walter Mitty-like  from the perch atop a bicycle saddle.  I've wandered and now I'm berthed. Wanderlust might strike in the Spring, but now I tie my lines in this harbor.

The Bahamas are lovely, 'tis true, but the food is--please forgive me, for I don't mean to be mean--but the food there is a tad boring: Conch, conch, more conch, rice and peas.

Nope, give me some fresh caught speckled trout, some clam chowder and a slab of Key Lime pie--and if I'm feeling frisky, one of Danny's Cosmopolitans.

If I came to Beaufort in December, in this quiet time of red-bowed Christmas garlands and pink camellias, I'd wander down Front Street and visit with the shop keepers. Within their shops, I'd discover the sweet gifts for stockings, friends, family—and me.

Playhouse on Anne

Checking my list, I'd find something both naughty and nice--and often hand-made by one of our artists and craftspeople. For we are surely overflowing with a treasure chest of talent.  Not for me the noisy malls.  Who needs them when I can be on Front Street with the gulls, the pelicans, the sloops and the ketches-- and the double chocolate ice cream at the General Store?

And then?

Since it's now late afternoon, the time of long shadows, I find myself hankering for an espresso--a great chaser for that scoop of double chocolate ice cream.

Beaufort North Carolina, heading gently toward Christmas.  Christmas wreaths and camellias.

A peaceful place of sky and water. Boats bobbing at anchor. Me, too, safely harbored at home for the holidays.

I'm loving it.

Oh, give me these cinnamon-scented days
with their slanted fall of golden light
with ginger-crisp leaves drifting down.
Grant me these velvet starry nights
while I nest and pull high the comforter.

Pile on the gravy and the dressing
Pass me the sweet and the mashed.
Pies of pumpkin, apple and pecan
Oh my! Pile my plate full and high.

These Thanks Giving days
give me pause to think of you--
my spicy friends of all the seasons
we spiral dancers of moon and sun.

For you who nourish all my days
I whisper words of gratitude
Especially now, as I feel so fully
filled with home-cooked love.

--Patricia Comroe Frank

It takes a village to bring a book to publication.

That's why you see dedications and acknowledgments in the front of most every book--they honor and recognize all the support, advice, and encouragement the writer received from their community.

My special little village of Beaufort has been very nurturing in helping me bring my book to completion. Last night, a good friend threw a publication celebration for me.  What a joyful experience.

In turn, I wanted to acknowledge my "village people" for their role in the book. And play a role they did, for some of my friends were borrowed and inspired some of the characters in Falling Through Time. Except, in reality, my friends are all wiser, younger, more slender, and have better haircuts.

For those who ask, the narrator of the book, Summer Holbrook is not me, even though both of us worked in advertising. I was much nicer, didn't go to Yale, had a happy upbringing in a sweet little Pennsylvania town, and have never owned a penthouse or a BMW roadster.  My mother did not swill gin.

If you go here you'll see lots of party pics.  I had fun in saluting my pals, and wrote the posting in couplets. You'll soon discover that I'm not a poet--but I do hope you'll enjoy the playfulness...!

Wise old tree, thank you for missing our home and shed and fence.

Just when we storm-tossed folks of the East Coast need it most comes the welcome relief of cooler weather.

In my small coastal North Carolina town, you couldn't ask for nicer weather for the Labor Day weekend.  A hint of Autumn is in the air and the sky is Carolina blue with white puff clouds sailing across its expanse.

Though our roads and lanes are lined with walls of fallen limbs and branches and yard rakings, we're grateful that Irene did not make landfall here as a Catergory 3, 4, or 5.

Nonetheless, she blew so hard from the East and West, and for so long, that she quite wore us out.  We're plumb tuckered. It starts with the constant media alerts and warnings, all the weather charts and graphs to consider, the prep, deciding to stay or go, the event itself, and the clean-up and repairs...

I found out from friends and other villagers, that many of us are just now getting grounded again after what I can only think of as "Post-Irene Stress Syndrome."  The symptoms are disturbed sleep, weariness (maybe it's from all that raking and sawing and cleaning up) and a feeling of general malaise. Any of that going around at your house?

Meanwhile, there are hopeful signs everywhere that life continues, grows and flourishes.  A new foal was born to a wild mare on our Banks and some smart person named the new baby horse "Aftermath."  Don't you love it?

Making lemonade out of lemons

Having had to throw out a lot of food, I decided that now that the frig was bare, that this was a wonderful time to clean the appliance.  What better way to channel all the nervous energy I had during the powerless aftermath?

So I took out every shelf and drawer and squirted all with orange cleaner and scoured and scrubbed the whole thing down.  Some food-like artifacts were discovered that might interest an archeologist.  How embarrassing to find these jars of petrified food stuff. The label might say "garlic-stuffed olives," but the visual said otherwise.  I'll not go into details.

My refrigerator sparkles and seems quite new.  My front and back yards are a different story, littered as they are with a million pine cones.

I'd prefer Fig trees to pines...

Love the small town life

Our town and its people were calm, helpful, experienced, courteous and kind.  If you have to go through a hurricane, you couldn't wish for a better crowd to weather the storm with.  We're very lucky.

I love small town life where daily there are sweet reminders that we inhabit a small planet.  At the gym the other day, post-Irene, on the next treadmills, I met the folks who built the house in which I live.

They built it as newlyweds back in 1969.  And the towering pines that now plague us during every blow (one big one fell during Irene) were planted by them to dress their naked lot.  The Forest Service offered the seedlings at $1.00 per.

Now, forty-two years later, the seedlings tower over the house and keep us hopping with fallen pines cones, pine straw and wayward fallen branches and limbs during wind storms--or any time the pines feel like dropping a branch.

This nice couple who planted those seedlings in 1969?  Lovely people, I enjoyed chatting with them a bunch, but I rather wished they'd gone in for Fig Trees and maybe an oak or two.

Well, I'm off to do more raking, it's my new hobby and I've got the blisters to prove it. Wishing you a good night's sleep and a fair settlement from your insurance company

And isn't power wonderful?

Flick a switch and there it is.  What a treasure, eh? Appreciation is what I'm feeling.

Blessed Autumn after a hot summer--I can hardly wait to bake a pumpkin pie--and maybe a pecan one, too.  If the squirrels don't gobble up all the pecans--they're very busy right now in our pecan trees--you can hear them chomping away and throwing the shells at us.

To get you in the mood for coming Autumn, here's a nostalgic and sweet poem from our faithful bard, C.G. Mack:

A  LONE  SENTRY

Autumn---she's soon coming in...

In the midst of my flowers - this year was born
The absolutely tallest - stalk of horsey corn
The stalk, now tan - had been so bright green
With quite the largest ear - of corn I've seen

While peeking up - at that stately ear
Is the cutest pumpkin - how did it get here?
The corn can decorate - my autumn door
While a smiley pumpkin - will add much more...

--C.G. Mack

Last night's Morehead City Council meeting is much on my mind this morning.  If anyone else sat through the meeting, you deserve a tee-shirt that says “I survived the August 9th MC Town Council Meeting” for there was no A/C and it was broiling, sweat-dipping off the end of your nose hot...a wonder that tempers were held in check and everyone was so courteous and polite to one another's viewpoints.

We listened, we heard, we spoke—and I learned more about the Port and their business. That was a good thing.

So ever since the meeting, I've been thinking...

I truly recognize and honor both of the viewpoints represented.  The Clean County Coalition wants to protect our community from potential harm of a (possible) sulfur storage facility being built in the epi-center of our community, so very close to where we live and next to crucial infrastructure of bridge and main highway.  That makes a lot of sense to me.

And to be honest, I don't want that potential sword of Damocles hanging over my head, either. One spark, one lightening strike and poof, we all turn into either crispy critters or turn belly up like roaches sprayed with a toxic chemical.  Not a pretty picture for Port folks or town folks, either. Might never happen, of course, but it could...despite best business practices.  They don't call 'em accidents or Acts of God for nothing...

But on the other hand...

I heard the passionate and heart-felt words of the Port folks who spoke last night.  You could tell they love their families, their communities and their work.  Good people, these Port employees. I hold them in high regard and think we must do all we can to protect their jobs—and to add new jobs to the Port. As we heard last night, Port jobs are good jobs that have supported good families in our community for generations. We need more jobs, not fewer—and must protect the ones we have in our community.

The problem...

From what I heard last night, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that right now PCS Phosphate now supplies the Port with 90% of their bulk cargo tonnage—and that there needs to be a certain amount of tonnage that passes through our Port in order to receive subsidies to dredge to keep our deep water open and not silting up.  So if those facts are valid, and I've no reason to doubt them, then we've got a problem.

Back in the day when I owned a business, my Daddy (a smart man!) cautioned me not to ever find myself in the position of having just one main customer, 'cause should I lose that customer, it would devastate my business. I'd be beholden to that one client for my livelihood, and they could pretty much dictate my business life. And hold me in their power.

Now, and I'm just thinking out loud here--jump in any time and tell me I'm full of beans--but if PCS is responsible for 90% of the Port's current tonnage, then isn't there a problem here? Isn't the situation at the Port just what my Daddy warned me against?

Doesn't the Port need to divide up the pie more, find more business partners so they don't have to accept any and all dangerous proposals from their 90% customer?

Right now as it stands, couldn't this main customer throw their weight around and threaten to pull out, leaving our Port high and dry and without the tonnage they need to keep the waterway dredged, deep and open?

Sounds downright scary to me, one customer having all that power

So that's the situation and that's the problem as I see it.  The Port needs more customers, more business partners, and more bulk cargo representing more tonnage—and if that bulk cargo is of a nature that's  not potentially harmful to the community, then problem solved.

Am I being too naive about this? If so, please let me hear from you. I want to learn from you.

Surely there must be other bulk cargo that's not explosive or puts stuff in the air that causes asthma, itchy eyes and worse. Let's seek out bulk cargo that's safe for the Port workers who move and store the stuff—and safe for the community we all share.

If we can do this, it's a win-win for all of us. I do believe this can be achieved. So let's put on our thinking caps and see what we can do pulling together as a community.

I'd especially welcome hearing from Port people as they're the ones who know the Port business and the ones who likely have the smart ideas to help the Port prosper and grow in happy, healthy ways.

As far as the zoning...

I think the conversation needs to continue, but right now I'm thinking that dangerous, potentially smelly or explosive substances need to be zoned out so we can all sleep safely in our beds and so Port workers are protected from handling things that can harm them.

Your ideas wanted....

Should you write in to comment—and I hope you do—I'd like to ask a favor of you:  send in your suggestions and ideas of what bulk cargo, what companies you'd like to see as Port business partners.  Partners that could deliver more bulk cargo, more tonnage and more safety and security to the community we share with the Port.

Who do you know, who are your contacts that might help us grow the Port and its jobs? How can you help grow a healthy Port with a healthy bottom line?

Editor's note:  David DuBuisson of  Beaufort has written an opinion piece that appeared in yesterday's Raleigh News & Observer.  Because his piece covers the sulfur issue in depth and brings to light new information, we asked his permission to re-print his piece here on Vibrant Village.  It appears below in its entirety.

Why we're still sulfurious

BEAUFORT -- There were moments recently when folks around here were briefly tempted to ease up on the cynicism toward politicians that all Americans feel these days.

Our state representative, Pat McElraft, who just weeks before had been a big backer of legislation that strips away vital environmental protections, suddenly rode onto the scene as the knight on the white horse ready to battle PCS Phosphate over its plan to bring sulfur pollution to the port at Morehead City. Then, just at the crucial moment, McElraft raced back to Raleigh and helped to override Gov. Bev. Perdue's veto of Senate Bill 781, the environmental home-wrecker that makes it much harder to stop an outfit like PCS. Cynicism ruled again.

But wait, here came Perdue herself, flying into Morehead City and announcing that she had persuaded PCS Phosphate to give up its plans for a sulfur melting plant at the port. The news won her a standing ovation, easily canceling out the boos she'd heard moments earlier after claiming, against all evidence, that the PCS sulfur plans for the port had been public knowledge right from the start.

(Did it ever occur to her honor that, had the sulfur scheme been public knowledge from the start, the public would not have waited a whole year before rising up en masse as the bipartisan Clean County Coalition and saying "No Way!"?)

Many of us who gathered in a two-acre warehouse at the port to hear the governor noticed that her applause line fell just shy of a total victory for the coalition. OK, PCS Phosphate was giving up the sulfur smelter at the port, but that was only part of the community's objection. What worried us even more was the prospect of dry sulfur - pelleted or in any form - being loaded, unloaded, conveyed and stored in the middle of our neighborhood.

You don't have to look very far to learn that sulfur dust is explosive, flammable and, when it mixes with air and water, corrosive and potentially toxic. That's what industry experts tell you. That's what the State Port's own safety manual tells port employees.

Smokestacks thrusting 152 feet into the sky were a dramatic symbol of what the PCS operation could do to a community whose lifeblood is tourism. But the less graphic part is the more worrisome: Solid sulfur being offloaded, conveyed and stored generates dust. It can't be easily contained because confined sulfur dust is explosive and highly flammable.

Why are the people of Carteret County so exercised that the governing boards of Beaufort, Morehead City, every other municipality and the county itself have condemned this development? It sounds like the old NIMBY syndrome - not in my backyard. But this is about the front yard. It's not the ocean view we're worried about, either, but the clean air and water that make our part of the state so desirable. It is NIMFY.

Carteret County earns $270 million a year through tourism. PCS, the prime tenant of the State Port at Morehead City, contributes at most $1.3 million a year to the port's deficit budget and nothing to the local tax coffers.

Two weeks after the PCS sulfur plant became public, a local real estate agent reported two sales lost because of it. My own little bed and breakfast had three cancellations this summer because of air quality - the perceived effects of forest fires 100 miles away. What would people think about sulfur dust in the air year-round?

Working to keep our air safe for him--and his future children--to breathe...

PCS might object at this point that the environmental impacts of what it proposes are mostly speculative. And that's true, because neither PCS nor the state has ever opened the company's glib environmental assumptions to objective, public scrutiny.

For reasons that only a Raleigh bureaucrat could appreciate, the PCS project was whisked through the approval process, including a parody of "public comment," without any actual opportunity for public challenge. Some local officials got wind of it but under strict orders not to let the public know.

In that port warehouse the other day, Perdue addressed the issue of secrecy in a curious way. First, she denied that it had happened, and then she promised that it wouldn't happen again. "Transparency," she said, would hereafter be the watchword. Right away, she said, there would be a 90-day moratorium on any developments at the port. That's what she said, though her printed remarks made no mention of a moratorium.

Three days later, word on the street was that PCS Phosphate was proceeding with plans for a dry sulfur receiving and storage facility at Morehead City. The coalition has been unable to confirm this, but understandably is preparing for the worst.

Once again, folks around here have been disabused of our native longing to believe we have a political system worthy of the people who cast the votes. Once again, we're left to wonder if the governor who flies in and admires our "cute" green T-shirts that say "Sulfurious" wouldn't really rather be schmoozing with the guys in the sharkskin suits.

###

David DuBuisson is a Beaufort resident who, with his wife, operates a bed and breakfast. He is a member of the Clean County Coalition.

"Again the inconceivable and monstrous was showing its grizzly head. It was grotesque, impossible. I refused to believe it."

-- Jack London,Voyage of the Snark

Green, clean and happy

That's just how the citizens of Carteret County felt when they caught the foul scent of an almost completed deal to sully their home with a molten sulfur facility in their backyards.

Molten Sulfur on the Crystal Coast?  Only one remaining permit needed to make this horror a reality??

Would it come to pass?

No.

Fearless, capable, tireless, victorious

Last night, a group of Clean County Coalition and involved citizens gathered in Morehead City, North Carolina, to quietly celebrate their intensive three-week long battle to protect their communities from an incompatible smoke stack industry of molten sulfur smelting.

Wearing lime-green t shirts bearing the slogan "Sulfurious," citizens shared smiles and memories of a twenty-day siege of putting their lives on "fast-forward," a hyper intensive three weeks marked with strategy, formation of a grass-roots citizen organization--Clean County Coalition (www.cleancounty.org), thousands of e-mails, letters to editors and political contacts, and face-to-face meetings--and even a swim-in demonstration.

But most of all,  this group of concerned and involved citizens shared a hope--a hope that they could successfully challenge a giant multi-national corporation and prevent an incompatible, potentially harmful,  dangerous sulfur melting facility smack in the middle of their community's vibrant tourism locale.

Two towering smoke stacks to greet us and visitors at the entrance of our historic waterfront towns?

Grotesque, impossible.

Armed with little more than their voices, their determination, their faith that their voices could make a difference, the "sulfurious" citizens of Morehead City, Beaufort, Bogue Banks communities--and beyond-- forged an amazing Esprit de Corps of strong will and boundless enthusiasm for their cause.

Town meetings were held.  Town Councils drafted proclamations against the sulfur facility.  County Commissioners were shouted into amending their proclamation into a "No" instead of a request for more information.

Environmental experts and chemists had already given the Sulfurious citizens all the information they needed to know that this facility did not belong so close to population centers and infra-structure of bridge and major highway.

Dave wants action

We knew it was inconceivable and monstrous.

No, the  Sulfurious citizens didn't want more rhetoric--they wanted action. And they got it, for right then, the County Commissioners amended their proclamation to object to the sulfur facility.

And the shouts of "just say no" from the Sulfurious citizens changed into applause and cheers.

Just about every business organization--from the Chamber of Commerce--to the Women's Club lined up to say "No" to this smelting plant being built on their beloved Crystal Coast--a place of diving pelicans, wild horses and leaping dolphin. Where the clean air is spiced with salt.

Molten sulfur?  Here?  Hard by the Cape Look-out National Seashore? By the Rachel Carson Preserve?  By our beautiful and fragile wetlands?

Inconceivable, and yes, monstrous.

Nope, doesn't work, thank you. A few potential jobs in exchange for harming our  900 businesses engaged in tourism and allied industries?  We'll take a pass on turning our towns into The Sulfur Coast.

Then came our answer. Not galloping in on a white horse, but whirled in from Raleigh comes our Governor Perdue in a helicopter.  And our governor announces (at the Port of Morehead City where the facility was to be built) that the corporation, wanting to be a good neighbor, a good corporate citizen, has "voluntarily abandoned plans" for their sulfur facility.

The sighs of relief from Sulfurious citizens could have moved a sailboat miles down the ICW.  We had been heard.  We'd been helped. The inconceivable and monstrous was not to be forced upon us.

We did it for them, future generations

Last night we celebrated a hard-fought victory. But we know our work has just begun. This segment is completed.  Now we begin anew.

How can we forge a partnership with the Port of Morehead City to aid them in growing profits and compatible shipping and cargo?

Do zoning regulations need to be examined to protect the citizens and infra-structure from future industrial threats from "dirty" projects?

Please help us with protective zoning

How can compatible green and clean business be found and attracted to our community?  With a focus on job creation, what industries best fit our heritage, our natural capital and our capable work force?

What home-grown businesses can we foster, nurture and grow?

Those of us who have enlisted in the Sulfurious citizens group are excited about moving forward on these issues--and more.

We're looking for more Sulfurious citizens with ideas and concern and wisdom--we need more positive contributions on keeping our county clean and working.

We want your ideas and wisdom

Vibrant Village wants to hear from you.  Your ideas can be shared and posted here, if you like--or forwarded on to those who want to hear from you.

Vibrant Village is your progressive, issues-oriented, positive community publication embracing keeping our county clean and working.

Contact us at editor@vibrantvillage.com

United in common cause

ESPRIT DE CORPS.: the common spirit existing in the members of a group and inspiring the common spirit existing in the members of a group and inspiring enthusiasm.

Our citizens--far and wide, from across both sides of the bridge, from Down East, and from points beyond--united in common cause.

Before Gov. Perdue's announcement

So many of us came together, so quickly, worked so hard,  wrote so many letters and emails, made so many phone calls--and delivered such an amazing result.

Tonight's the night we gather to celebrate our hard work, our esprit de corps...and our victory!

Truly an amazing feat and accomplishment.  What a great group of people who would not give up, who believed in themselves and their cause!

Margaret Mead said it so well:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Gov. Perdue made your wish come true

What a difference an announcement from a Governor can make.

Thank you Gov. Perdue.  Thank you PCS Phosphate for being a good corporate citizen.

Late breaking news from Gov. Perdue's top advisor...there is no PCS proposal for a new dry sulfur storage facility at the Port.

Here is the letter, in its entirety, from John Nelson, President of Clean County Coalition:

A few minutes ago, I received a call from Al Delia, Governor Bev Perdue's Senior Advisor - he said:

1. There is no plan to build a 150 ft dry sulfur pellet storage facility the port.
2. He said he knows of no plan by PCS to propose such a storage facility.
3. He said the Gov's office was as stunned by the new outcry -prompted by news reports- that occurred last night and this morning as we were.
4. He said he cannot tell us what PCS may propose in the future - but they have been well aware of our concerns about dry sulfur pellet storage.Meaning they could propose dry storage in the future - but it will be a brand new ballgame with full input and disclosure.
5. He said, Gov Perdue has promised, and will live up to her promise of full open disclosure and public input on all future Morehead City Port projects

In light of Al Delia's personal phone call to me, I sincerely apologize to the Governor for calling her a liar. My bad, 100%. Please forward. Based on Al's call, I believe we can resume our celebration.

I am copying Al on this email so he can correct me if I missed anything. Please forward

Thank you Al - I am disheartened that the false info about a 150 ft storage facility sent us all into a tizzy.

--John Nelson

Our original story:

Ms. Crystal Coast Sulfur has stepped down...

CS Phosphate has voluntarily abandoned their proposed molten sulfur facility in our community!

Thank you.

Thank you, Gov. Perdue.

Thank you my friends and community!

However--and this is a BIG however--PSC Phosphate still proposes to build a 150 foot high storage facility for dry sulfur.

And unfortunately, dry sulfur presents its own set of environmental, health and safety challenges...it's highly explosive, for one.  For two, run-off into our waters is polluting.

Guess the score is tied one-one. No molten sulfur, but say hello to dry sulfur? Darn, just when you thought it was safe to go outside.

Seems our work continues...