Protect the Lower Cape Fear from Reckless Development

Since 2006, the North Carolina State Ports Authority has commissioned ten studies and spent $10 million to justify a massive international container terminal on a pristine site on the Cape Fear River near Southport - 23 miles downstream from the existing Port of Wilmington. To date, a total of $50 million has been spent on this misguided project.

Those studies and others teach that no business or economic purpose will be served, that the project will cost $6 billion, that the cost cannot possibly be recovered - whether from revenues or benefits - that valuable wetlands and marine nursery areas will be lost forever, that the water and air in the region will be polluted by vessel and truck traffic, that the ground water aquifer will be contaminated, and that local beaches will erode at a rapid rate destroying the golden goose of tourism. 

Continued waste of the State's resources on studying a $6 billion boondoggle with certain environmental calamity has to stop.

By signing this petition, you'll be telling the Governor and the General Assembly to abandon all efforts to justify a deep water port at Southport, where the water is not deep and the river is not wide. Urge them to pursue responsible, sustainable economic development at the site that can co-exist beside a twin tower nuclear power plant and the largest military munitions depot in the world.

Tell them five years and $50 million spent is enough. Tell them it's time to sell the land or transfer it to another state agency. Tell them ... Enough!