Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/442382
JANUARY 7-13, 2015 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Despite various prognosticators on TV, in print and online, we really do not know what 2015 holds for any of us — positive, negative or in between. That being said, there are several clear issues that may or may not play out during this new year that deserve at least some of our attention. So here goes. The proposed $113 million chicken plant in the southeastern part of Fayetteville near the Cape Fear River was on ice, maybe even comatose, but has been revived by the election of two new county commissioners, one opposed and one publicly undecided. Several commissioners admit to being under intense pressure from both sides of the issue, and frankly, I can relate. Having been in a position to decide questions for which emotions ran high, the stress can be very real, sometimes outright ugly. If I were a commissioner, though, these are some of the questions I would be posing to people knowledgeable about chicken plant operations. How do we know the almost 1 and a half million gallons of water taken from the Cape Fear daily to service the plant will be safely sprayed on nearby fields without leaving dangerous chemical residue? And Lord only knows about the other "waste products," which is really a euphemism for the parts of chickens no one eats — blood, feathers and you get the picture. What happens to all of that? How do we really know that the chicken houses needed to supply the processing plant will not be in Cumberland County, as the company says? We have all been down some road paved with good intentions. What sorts of incentives are local officials going to offer and how many local tax dollars are the proposed jobs actually worth? And finally, while there is no question our community needs more jobs, I hope commissioners are asking themselves whether dismembering chickens for about $25,000 a year are the kinds of jobs we really want here? Such brutal, low-skill jobs with high turnover rates and which are often filled by immigrants and others with few resources and high social needs may well be more costly than not having them. Are these the jobs we want to be one of the largest employers in Cumberland County? We are not talking ladies in lovely dresses creating spun gold here. People in the part of Cumberland County which would be most impacted deserve to have this issue put to bed once and for all. So does the chicken processing company, and so do the rest of us. • • • North and east of us in the area of North Carolina traditionally refers to as "down East," there is trouble as well. Property owners at North Topsail Beach in coastal Onslow County, a low flat part of a barrier island near its northern inlet that many geologists and others say should never have been developed, are chipping in for a 12-foot sandbag wall in an effort to hold back the ocean. You read that correctly — a 12-foot sandbag wall to protect about 20 structures. Climate change ostriches notwithstanding, the reality is that oceans are rising, a fact acknowledged yet again last week by a state Coastal Resources Commission advisory panel said that the Atlantic will rise anywhere from four to nine inches along that part of the coast over the next 30 years. Full disclosure. The Dicksons own coastal property, and I feel the same way about it. East Carolina geologist Stan Riggs put it this way. "Building bigger and bigger hardened structures…is just crazy. We're spending more money than those structures are worth." We might do well to remember the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike and how effective that was. • • • On to something we love to hate and hate to love. Fast food. I seems that our loving to hate it has finally registered with at least some purveyors, and a move is on to make fast food healthier and — glory be! —to remove some of the chemicals and other artificial ingredients. Some of those who aim to be fresher and healthier are Pizza Hut, KFC, Chick- Fil-A and Taco Bell. I say bully for them for making the effort, and I wish them good luck. It will not be easy, though. In addition to whatever technical, freshness, food-handling, pricing and other issues the companies are facing, we fast food consumers are facing one ourselves. A lot of us love the stuff and are accustomed to flavors enhanced by chemical seasonings. Think French fries coated with flavored salts and served with heavily sugared and salted ketchup. Fresh sometimes seems like a pale cousin to "flavor blasted" everything. Healthier fast food is going to have a learning curve for all concerned. THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! 484-0261 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30 pm Daily Specials • Breakfast • Lunch • Dinner Fresh Seafood • Hand Cut Steaks • Homemade Desserts • Italian & Greek • Children's Menu Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests Contest&RequestLine: 910-764-1073 www.christian107.com KeepingtheMainThing...theMainThing. visitusonline FocusontheFamily 20Countdown Magazine Adventures in Odyssey MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com.. 910.484.6200. This, That and The Other BY MARGARET DICKSON