Horry County sets up budget possibilities to cope with gap

• The Sun News
  Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2009
  Horry County sets up budget possibilities to cope with gap
  Departments present ways to slice costs
  By Jason M. Rodriguez - jrodriguez@thesunnews.com

  CONWAY | A plan to move almost $2 million from a fee-supported utilities and road fund into the general fund could help offset the county’s projected $20 million shortfall and keep some road and other infrastructure projects moving forward, if the County Council approves.
  Various departments within the infrastructure and regulation division, all of which are supposed to support themselves through fees, gave presentations to the Infrastructure and Regulation Committee. From there, division heads will present their budgets during the county’s budget retreat for approval by the full County Council.
  The county is struggling to come up with a 2009-10 budget that addresses the $20 million shortfall. Employees’ pay already has been cut 2.2 percent, and 150 open positions are being held vacant.
  From now through mid-April, departments will be meeting with the county committees that oversee their operation. The council is tentatively set to meet with division heads on April 16.
  “I think we have made a start,” said Steve Gosnell, the county’s infrastructure and regulation director. “I looked at what I felt was the basic level of service, and we made sure that the decisions that were made would not have an adverse effect in the future.”
  County Administrator Danny Knight said the council will have discretion on where the $1.75 million will be spent.
  “It’s going to get prioritized by the council as to whether it goes toward public safety or the road plan,” Knight said.
  He said this year’s approach to the budget includes breaking each department down into functions to make it easier for the council to make cuts if they are necessary.
  “[Thursday] was just kind of a warming-up period,” Knight said. “When we start with the General Fund departments, that’s when it’s really going to get testy.”
  Engineering
  Current plan | Andy Markunas, deputy county engineer, said the county resurfaces and repairs about 10 miles of roadway each year and a little more than five miles are constructed each year. There are also 900 easements prepared annually.
  Proposed plan | Reduce dirt road improvements by $1.2 million and pave nearly three miles of dirt roads with private contractors as opposed to six miles at a savings of $1.4 million.
  Impact | There will be slightly less road work for area private contractors and fewer dirt roads will be fixed.
  Public works
  Current plan | David Gilreath, director of public works for the county, said the county currently paves more than eight miles of county-owned unpaved roads and improves 24 miles of dirt roads annually with coquina and commercial base.
  Proposed plan | Reduce dirt road paving by more than $500,000 and an additional 1.2 miles at a savings of $3.6 million. Maintain the improvement of 24 miles of dirt roads.
  Impact | Fewer dirt roads will be paved.
  Stormwater
  Current plan | Stormwater director Tom Garigen said the stormwater department currently budgets for 27 employees and works with a $4.4 million budget.
  Proposed plan | The mosquito spraying revenue and expenses will be transferred from the Public Safety division to stormwater.
  Impact | Aside from a reduction of the budget by $200,000, stormwater officials are watching a proposed state bill this year that would exempt owners of properties with heavily wooded areas from paying stormwater fees. Though actual impact figures were not available, Gosnell said, “It may be fine for other parts of the state, but it will have significant impact on this county.”
  Parks and recreation
  Current plan | Brent Taylor, director of the department, said the present revenue streams support the department’s various athletic and nonathletic events and its 77 full-time and part-time employees.
  Proposed plan | The proposed plan is to upgrade a grounds worker from part-time to full-time and add 10 seasonal camp counselors.
  The county expects to add 100 acres of parks next year to include seven baseball fields and nine multipurpose fields.
  Impact | The summer camp counselors, which are funded fully by registration fees, will provide seasonal work for those looking for a job.
  The county’s fleet service is maintaining the same funding, staffing and services for next year, said Don Foote, director of fleet service.
  Contact JASON M. RODRIGUEZ at 626-0364.

  SC DHEC doesn’t track AVX pollution

  • From the the Sun News Posted on Sun, Oct. 26, 2008
  • S.C. DHEC doesn’t track AVX pollution!
  • Manufacturer controls testing; attorney general digs into TCEBy David Wrendwren@thesunnews.com
  • The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control has never required testing of pollution control equipment at Myrtle Beach-based AVX Corp. and is not certain how much hazardous air toxins are being emitted into the air at a neighborhood adjacent to the manufacturer’s 17th Avenue South headquarters, agency documents show. DHEC last month ordered the manufacturer to test its equipment for the first time, although a schedule for those tests hasn’t been finalized.Meanwhile, the S.C. attorney general’s office has started an inquiry into groundwater contamination at AVX following a push by a Grand Strand legislator for a criminal investigation into decades of pollution at the electronics manufacturer.DHEC is requiring the equipment testing as part of an operating permit renewal, but the move also was spurred by residents’ growing concerns about pollution levels at AVX.”It just continues to amaze me that all of this flew under the radar for so long and now that there has been a public outcry by the neighbors DHEC is finally taking some action,” said Mary Henry, president of the homeowners association at Sterling Village I, which is near AVX. Henry said DHEC needs to be more proactive “not just in Myrtle Beach but all over the state of South Carolina.”
  • A year-long series of stories by The Sun News has shown that DHEC knew about contamination at AVX for more than a decade before informing city officials and nearby residents. The newspaper’s reports also documented high levels of pollution caused by AVX in recent years, galvanizing residents to fight the manufacturer’s efforts this year to obtain a permit allowing more pollution.
  • The attorney general’s inquiry still is in the early stages, according to a spokesman for that office, and it is not clear whether a formal investigation will follow. The possible criminal investigation would focus on decades’ worth of trichloroethylene, or TCE, contamination in groundwater at AVX.TCE is an industrial degreaser that has been linked with liver and other cancers.
  • The contamination has spread from AVX to a roughly 10-block neighborhood adjacent to the manufacturer. State Rep. Tracy Edge, R-North Myrtle Beach, said he has asked Attorney General Henry McMaster to investigate, among other issues, whether the contamination was the result of AVX management’s directives to dump used TCE into the ground rather than properly disposing of the chemical.Edge said he also wants to know whether any criminal violations of the state’s Pollution Control Act took place during the 14-year period when AVX tried to secretly clean up the groundwater contamination at its site.
  • AVX tried to clean up the contamination beginning in 1981 but did not tell health regulators about the pollution until 1995, after the company’s cleanup plans failed. A lawsuit filed last year also alleges that AVX dumped dirt contaminated with TCE onto an adjoining landowner’s property.” There is a belief that something smells [at AVX],” Edge said.
  • Mark Plowden spokesman for McMaster said the attorney general’s office “has received information and continues to seek information” about pollution at AVX.” We are very much aware of the situation in Myrtle Beach,” he said. Plowden said McMaster’s office met with DHEC on Thursday to discuss AVX, among other issues. 
  • DHEC has the authority to conduct criminal investigations of environmental matters. Plowden said he could not talk about any of the discussions that took place Thursday. DHEC spokesman Adam Myrick said the agency provided McMaster with information the attorney general had requested, but declined to give further details about the meeting. Criminal violations of the state’s Pollution Control Act are misdemeanors. The maximum punishment for each violation is two years in prison and a $25,000 fine for each day the violation occurred. The law has no statute of limitations.
  • The contamination and secret cleanup plan that followed took place while Marshall Butler was chief executive officer at AVX. Butler, the company’s CEO from 1973-93, now is chairman of the Infinity Private Equity Fund, which has offices in New York. Butler did not respond to a request for comments. AVX notified state regulators of the contamination about two years after Dick Rosen succeeded Butler as CEO. Rosen, a Myrtle Beach resident who retired in 2001, did not respond to a request for comments. John Gilbertson, the company’s current CEO, also did not respond to a request for comments. Both Rosen and Gilbertson were executives at AVX during the time the company hid its pollution from state regulators.
  • DHEC did not pursue a criminal investigation when it first learned of the contamination in 1995. Instead, the agency signed a consent order with AVX in which the company paid a civil fine of $7,000.The maximum civil fine DHEC could have levied was $10,000 for each day the violation occurred. 
  • State regulators have told AVX to test its pollution control equipment as part of the manufacturer’s application for a renewal of its operating permit, which expired in mid-2006. AVX applied for the renewal in January 2006, but DHEC’s review period has extended beyond the permit expiration date. State law allows AVX to continue operating while the renewal application is being reviewed. DHEC spokesman Thom Berry said the agency must approve any testing plan before it is implemented. “We anticipate the testing will be done by an outside firm as many companies do not have the trained staff or specialized equipment to do this sort of testing,” Berry said. “We can be there at any time during the testing or for all of the testing. Neither the contractor nor AVX would know when we would be coming.
  • “Such unannounced inspections are, in part, a response to residents’ concerns that DHEC has allowed AVX to self-report its pollution levels in the past, with little verification of the results by state regulators.” Deliberately falsifying data would be a criminal offense,” Berry said. “As you can imagine, the firms that do this kind of testing don’t want the attendant negative publicity that would result from falsification of the data, so they are very careful to accurately report the data which is checked by our staff. 
  • “In addition to testing the pollution control equipment, DHEC wants AVX to determine how far and in which direction air pollutants travel once they leave the manufacturer’s facility.” We have received many questions from citizens concerning the magnitude and health effects of the off-site air toxics concentrations,” Rhonda Thompson, assistant chief of DHEC’s Bureau of Air Quality, wrote to AVX in a Sept. 25 letter. Thompson said in that letter that DHEC has “no information about the extent and magnitude of the off-site concentrations” of some pollutants generated by AVX’s manufacturing process. 
  • Thompson did not identify the air pollutants in her letter, but AVX says it has emitted more than 1,000 tons of glycol ethers and xylene into the air around its Myrtle Beach headquarters since 1988, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports. Those chemicals have been linked with anemia, liver and kidney problems. AVX in August withdrew an application for a permit that would have allowed the company to emit more hazardous air pollutants, including toluene. The withdrawal followed fierce opposition to the application by politicians and residents living near the manufacturing facility. 
  • Berry said that if any of the testing shows “a release that would be an immediate threat to the public’s health, notifications would be made to the local public safety agencies and public.” State regulators want AVX to test its pollution control equipment as if the Myrtle Beach facility was operating at full capacity and emitting a maximum amount of toxins, according to the Sept. 25 letter. The global economic crisis, however, means AVX has cut production to the point that operating at full capacity is not possible.
  • “Due to current business conditions, the Myrtle Beach facility does not manufacture enough product to operate the [manufacturing] process at its maximum expected production rate or other production rate that would result in the highest [pollutant] emissions,” Jack Huggins, facilities manager for AVX, told DHEC in an Oct. 14 letter. AVX has proposed injecting pollutants into the exhaust stream to simulate the full-capacity buildup of emissions, and then testing how well the pollution control equipment captures those emissions. Such a plan would need DHEC approval.
  • Gilbertson, the company’s president and CEO, addressed the economic slowdown during a conference call with stock analysts last week. “The economic climate has turned upside down the last few months, and this has obviously impacted the electronics segment,” Gilbertson said. AVX reported last week that third quarter earnings fell 26 percent as the manufacturer took charges of nearly $6 million from trimming employees, closing a plant in Brazil and falling stock prices. About $4 million of those charges were related to employee layoffs and restructurings, the company reported.
  • Gilbertson said during the conference call that further layoffs are expected through the end of this year. AVX does not discuss staffing at its individual facilities, but the company reports area layoffs to the S.C. Department of Commerce. Through September, AVX had reported 19 layoffs this year. The October report will not be available until mid-November. AVX, the state’s fourth-largest public company, employs about 900 people in Horry County, according to estimates earlier this year by the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. 
  • In addition to cutting staff, Gilbertson said AVX is shutting down many production lines.”We are shedding all nonprofitable businesses,” he said. The groundwater contamination at AVX now has spread to a neighborhood sandwiched between Beaver Road and Kings Highway and stretching from AVX to Withers Swash. Tests have shown TCE levels as high as 19,200 parts per billion in groundwater at some of the neighboring property.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency says the maximum safe level for TCE in drinking water is five parts per billion. A part per billion is a measurement equal to one minute in 2,000 years or one penny in $10 million.The TCE contamination does not pose a health risk because groundwater is not a drinking water source, but residents say the pollution has ruined their property values and made it impossible for them to sell their homes. DHEC is working with the manufacturer to develop a cleanup plan. Even though the groundwater is not used for drinking water, it must be cleaned up to that five parts per billion standard. Contact DAVID WREN at 626-0281.

  Next page >>