NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A developer and attorney behind the proposed 4,030-unit Hilton Bluffs residential complex faced pushback from hundreds of citizens during a community meeting. They emphasized they want to gain more information about an inactive hazardous waste site neighboring Sledge Forest amid concerns about toxic groundwater.
READ MORE: County commissioners request planning department scrutinize Sledge Forest development proposal
Developer Copper Builders hosted a community meeting at the Aloft Wilmington Tuesday evening to discuss its controversial Hilton Bluffs proposal with residents. The meeting took place at downtown’s Aloft event space and reached its capacity of 254 people before the meeting began, with an estimated 300 additional residents still outside the building at its peak, according to one Aloft employee. They said the developer had rented a room for around 90 people but expanded it after hearing that the anticipated crowd would be much larger.
Copper Builders founder Wade Miller and Ward & Smith attorney Sam Franck, representing the developer, addressed broad-ranging questions from a crowd adamantly against the development.
“With regard to transparency and communication,” Franck said at the meeting, “we continue to be interested to hear what you have to say. I realize the vast majority of people in this room have said simply: ‘Don’t build. We don’t want to see you develop this site.’ I understand that’s your perspective. I genuinely appreciate you coming here tonight to share that with us.”
The firm is seeking to develop a concentrated residential community within a 4,084 acre Castle Hayne property known as Sledge Forest. The developer submitted a preliminary plan to the county in September to build 4,030 townhomes on less than 1,000 acres while remaining acreage — composed of wetlands and old-growth forest — would be mostly conserved.
Future development abutting the wetland-designated section of the property includes a nature trail, mini horse ranch rentals, a golf course, and access roads. The project will require a traffic impact analysis; it is anticipated to generate 30,261 daily trips, 3,209 peak hour evening trips, and 2,153 peak hour morning trips.
Copper Builder’s conceptual master plan envisions townhomes primarily built on uplands clustered in a southern portion of the property. The area is bordered to the south by a 1,611 acre site owned by General Electric containing the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC facility.
Castle Hayne resident Kayne Darrell — who started the Save Sledge Forest advocacy group and petition — asked Miller if he was aware of GE’s most recent toxic data at the meeting. Franck asked her if she could elaborate on the issue.
Darrell said DEQ is planning to test wells in the neighboring Wooden Shoe community after a toxic groundwater plume on GE’s property bypassed its border. She added several wells within the Sledge Forest property have not been tested since 2016.
Department of Environmental Quality hydrogeologist Sue Robbins sent GE a 2016 letter stating the extent of groundwater contamination in Sledge Forest above GE’s northern border is not well defined. She explained the area’s terrain makes testing unfeasible.
“Extensive road clearing and road construction would be needed to access the area,” Robbins wrote. “Which would likely damage the wetland and require extensive local/state and federal permitting.”
Darrell also cited GE Hitachi’s September work plan to the Department of Environmental Quality stating the shape and extent of groundwater plume containing toxic compounds differs from previous assessments. The Department of Environmental Quality approved the firm’s plan to install approximately 16 borings to help define the extent of contaminated chlorinated solvent groundwater at the northern boundary of GE’s property.
“I’m not familiar with the specific data that you just identified,” Franck said. “And therefore I can’t respond intelligently to the specific numbers or the monitoring or pump-and-treat wells. But I reiterate, if you think you got information that we don’t, we’d be grateful to receive it.”
Miller emphasized he would prioritize residents’ safety at the meeting. In a Feb. 3 letter to commissioners, he wrote that extending Hilton Bluffs to Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s water and sewer mains may be able to provide water for nearby communities reliant on wells. He stated Copper Builders would not proceed until regulatory bodies can ensure health protections.
“I’m not a typical developer that walks in here and all I think about is money,” he said. “I know that’s how you think of me. But I grew up in the Carolinas. I’m an Eagle Scout. I love nature. I intend to build a community that connects with nature that doesn’t disrupt nature.”
The Copper Builders founder added developers could receive environmental grants for remediation.
“We are really investigating this,” Miller said. “We have several consultants looking into this. And so far, we haven’t seen the data that you’ve suggested. But we’d love to take a look at it.”
UNCW geologist Roger Shew also raised concerns about the toxic plume and called for more transparent discussion about the issue.
He wrote in an email to county commissioners last week that contamination was identified on-site in 2016: “It would be good to see if there has been any more data to review, but from the reports there has been minimal or no more testing on the Sledge Site because it is ‘too swampy.’”
Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Julie Youngman said it would be “unconscionable” to move forward on the development without putting millions into a fund to address health testing, monitoring wells, and medical costs to address the site’s safety risk.
“When people start getting sick and houses are flooding and there’s mold and all that,” she said, “someone’s going to say: ‘The statute [of limitations] has closed, you can’t sue me anymore, it’s not my responsibility.”
GE contractor WSP USA sent a report to the Department of Environmental Quality last month summarizing its annual 2023 water sampling in the northwestern part of the property; the study noted several swamp areas were not tested because of inaccessibility.
GE defined two sites of concern that released toxic chemicals before being shut down in 1994. They include a former storage area that released uranium and fluoride into soils and a lubricant storage site that leaked volatile organic compounds into groundwater. These areas are adjacent to a section of Hilton Bluffs’ townhomes buildout — phase 4C — that would include 82 single family homes.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant level for uranium is 0.03 micrograms per liter (mg/l) with a goal of zero uranium in drinking water. WSP’s Jan. 17 report states uranium was detected above maximum contaminant levels as high as 2.59 mg/l at three on-site wells at the edge of GE’s property in 2023. Two off-site wells slightly encroaching into Sledge Forest were also tested, detecting uranium concentrations below maximum contaminant levels.
WSP noted it does not predict current contamination levels at the site to cause a threat to human health or the environment. The January report states uranium concentrations in GE’s northwest area are “relatively” stable and immobile; the firm noted surrounding swamp areas help to naturally attenuate compounds and are likely restricting migration into the aquifer:
“Groundwater is recharging into the upland areas and flows toward and discharges into the adjacent swamp to the north.”
Port City Daily reached out to GE to ask its view on WSP’s safety risk assessment — and if it factored in the firm’s new monitoring plan for groundwater plume, the absence of data on contamination within Sledge Forest, and the impact of a major residential development in close proximity to the site — but did not receive a response by press.
In 1984, General Electric fired laboratory technician Vera English after she reported radioactive contamination and safety concerns at the General Electric Castle Hayne facility. The Wilmington resident fought the company in court over the next decade, including a precedent-setting Supreme Court case allowing whistleblowers to pursue relief under state law.
English claimed she was surveilled and intimidated for allegations against her former employer, including her claim that GE had a policy of concealing violations of Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards.
“[The] alteration and destruction of records and testing documentation,” her attorney wrote in a complaint to the Department of Labor, “was and is designed to enable the company to increase and/or maintain production without the hindrance of observing NRC safety standards.”
An Administrative Law Judge for the Department of Labor ruled in English’s favor in 1984 and determined the company retaliated against her for bringing her concerns to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; a separate suit she filed was dismissed for missing the statute of limitations. The NRC fined GE $20,000 five years later in 1989 for its actions against the whistleblower.
Despite several court victories, regulatory investigations corroborating her claims, and a fine against GE, English — who passed away in 2020 — expressed disappointment about the case during a 2000 NRC discrimination task group discussion.
“GE is still performing the same illegal and unsafe activities as they were in 1984,” she stated.
Flood and density concerns
“It is unfortunate that the natural beauty people move to Wilmington for is slowly being destroyed in the name of greed,” Hannah Tenner, one of many residents who waited outside throughout the nearly two-hour meeting, told Port City Daily.
Sledge Forest supports a broad array of wildlife and contains one of the largest habitats of Peatland Atlantic White Cedar Forest in Southeastern North Carolina. The area contains loblolly pine dated more than 300 years old and rare cypress trees estimated to be 500 years of age.
“Everybody in this room has seen road kill box turtles,” a resident said. “Just by having roads in there, that’s going to be a threat. I’m not going to hold you to that, it’s beyond your control. What is in your control is developing this.”
Weeks before the meeting, Copper Builders founder Wade Miller sent a Feb. 3 letter to county commissioners announcing the planned meeting to share information and gather feedback with residents.
“It has come to our attention that several citizens of the county and other parties are advocating against the property rights of the owner, and contract buyer, of the Sledge Timberland,” Miller wrote in the letter, “And have sought to persuade you to downzone the land, change the law, or otherwise interfere with those property rights.”
Many of the concerns Miller highlighted are included in the Save Sledge Forest petition, which has 8,241 signatures as of press. The issues, reiterated by dozens of residents throughout Tuesday’s meeting, include:
- Disturbance and potential destruction of wetlands and wildlife
- Potential strain on schools, medical facilities, and emergency services
- Large amounts of anticipated traffic on Castle Hayne Road
- Area’s location in a floodplain
- Absence of public involvement in the by-right development
- Proximity to an Inactive Hazardous Waste Site
“Much of these advocacy efforts that we have had the opportunity to review include generalizations,” Miller stated in his letter. “And several outright misstatements of fact and law, all plainly designed to stoke fear and encourage some sort of regulation of this private property in the interest of promoting those advocates’ personal agendas.”
Miller’s letter — which carbon-copied Franck, Paramounte Engineering landscape architect Allison Engrebetson, and Hanover Development Inc. president Will Bland — stated no homes would be built on wetlands, old growth trees would be preserved, the majority of units will not be built in flood hazard zones, and the project will have to comply with a broad range of regulations before advancing. The developers emphasized their commitment to sustainable construction practices and and potentially selling some of the property for conservation.
“Several advocates against the property rights of this site have characterized the plan of development as ‘high density,’” Miller wrote. “That characterization is incredibly inaccurate. A density of one home per acre is consistent with the character of this area.”
Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Julie Youngman disputed the claims during public comment. She read out the Agricultural Residential District’s stated purpose, including:
- Allowing very low density single family residential development that is compatible with rural and agricultural settings
- Encouraging rural farming activities
- Promoting exurban development that does not require public infrastructure or services
The county’s technical review committee assessed Copper Builders LLC’s preliminary Hilton Bluffs plan in October. The property is zoned in the rural agricultural district — which allows a maximum of one residential unit per acre — but TRC determined the developer could count the property’s total acreage in its density calculation if it conserves approximately 3,072 acres of wetlands. A little over four units would be allowed per acre in the roughly 1,000 remaining acreage.
“It may be in the UDO, but it is a loophole,” Youngman said. “This development absolutely violates the spirit of the zoning.”
County Manager Chris Coudriet wrote an email to commissioners stating planning staff viewed Miller’s overview as “directionally accurate.” He added that the developer had expressed interest in selling around 35 acres of Sledge Forest for a public park, but staff and commissioners were reluctant to take on maintenance and liability expenses.
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
Want to read more from PCD? Subscribe now and then sign up for our morning newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
