Megasite development could directly help Freedom High graduates

I have stayed away from writing about the Great Meadows Megasite up until this point for a few reasons.

First, I was not sure what I could add to the discourse.

Second, there were/are a lot of very strong opinions on the topic, and while I do enjoy wading into those waters occasionally, I did not feel educated enough to lecture others.

Lastly, I wanted to wait until this zoning matter had been settled. For those who have not read Senior Reporter Marty Queen’s great articles on the topic, the Megasite had to get a portion of the land rezoned.

But now I want to talk about this Megasite, and how it will ultimately be wildly beneficial for all of Burke County, but particularly, the economically disadvantaged students that make up 65% of Freedom High School’s student population.

I have been interning for the past 10 months or so with Burke Development Inc., the group heading up the Megasite project.

I joined this nonprofit as an intern because I thought being an intern there sounded fun and because I had heard that this group was making tangible and beneficial economic change in Burke County. In my 10 months there, I have found nothing contrary to either of those points.

I am 100% in favor of this Megasite for a few reasons.

First, I am an environmentalist, so I understand the reaction to hearing “industrial Megasite” is to reject everything that follows automatically.

However, there are significant environmental safeguards sought by the Lake James Environmental Association, the Catawba Riverkeepers, and Foothills Conservancy.

For example, a football field-length of standing forest separates surrounding residential areas from the site, 30 times larger than the state of North Carolina requires.

Stream buffers no smaller than 75 feet (3x larger than North Carolina requires) and with a state average of 150 feet (6x larger than North Carolina requirements). There are limits on light pollution. And specific industries like quarrying, concrete production, carbon production, etc … are banned.

This may or not be worth anything to you, but as someone who cares deeply about Burke County’s environment, I never saw anything that looked like it was out of line or that gave me pause.

Second, we as a county are not in the position to reject an opportunity like this. Burke County is the only county, according to census data, in the state to lose population since the 2000 census.

We have a lower average income per resident than Caldwell County. And as Commissioner Brittain said during the 2-plus hour-long Megasite debate at the last meeting, over 30% of Burke residents live below the poverty line.

Our teachers are not paid enough, our county and city employees are not paid enough, and in particular, none of our public safety officers is paid enough. Burke County is not crushing it right now monetarily, but we could be with this Megasite.

Third, I look around my school, and when I look at my classmates, I see few routes toward a successful future. Maybe the student goes off to college, in which case they rarely return to live here.

The student could go to Western Piedmont or trade school and get a job in Burke County, which is where a lot of our middle-class jobs come from. Or, and this is a popular route, none of the above.

Students see few opportunities. They see no reason to leave, and they see no reason to stay, so they just sort of float. This is not a failure of theirs but a failure of ours as a county. We place economically disadvantaged students in overwhelmed schools and expect them to feel hyper-motivated to go out in the world and find scarce, quality opportunities, or leave their homes and venture to more economically-developed counties like Catawba or Mecklenburg. A company or the companies that could operate on the megasite would bring high-quality, high-paying manufacturing jobs that Burke highschoolers could be educated for locally.

Just to hit some quick bullet points I have heard while at community-wide meetings:

We have to have this Megasite where it is because there are simply no other privately owned parcels of land even approaching this size that are already positioned so well. Plus, and this is very important, the site has access to water and sewer.

A lithium-battery plant is extremely unlikely.

This one site has the potential to boost our county’s tax base by 25%, which is an amount that would allow Burke County to do so much and could lessen the tax burden on residents while providing them with high-quality and high-paying jobs.

To summarize, I am wholeheartedly in favor of this Megasite because it helps my classmates. We have lost 40,000 jobs since 2000 to outsourcing, and this Megasite could bring high-paying blue and white-collar jobs to Burke County again.