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Charles Town Vote on Rockwool Sewer Bonds Monday Aug. 6th

Our next best opportunity to delay or stop Rockwool.

URGENT ALL HANDS ON DECK

A public hearing and vote on a Rockwool sewer bond on Monday, August 6 at 4PM is our next best local administrative chance to delay or even stop Rockwool.  The venue is the Charles Town Building Commission, 101 East Washington Street, Charles Town, WV 25414.

Three minute public comment is allowed.  Speakers need to sign up before 3:45 PM.  Plan to speak at the hearing at 4PM on Monday, August 6th.  

Focus on toxic Rockwool, schools, broken process, impact on your family personally if this sewer bond goes ahead and allows Rockwool to move forward.  If you are knowledgeable on water, sewer, or ratepayer issues, please raise those issues.  Bonus points if you are a Charles Town water system ratepayer or Charles Town resident, be sure to mention that.  

The people you are addressing are community members.  They did not have anything to do with the decision to bring Rockwool here.  Please keep that in mind and speak to them respectfully, as neighbors, talking about the personal impact on your family.  These aren’t elected officials and don’t subject them to nonsense or harassment or speeches.  We’re pleading to them personally, directly, as neighbors.  This is a legacy vote and they need to study it carefully, they don't want to regret anything in 5 or ten years.

If the vote passes, the bond moves immediately to the Charles Town City Council meeting at 7 PM at the same location.  

ACTION: Please contact Mayor Scott Rogers, Charles Town Council members and urge them to delay or oppose.   If you know any of the Building Commissioners personally please reach out to them. This a media event too.

MESSAGE (please try customize and add your own experience):

Dear Charles Town Building Commissioners:

On Monday August 6, you will be asked to pass a $16 million sewer bond for the Roxul/Rockwool company at Jefferson Orchard.  

We are reaching out to you because the process that brought Rockwool here was secretive and dysfunctional, and our community has been denied the chance to be heard about the impact Rockwool’s operations will have on all of us.  As a result, an enormous decision about the character and future of Jefferson County has arrived on your desk, in the form of a vote on a sewer bond.

This sewer connection will enable Rockwool to build a facility here that will emit extreme amounts of hazardous air pollution-- as permitted it would be #2 in the entire state for Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) emissions, including six chemicals known or suspected to cause cancer.  Other pollutants, like hazardous particulate matter and ozone, will also degrade visibility and air quality across the region.  

The facility itself is global-scale, will operate 24/7 with massive trucking operations, and features 21 story smokestacks that will dominate the central Jefferson County landscape and drive away jobs and growth.  

Most disturbingly, Rockwool is located adjacent to North Jefferson Elementary School and within 2 miles of TA Lowery Elementary, Wildwood Middle, and Jefferson High School.  The permit process has not included any study of the impact of Rockwool’s toxic pollution on nearby schools or the risk to our school children, even though the plant will emit hundreds of tons of chemicals like Formaldehyde, which harms intellectual development in children.  The plant’s ozone emissions are also implicated as a primary cause of asthma.

For all of these reasons, we are asking you, as your neighbors, colleagues, and friends, to delay or oppose the Roxul bond ordinance on Monday August 6, 2018.

Thank you!