Mississippi rejects appeal to halt military storage project
April 26, 2021
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GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi's environmental quality department has rejected an appeal to halt a military storage development project despite fears it could cause chemical contamination in a predominantly Black community.
The department's permit board on Friday rejected the appeal from residents, a neighborhood church and a nonprofit organization near the North Gulfport project site following testimony from the community stakeholders, as well as the Mississippi State Port Authority, which is overseeing the project, The Sun Herald reported.
The decision allows the port authority to move forward with storage on 16 acres (6 hectares) at the site of a former fertilizer plant that operated in the early 1900s. Soil containing dangerous levels of arsenic and lead there was buried beneath a clay cap in 2009, the newspaper said.