THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290474
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT AND LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: 172 lines
This is a company town.
Born of the waters that carried sea captains and traders up the Pagan River in 1750, this town now stands solidly behind the company accused of polluting the river's waters.
Just ask the locals. If they'll talk. Many of them won't.
Those who will talk on the record cite the philanthropy of Smithfield Foods Inc.'s president and chairman, Joseph W. Luter III, the taxes his meatpacking company pays to the town and to Isle of Wight County, the bronze statues and downtown renovation and waterfront park that his money has paid for.
Those who won't talk say they don't want to make enemies in this town of 5,000 by saying what they really think about Smithfield Foods' ongoing battle with the state and federal governments over hog waste in the Pagan River.
The Pagan has been closed to shellfishing since 1970 because of excessive bacteria associated with hog wastes. The state says swimming in the river could pose a health risk.
Now, the Virginia attorney general is seeking unspecified penalties from Smithfield Foods for alleged pollution violations since 1994. The federal Justice Department is suing for as much as $125 million for more than 5,000 violations it alleges since 1991.
Politics, say Smithfield supporters.
Townspeople say, and rightly so, that the Pagan River used to be a lot dirtier 40 or 50 years ago and that Smithfield Foods is the one that cleaned it up. No one mentions that tougher environmental laws prodded many of the improvements.
Luter, his hometown's largest employer and benefactor, is nearly as legendary as his company's Smithfield ham, a culinary wonder that keeps indefinitely without refrigeration. Luter has staying power, too.
Smithfield loves Joe Luter. It loves the Pagan River, too, which has hosted the ham industry since at least 1779. But in a town that markets history alongside ham, Smithfield's loyalty to Luter is clear, and folks won't let a little political wrangling muddy the waters.
Herb Sadler remembers when a boat coming out of the Pagan would be coated with an inch of grease. Retired now after 30 years with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, he remembers when the marsh grass was dead and the mud was black 6 inches deep, when up to 100 buzzards would perch in Ivy Hill Cemetery and wait for their next meal of pig parts to come into the slaughterhouse dump or out in its waste stream.
Sadler likes Joe Luter.
``I've never met the man, but I do know that Mr. Joe Luter has done a lot for the town of Smithfield and he has worked hard,'' Sadler said. ``Mr. Joe Luter deserves a lot of credit. The river's cleaner now than it has been since 1934.''
Smithfield Foods is not new to environmental controversy. Virginia has taken the company to court twice since 1977, threatened to sue four other times and negotiated eight agreements requiring company actions to control pollution. In the late 1980s, Luter threatened to move his entire operation when the state toughened its pollution standards. He did, in fact, build a new slaughterhouse in North Carolina. And the company fought environmental organizations for six years over alleged nitrogen and chlorine discharges, at one point reaching the Supreme Court and ending with an agreement in which the meatpacker paid $639,000 in fines and legal fees.
All emissions from the company should end this spring when Smithfield Foods finishes connecting to lines that will carry its waste to a treatment plant in Suffolk.
Sadler joins those who say the governments, if they're going to bother filing lawsuits, should be specific. The lawsuits claim that the company violated pollution regulations numerous times, but do not list individual dates or discharges. The federal lawsuit cites violations back to 1991, while the state lawsuit covers 1994 through 1996.
Others agree with Sadler. ``The damage that has been done is in the political arena. That's unfortunate. It's in the perception of people outside of this county, people who really don't know Smithfield Foods,'' said Phillip Bradshaw, an Isle of Wight County supervisor. ``All of what's gone on is kind of an internal, personal thing. A lot of times, stuff like this shouldn't be hashed out by the public.''
Beryl Perry, treasurer of Isle of Wight County, said the company is the county's second-largest taxpayer and mused: ``I sort of agree with him (Luter), if they're gonna penalize him, at least tell him what it's for.''
Last June, Luter quietly moved his headquarters to downtown Norfolk without telling anybody. Since then, the town and local businessmen have been pleading with him to come home, said Smithfield Town Manager Peter Stephenson.
For Smithfield, which receives 17 percent of its tax revenue from the company and enjoys the restaurant/hotel/shopping money that flows from workers and visiting businessmen, the fear was that once the headquarters left, more of the company would follow.
``The buzz around town was, `Hey, let's talk to Joe,' '' Stephenson said. ``For us, this is where it started, this is where it should continue to be.''
To help lure the company back, the town just wrapped up a deal to buy the old shopping center in downtown Smithfield that sits in front of Luter's preferred site for the new headquarters. The town plans to raze the shopping center and put in a park and extra parking spaces for downtown.
And in return, town officials say, Luter has said he'll revive his shelved plan to build a magnificent corporate center on the banks of the Pagan River.
``We're going to bring Joe Luter's corporate headquarters back to Smithfield, thank God,'' said Town Councilman Al Rogers. ``Everybody's happy. It's all going to be lovely.''
Luter owns or has renovated several of the buildings on Main Street, which is being redone with quaint streetlamps, underground utilities, brick sidewalks and pebbled streets. Luter bought two bronze statues to add atmosphere, and he sank a bundle into renovating the Smithfield Inn, one of the oldest buildings in town. The old shopping center didn't fit into that decor, even though it was two blocks removed from the heart of town.
``He has a real vision for improvement of the town,'' Stephenson said. ``You mention any part of town, he either has done something about it or has a vision for it. I hope he continues to be the key philanthropist that he has been.''
The Chamber of Commerce's 225 members have talked recently about a campaign to counter what they regard as negative reporting about the lawsuits.
As a tour bus idled on the street in front of the Smithfield Inn, the chamber's executive director, Connie Rhodes, said the reports could hurt the town's image.
``I think it has the potential of being crippling,'' Rhodes said. ``The publicity is bad for us.''
Tour buses come through town more and more often as the town renovates and markets its historic houses and antique shops. The new corporate headquarters will be an asset to the whole community, Rhodes said, as solid as the brick wall she says Luter built around a local church parking lot.
Rhodes paused beside the Inn, which reportedly cost Luter a million dollars to renovate and redecorate. It is one of the oldest buildings in town and one of the few in America with a real claim, backed up by historic diaries, that George Washington did in fact sleep there.
Luter was a hometown boy, Rhodes notes, and Smithfield is one of those rare small towns where the youth come back after college.
``There's a sense of history,'' she noted. ``People come back here.''
Luter has come back twice - once as a college graduate working in sales for Smithfield Packing before the company was sold, and again in the 1970s to rescue his forefathers' legacy from financial ruin. A year after his return, the company was turning a profit.
It has grown exponentially since then, expanding staff into a vacant downtown department store, building a slaughterhouse in North Carolina and horrifying the locals by moving its corporate headquarters to downtown Norfolk.
Malcolm Cofer, who represents Smithfield on the county Board of Supervisors, is delighted at the prospect of the headquarters coming back, less enchanted with news reports on the lawsuits.
``The lawsuits are historical suits, something that happened years ago. It's not like it happened yesterday,'' he said.
``I catch fish out of the Pagan River. I eat 'em out of the Pagan River. I catch crabs out of the Pagan River. I eat 'em out of the Pagan River. And most everybody does, too.
``I'm looking at, hey, welcome back, Smithfield Foods.''
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by TAMARA VONINSKI photos/The
Virginian-Pilot
Discharges of waste into the Pagan River, which runs by Smithfield
Foods, have long been a point of contention between the company and
the government. Townsfolk, though, note that the river is cleaner
than it was 40 years ago.
The Smithfield Inn - one of the oldest buildings in town -
reportedly cost Smithfield Foods President and Chairman Joseph W.
Luter III $1 million to renovate and redecorate.
A Main Street sign advertises Smithfield Foods' legendary hams. In
the background is a statue of Ben Franklin that is among Luter's
contributions to the renovation of downtown.
Color photo
Smithfield Foods' Joseph W. Luter III is the town's largest employer
and benefactor.
Photo
Above: Smithfield Foods Inc.'s president and chairman, Joseph W.
Luter III, has said he'll revive plans for a corporate headquarters
along the Pagan River in Smithfield. In return, the town has bought
and plans to raze an old shopping center in front of Luter's
preferred site for the headquarters.
At right: Tony Mullen, left, and Nathaniel Eason work on pilings at
the proposed site of the headquarters.
KEYWORDS: SMITHFIELD FOODS POLLUTION LAWSUIT