Fedex Foes Discuss Strategies Opponents Of The Cargo-Sorting Hub Get A Pep Talk Tuesday Evening, Then Open Their Wallets.

July 11, 2001 - Source: Taft Wireback, Staff Writer

Lawyers told foes of the Triad's proposed FedEx hub Tuesday that the project could be stopped in a court battle focused on environmental miscues, questionable tax incentives and broken zoning promises.

The meeting, hosted by the anti-hub Alliance for Legal Action, drew an enthusiastic crowd of 600 to hear lots of anti-FedEx rhetoric, a few legal strategies and more than a few appeals for cold, hard cash.

"I've been representing citizen groups in court cases for 31 years and I have never spoken to a group this big," Washington environmental lawyer Bruce Terris told the gathering.

Since its inception in January, the anti-hub Alliance has raised more than $100,000 of the $200,000 it says is needed to wage a stop-the-hub legal battle. It collected more than $7,000 Tuesday evening and has received money or pledges from more than 600 people, said Mark Warren, the group's chairman.

"You may have heard there's no way to stop it (the hub)," Warren told the gathering at the Greensboro Coliseum's special events center. "I've heard it, too ... I'm here to tell you, that's simply not true."

FedEx hopes to build a $300 million cargo-sorting center at Piedmont Triad International Airport, one that eventually would handle 104,000 packages each day bound for destinations primarily in the eastern third of the nation. The hub would open in 2005 with an estimated 24 flights daily and increase, over the next five years, to about 63 per day.

The project also involves about $150 million in airport improvements, including a new 9,000-foot runway on PTI's western perimeter, largely paid for with federal money. The proposal is being reviewed by the Federal Aviation Administration in an environmental study due for completion by summer's end.

The hub is controversial because it is close to suburban neighborhoods in northwest Guilford County and because hub jets would fly most nights over similar areas in northern High Point. Critics fear excessive jet noise and other environmental ills.

Warren said the meeting netted cash donations or pledges from an additional 35 contributors, including two checks for $1,000 each.

One donor, Greensboro resident Tom Gresalfi, said he dropped a $100 check into the collection box because what he heard in the 90-minute meeting gave him "enough of a good feeling."

"It's a major-league issue for quality of life," Gresalfi, who lives in the Turner Grove neighborhood five miles from PTI, said of the hub.

The Alliance was formed to unite hub foes in a lawsuit against the FAA if it approves the project. Group leaders told the audience Tuesday they expected to spend $150,000 on that, $25,000 for in-state legal work and another $25,000 on related costs.

Terris, the Alliance's lead attorney, said one likely issue in the possible federal lawsuit would be whether the FAA fully explored alternatives to putting the hub at PTI. The Alliance could win outright or simply drag the process out so long that FedEx gives up, Terris said.

"It may be that the FAA doesn't think there is any other site (than PTI), but I can guarantee you FedEx does," Terris said.

Greensboro lawyer Jeffrey Peraldo told the group another lawsuit in state court might argue that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners forfeited the right to develop PTI so aggressively when it zoned land near the airport for residential development in 1973.

Southern Pines lawyer Marsh Smith said that another fruitful line of attack might be whether state government went too far in giving FedEx a series of tax breaks with an estimated value of between $80 million and $115 million over the next two decades.

Meanwhile, PTI and the FAA are bracing for the potential court fight. The airport has every document it issues on the project reviewed by its attorneys, Ted Johnson, PTI's executive director, said Tuesday afternoon.

"I'm certain the FAA is reviewing this with a fine-tooth comb in preparation for the fact they might have a lawsuit," Johnson said of the pending environmental report.


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