Toxic Waste Brings an End to Voter Apathy : Spate of activism halts deal to put dump in North Carolina. Now, officials face scrutiny.

Political apathy used to run as high as the summertime temperatures in Pender County. Candidates were reelected to the County Commission because no one else bothered to run and, as one local put it, “Getting involved wasn’t part of our character.”

Then, one morning last May, the people learned they had been betrayed by their County Commission. Their reaction says a good deal about both the growing significance of environmental concerns in rural America and a town’s ability to wrest control of its future from unresponsive elected officials.

What the people discovered when they read the Winston-Salem Journal was that three of the five Pender County commissioners--the hairdresser, the retired bus driver and the country-store owner--had secretly negotiated a deal to let a New Jersey company build a $70-million toxic waste disposal facility down the road.

On the surface, the agreement that would have allowed ThermalKEM Inc. of ParamusJ., to treat, burn and bury 50,000 tons of waste a year in Pender County sounded like a good deal: 300 new jobs, an increase in the county tax base of $100 million and as much as $3 million annually in county revenue. But most of the people thought the benefits paled when weighed against what they saw as the potential dangers.

Almost overnight Burgaw (population 2,000) organized and mobilized. Citizens who had never demonstrated against anything marched on the courthouse. They held candlelight vigils, rallies, formed a group called Citizens of Pender (COP), raised $50,000 through bake sales and fish fries, hired an attorney, hung green protest ribbons on the doors of their homes and drove in convoy to Raleigh to confront the governor.

“My daughter told me they needed some age to make the demonstration more respectable,” Ann Hoover Dees said. “So I’m on the picket line in Raleigh and some ladies dressed in fancy clothes walked by, giving me a funny look, and I told them, ‘Don’t say you’d never do it.’ ”

Betty Webb, a nurse, donated the vacation money she had been saving for two years to COP. The family of the late town doctor, W. I. Taylor, let the citizens’ group use his office rent-free. Two women put on an antique auction and raised $4,000. John Kepner provided catfish from his catfish farm for a fish-fry fund-raiser, and citizens wrote to celebrities asking for items that would raise money. Mary Tyler Moore sent an autographed script, Joan Baez a poster.

Mary Caputo was among a group that took lessons in civil disobedience and was stunned that she would even consider doing something she once associated with society’s less desirable elements. Her husband, Tony, a retired Marine colonel who had fought in three wars, carried protest signs for the first time in his life and became a prime organizer of the popular revolt.

Ironically, the nonviolent tactics the Caputos advocated were the same ones used by their son Bob nearly 20 years earlier to protest the Vietnam War--a protest the Caputos had viewed warily. “It was hard for parents to see the things that mattered so much to the young in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” Mrs. Caputo said.

It wasn’t until August, when Pender County voted against the incinerator by a 14-1 ratio in a non-binding referendum, that the three commissioners yielded to popular will and rescinded their invitation to ThermalKEM to locate here. People danced under the oak trees on the courthouse lawn that night.

“I think the thing we’ve learned here is that people need to be involved in government,” said Mike Harvell, the sheriff. “If we’d been involved, if qualified people had run for office, things probably never would have gotten to this point.”

Clearly, though, Pender County’s citizens are enjoying their role as activists. One resident, Margaret Brown, pored through public records and turned over to Sheriff Harvell evidence of excessive spending by county employees on out-of-town trips. Shortly thereafter, the county administrator, Mike Lord, resigned. Other residents are developing a recycling program, considering a recall petition and talking about fielding a qualified slate of candidates in the next local election.

Meanwhile, to the north, councilmen in the town of Woodland have contacted ThermalKEM to express interest in being the home of the toxic waste facility.