Fighting Government's Enabling of Wal-Mart

Given the popularity of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, I figured it was a time to update a story I wrote last year that featured a local group fighting a planned supercenter in their Ohio Valley communities. I was actually writing about a 2003 report by the Brookings Institution, "Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania," on coordinating existing policies to promote real economic development overall growth, rather than the piecemeal approach that our 2,584 municipalities (yes, we do have a lot), 67 counties and state government tend to use.

Then representing nine of those municipalities (since grown to 14), the 400-member group Communities First had seized on the report to make its case that a 204,000-square-foot Wal-Mart and a 102,000-square-foot strip mall atop a cliff above a congested state road would not only create traffic and environmental problems, but also be bad for local economic development. But the worst of the continuing fight hasn't been with the world's largest retailer, one of the three co-chairmen, Bob Keir, told me. "It's been a nightmare dealing with the government."

For example, Communities First commissioned an engineering study that showed a higher traffic estimate than the one presented to the state Department of Transportation, which used an outdated formula. Didn't matter. PennDOT said the group "does not has a sufficiently compelling interest" to object. Overburdened state agencies tend to rely on the veracity of the proposals submitted by developers, with no independent voice, Weir explains. Communities First wants to change that. The group has filed an appeal with Commonwealth Court to get legal standing so that the state would at least consider its evidence. A hearing date is expected next month.

Meanwhile, Keir is wrangling with the state Department of Environmental Protection and its federal counterpart about sewer overflow. The old combined sewer system (i.e. both stormwater and what you flush down the toilet) already regularly overflows, and the runoff from 75 acres plus the wastewater from the supercenter will drain into a single 12-inch pipe. No retention pond is planned. That pipe is new, and will connect to an already overloaded pump station that the local borough will need to upgrade on its own, because its officials approved the development contract before discovering the problem. The borough of fewer than 3,000 people would need a bond issue or a state grant from a program that was designed to reclaim brownfields for economic development, Weir says.

Ironically enough, there is a brownfield site ready for redevelopment on an island/municipality that would actually want a Wal-Mart Supercenter, across the river from the one Communities First opposes. "We wouldn't object to that," Keir says. But no takers. While the group would prefer that a Wal-Mart not be built in their area (there are two supercenters within 10 miles and a Sam's Club nearby), Weir admits, "But if we can't stop it, we want them to build it correctly." No cutting corners. That means not just community protests, but also engineering studies and lawyers.

"Their strategy has been to get us to spend our money and we'll eventually have to go away," Keir says. He spends a lot of his time "begging," he adds. So far, the all-volunteer group has spent nearly four years and $140,000 "critiquing the state agencies" that are enabling Wal-Mart. Communities First is a 501(c)3 non-profit group, and contributions are tax-deductible:

Communities First

Box 218

Sewickley, Pa. 15143