Wal-Mart Supercenter rammed
Structure may have sustained almost a million dollars
in damages
By Willy Rosencrans
Asheville, North Carolina, Aug. 31 (AGR) —
In the early hours of Saturday, Aug. 28, two Volvo dump trucks, each
with a 37-ton load capacity, were driven repeatedly into the walls of
Asheville’s new and highly controversial Wal-Mart Supercenter,
still under construction on the site of the old Sayles Bleachery. The
damage was discovered later that morning by workers and reported to
police.
“They broke in,” said James Powell, site foreman of Nearen
Construction, “got access to the dump trucks, and proceded to ram
the Wal-Mart walls. They rammed the south-east end twice and the front
entrance three times. One truck they left in the wall, and the other
they hung up on a light pole base [in the lot].”
No arrests have been reported, and investigators have not identified
any suspects. Asheville Police Lt. David Rutledge said the APD has leads
but declined to comment further. He did say, however, that “We
don’t have anything to lead us to believe that this is the work
of eco-terrorists.”
An Asheville Citizen-Times story said the incident caused “an estimated
$900,000 in damage,” the same figure included in a police report
assigning $200,000 to each dump truck and $500,000 to the walls. Powell
said he didn’t know who arrived at that figure, and that company
engineers would need to assess the damage before an official estimate
could be made.
If this estimate is even roughly accurate, it dwarfs similar incidents
at other Wal-Mart construction sites.
In October 2003, up to 30 pieces of equipment were sabotaged at a Supercenter
construction site in Martinsville, Indiana. Sand was poured into fuel
tanks, engine and hydraulic hoses were cut, tires were slashed and windows
were broken, causing “tens of thousands of dollars” in damages,
according to local news sources. The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) initially
claimed responsibility but later disavowed it.
Sabotage reminiscent of Asheville’s occurred in Savoy, Illinois,
in February 2001. Steel columns not yet attached to the roofing of an
as-yet unfinished Supercenter were knocked down with a forklift; other
columns were unbolted from the roofing and an unmanned bulldozer was
set in gear and sent into the framework, bringing down part of the structure.
The incident caused $100,000 in damages.
Local unions had been picketing the site since construction began, and
a local police lieutenant suggested that they were behind the damage.
Wal-Mart had hired non-union wokers from Kentucky and Tennessee rather
than local organized labor.
No arrests have been made in either case.
The Asheville Supercenter, opposed by a large contingency of Asheville
residents -- from neighborhood associations to environmental groups
-- was the subject of several years of painful, acrimonious debate prior
to its approval by city council in July 2002. Initial word of the corporate
giant’s plans for a new Supercenter was met with outcry over its
ethics: Wal-Mart is fiercely anti-union, supports sweatshop labor around
the world, destroys local businesses unable to compete with it, and
pays poorly and offers poor benefits. Recently it has been faced with
lawsuits over discrimination against women and violations of wage-and-hour
laws.
Locals also raised fears of traffic congestion and adverse floodplain
impacts — the Bleachery’s 78 acres are located on an environmentally
sensitive bend in the Swannanoa River.
In September 2000 developers were denied the variance they were seeking
to make construction possible, and Wal-Mart claimed to abandon the plan.
The 2001 city council elections installed a majority whose campaigns
were funded by a political action committee, Citizens for New Leadership
(CNL), organized by one of the property’s owners. In January 2002,
during an annual council retreat, the CNL appointees voiced complaints
from the “business community” about zoning laws, and council
asked city staff to study cutting red tape.
The council replaced a Board of Adjustments member in March 2002 who
had opposed granting the variance, rather than reappointing her as had
been expected; the only other member opposed to the variance was ineligible
to run again. One month later two variances were granted; a conditional-use
permit was made for development of the site, and in July Wal-Mart was
back on the table. Grading, clearing, and cutting on the 200,000-square-foot
site began in November 2003.
The pace has quickened since the dump trucks left their mark.
“This won’t set us back as far as the grand opening,”
said Powell. “It’ll be repaired in time.” Horne Properties,
the current developer, says the construction should be completed as
planned sometime in January.
The company can easily absorb the financial blow: Wal-Mart has grown
to become the world’s largest company, eclipsing Exxon-Mobil, General
Motors, and General Electric. Its sales comprise two percent of the
total US Gross Domestic Product. In fact, it is the nineteenth largest
economy in the world. Its import volume exceeds that of both Great Britain
and Russia, and it is China’s fifth largest trading partner. If
Wal-Mart maintains its current rate of growth, it will become the world’s
first trillion-dollar company by the end of the next decade.
Wal-Mart’s media representative for the southeast, Glen Wilkins,
didn’t even learn of the incident until two days later, when AGR
staff called for an interview.
The dump truck exploit has, however, inspired Horne Properties to increase
security around the site: five security guards are to keep watch over
it all night. And despite the seeming insignificance of a million-dollar
night out compared to the hundreds of billions in annual sales reaped
by Wal-Mart, somewhere in the giant’s chain of command, the case
has been registered and catalogued, added to a growing list.
