It’s being dubbed the largest economic development project in Georgia’s history, an electric vehicle factory that could grow five times the size of the Pentagon and produce up to 400,000 zero-emission trucks a year.
The factory, to be built by up-and-coming electric car maker Rivian, is being heralded by many as a transformative $5 billion investment that will boost the local economy with 7,500 new green jobs and help make the transition away from fossil fuels and accelerate towards clean energy.
It has also created an unlikely pairing, Rivian, a California company committed to fighting climate change, and Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, unite to bring electric vehicle production to an area where gas-guzzling pickup trucks rule the streets.
But in recent months, the project has become entangled in the kind of partisan politics that pulses through many aspects of American life. Opponents have held rallies, organized online, dabbled in conspiracy theories and even threatened local officials.
And beyond the political wrangling, the debate over the factory is symbolic of broader tensions weighing on the environmental movement, with the need to build new zero-emissions infrastructure colliding with the age-old impulse to preserve pristine land.
“This is a story unfolding with solar arrays, wind farms and renewable energy transmission lines across the country,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. “It will always be a case-by-case question as to whether the compromise is viable, and sometimes NIMBYism will prevail.”
Opponents name a number of concerns. Some fear the factory will contaminate groundwater. Others frown on the lucrative public incentives being offered to Rivian. Many fear the massive facility will alter the area’s bucolic character, increase light pollution, disrupt traffic and spur development.
And now the movement to stop the Rivian plant has spilled over into the Georgia governor’s race.
Opponents have turned their ire on Gov. Kemp, who is up for re-election this year, and have found a sympathetic ally in former Senator David Perdue, who is challenging Gov. Kemp in the Republican primary.
On March 1, Mr. Perdue held a rally in Rutledge, about 50 miles east of Atlanta, near the site of the proposed factory. Introduced by leaders of the opposition group, he focused his remarks on why the Rivian factory fitted so badly into the community and how, he said, Gov. Kemp had sold out to special interests.
Speaking to a few hundred local residents in a leafy park, Mr Perdue cited George Soros, the prominent Democrat donor whose hedge fund owns $2 billion in Rivian shares and who is a frequent target of conservatives.
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“We can grow the economy without selling out and giving our taxpayers’ money to people like George Soros,” Mr Perdue said to cheers. “We can invest in rural Georgia without marginalizing our communities.”
Representatives for Gov. Kemp and Rivian said they were sensitive to community concerns and that the site selection and creation of the stimulus package were all properly done.
“People worry every time their community is affected,” said Bert Brantley, Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Kemp and one of the officials who helped lure Rivian to the state. “We don’t dismiss it or take it lightly. This is a real impact that people will feel. They certainly deserve to have their questions answered.”
James Chen, Rivian’s vice president of public policy, said concerns about the factory’s environmental impact were misplaced and that the community should celebrate the arrival of new jobs in the clean economy.
“This is about an American company that is at the forefront of technology and innovation,” he said. “At the end of the day, we are a green company and we want to do it in a green way.”
But these assurances have done little to reassure some residents.
JoEllen Artz, a 74-year-old retiree who lives near the site and is one of the organizers of the effort to block the factory, said she believes it would destroy the local ecosystem and contaminate the aquifer in a community in most houses make good use of the water.
“This company that makes eco-friendly products is going to destroy what Mother Nature took millions of years to assemble,” said Ms. Artz, a Republican who supports Mr. Perdue’s campaign for governor.
The approximately 2,000-hectare site on which Rivian plans to build its factory is largely undeveloped. There is a 200-year-old house on the property that the company can help move, and residents hunt in the woods.
Some Democrats are also against the factory. Jeanne Dufort, a local real estate agent, attended the rally for Mr. Perdue and wore a T-shirt proclaiming her support for Stacey Abrams, the Democrat running for governor.
“We’re neither red nor blue,” said Ms. Dufort, who has lived in the area for 21 years and worried the factory would irrevocably change the area’s small-town feel. “We’ve carefully defined what this community is meant to be, and it’s not.”
Other residents fear Rivian, which went public in November at a valuation of nearly $70 billion but has since tumbled, could fail, leaving the community with a vacant industrial site. Last week, Rivian reported revenue of $55 million and a net loss of $4.7 billion for the previous year, sending the company’s shares down sharply.
Another source of contention is the stimulus package that the state is offering to Rivian. Gov. Kemp has earmarked $125 million in his proposed budget for land and training costs related to the factory, and the state and local communities are expected to award hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to Rivian in the coming years. grant dollars.
“If you give a California company $125 million, I should have the same option as a small business owner,” said Chas Moore, a partner at an auto repair shop. “The government should not pick winners and losers in the private sector.”
Others expressed more general skepticism about the viability of electric vehicles.
Ray Austin, who owns a landscaping business and attended the rally for Mr. Perdue, said even the most powerful battery-powered trucks couldn’t haul all the gear he needs on long days on the road. “I will never drive an electric vehicle because I can’t,” he said.
And Dena Astin, a kindergarten teacher, said she’s concerned about the potential pollutants in the lithium batteries used to power electric vehicles. “There are problems with electric cars, just like there are problems with gas-powered cars,” she said.
But in Rutledge, dislike of the Rivian factory has moved beyond simple not-in-my-backyard localism and has at times veered into the conspiratorial.
Bruce LeVell, a Georgia businessman and adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, who introduced Mr. Perdue at the rally, called the project an attempt by Democrats to influence voting in a predominantly Republican county.
“We found out that Soros is backing this project with enormous amounts of money,” Mr. LeVell said in an interview with One America News, the far-right television network. “We don’t need George Soros in anything Georgia related.”
Protests have become biting at times. At a public meeting with a local business development group that supported the project, Edwin Snell, who lives nearby, angered officers, took off his red baseball cap and kicked them with it. “It’s a rural area,” he said to loud cheers. “This is not an industrial landfill.”
A Facebook group with more than 3,000 members has become a repository for negative articles about Rivian and Governor Kemp, and commenters have at times launched personal attacks on local officials involved in the project.
Shane Short, executive director of the Walton County Development Agency, said he and his family had been threatened online, prompting him to pull out of a scheduled public meeting.
“Some people say things they don’t mean when they’re angry or scared,” said Mr. Short, adding that he didn’t think the character of the community would be changed by the factory.
The sort of difficulties Mr Short has faced have caused local residents who support the project to keep a low profile. A recent poll by the Georgia Chamber, a pro-business group, found that two out of three residents in the area who were aware of the project supported it.
“We don’t think it will change the small town feel of our community,” Mr Short said, adding that the factory would be a boon to the local economy. “We anticipate that many people in our communities will work for Rivian.”
Mr Chen said Rivian planned to mitigate its impact on the area, including using recycled water instead of well water for its manufacture, minimizing light pollution and blending buildings into the landscape.
“We believe we will have no impact on drinking water aquifers,” he said.
Still, the company’s critics continue to fight. They used GoFundMe to raise nearly $20,000 to support their campaign and hire legal counsel.
But as fierce as the resistance to the plant is, there are no easy ways to stop it. The budget is expected to be approved by Gov. Kemp, and construction on the site is slated to begin this summer. Rivian expects to start producing trucks there in 2024.
Even some opponents of the factory are realizing that, like it or not, one of the largest electric vehicle factories in the world could soon be in their backyard.
“It will put political pressure on the governor, the court of public opinion, or the withdrawal from Rivian,” Ms. Dufort said. “That’s the only plan I see.”
Richard Fausset contributed reporting from Rutledge, Georgia.
