Charah claims its reputation, financial health could suffer if it’s not...
Charah/Green Meadow could lose tens of millions of dollars and its reputation “irreparably damaged,” if it is forced to reduce the amount of coal ash it disposes in the Brickhaven mine near Moncure in...
View ArticleThe Senate’s breathtaking, vexing, contradictory cuts to NC DEQ’s budget
This is the first in a series of stories about the ramifications of Senate budget cuts to the NC Department of Environmental Quality. When Michael Regan, the affable secretary of the NC Department of...
View ArticleAfter another legal setback, Charah will ask state appellate court for...
For a second time, Chatham County Superior Court Judge Carl Fox told Charah to talk to the hand. Fox yesterday rejected Charah’s request for a stay of his original order to stop disposing coal ash in...
View ArticleThe $1 million mystery: The Senate budget gives a low-risk hazardous waste...
O ff a stub of Pine Grove Road behind the West End fire station in Havelock, an old sand mine turned wayward recycling facility has become an environmental and civic albatross. The 34-acre former...
View ArticleSad! Leaked Trump budget shows huge cuts to coastal protection, farm programs...
Republican Lieutenant Gov. Dan Forest, in a speech to Duplin County farmers last fall, proclaimed that “Donald Trump knows agriculture.” That statement seemed to puzzle even the conservative crowd,...
View ArticleUnder proposed billboard legislation, outdoor advertising companies have more...
O n the way to the beach along US 70, the billboards, like the landscape, change in tone: Further inland, billboards bearing “Bite Me Firearms” dominate the highway, while closer to the coast, ads...
View ArticleWhat’s that smell? The Farm Act of 2017.
W hile the House dashed through its version of the state budget at the speed of light, for the past two days the Senate Agriculture/Natural Resources Committee plodded through other Very Important...
View ArticleFor DEQ, a House committee’s budget saves more jobs, exacts less revenge
I t’s premature for Secretary Michael Regan to cancel the NC Department of Environmental Quality bake sale, but at least the House budget doesn’t force him to scrounge for millions of dollars in...
View ArticleSenate committee beats up on stream buffers and plastic bag ban
Stream buffers: Dens of iniquity, sanctums of misdeeds, loci of vice. Members of the Senate Agriculture/ Environment Committee this week on buffers and the plastic bag ban, while trying to sneak a...
View ArticleRep. Dixon keeps hammering on leachate aerosolization, blames opponents for...
WasteExpo 2017, held earlier this month in New Orleans, is like the World’s Fair for landfill owners, trash haulers, recyclers and scientists, whose fields require them to study how to neutralize and...
View ArticleSen. Cook complains about politics trumping science, then votes for leachate...
The Senate agriculture and environment committee introduced a blizzard of last-minute, controversial amendments to a bill this morning — including one that state regulators had not even reviewed. The...
View ArticleHouse reallocates $250K from rural grant program to “protect” rural areas...
Ahoskie, population 5,000, is nicknamed “The Only One,” because it is the only such named town in the world. Located in Hertford County, Ahoskie has seen better days, with its downtown revitalization...
View ArticleQuoting a non-scientist, conservative news outlet targets free high school...
The headline on the North State Journal website primes the reader for juicy tidbits about the governor: “Cooper introduces new environmental curriculum for high schoolers. Critics call it propaganda”...
View ArticleUndeterred by Trump, eight NC mayors, Attorney General Stein, say they will...
This post has been updated to reflect additional North Carolina mayors that have signed the agenda. President Donald Trump might think the Paris Climate Agreement is a “bad deal” for America, but five...
View ArticleTrade secrets and a no-bid contract add to concerns about pouring toxic...
T omorrow SePro, an Indiana-based chemical company, is scheduled to meet with state environmental regulators and the US Army Corps of Engineers to present a very expensive proposal: Pay us as much as...
View ArticleNCGA welcomes 2017 hurricane season with abysmal disaster relief funding budget
Last week, the NC General Assembly welcomed in 2017’s hurricane season with a woefully inadequate budget proposal for Hurricane Matthew disaster relief funding. At only $150 million slated for...
View ArticleQuick hit: Renewables bill a “fundamental shift” in the state’s energy policy”
This is a developing story and will be updated this week. This post has also been updated with comments from Duke Energy. I t’s a strange day indeed when the Americans for Prosperity, Duke Energy and...
View ArticleAppellate court judges unswayed by arguments that solar farms “might be...
S olar farms are ugly. Children should not see them. They might produce harmful radiation. They could be hit by hurricanes or tornadoes, or even be connected to the death of birds in California. Solar...
View ArticleDust-up over riparian buffers stalls environmental bill in Senate finance
House Bill 56, an omnibus environmental bill that had sailed through the full House, became a legislative Hindenburg today when a committee co-chair pulled the measure citing “too many unknowns.”...
View ArticleEnvironmental Working Group finds unregulated contaminant in 20 North...
An unregulated toxic contaminant has been detected in 20 drinking water supplies in North Carolina, including those serving Greensboro, Dunn and Wilmington. Fluorinated chemicals, also known as PFCs or...
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