Federal wildlife officials want to hear from you about the fate of the...
The Cypress Moon Inn in Kitty Hawk overlooks the Albemarle Sound and in the distance, to the southwest, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, among the stomping grounds for the endangered red wolf....
View ArticleState environmental, health officials to meet today with chemical company...
State environmental officials are “strongly encouraging” Chemours, the company that produces GenX, to reduce or eliminate discharges of the chemical into the Cape Fear River, until an investigation is...
View ArticleSenate passes leachate aerosolization bill; now heads to Gov. Cooper
D uring her political career, Sen. Trudy Wade, a Guilford County Republican, has often heeded the beck and call of the solid waste industry. She has sponsored bills to relax protective buffers between...
View ArticleChemours, maker of GenX chemical, won’t commit to stop discharging into the...
The thousands of people who depend on the Lower Cape Fear River for drinking water received little assurance today that Chemours is taking seriously their concerns about the safety of their water...
View ArticleEven with coal ash amendments, House Bill 374 takes an unsavory turn for...
In its original incarnation, House Bill 374 was relatively innocuous. It regulated ZipLines and established rules for the storage and public disclosure of hazardous chemicals. But that was in April....
View ArticleNew boss, same as the old boss: Document trail shows convolutions of Woodlake...
This is the second of a two-part story. The first installation ran Thursday. T he sales pitch is accurate: Woodlake Country Club and Resort development is exclusive. Visitors check in with a guard...
View Article“This request is a disaster”: House committee grills EPA’s Scott Pruitt over...
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt faced a largely hostile House Appropriations Committee last week, which over two hours, grilled him over an anemic agency budget, proposed by President Trump. “This...
View ArticleDEQ budget still meager, cuts 16.75 jobs, but includes money for pet projects
The spirit of George Orwell must have been hovering over House and Senate conferees when they drafted the state environmental budget. “Reorganization through Reduction” is the very gentle term budget...
View ArticleAfter DEQ starts water sampling, Chemours announces it will eliminate GenX...
Beginning tomorrow, the Chemours company will “capture, remove, and safely dispose of wastewater” that contains the byproduct GenX generated at its manufacturing plant in Fayetteville. The company...
View ArticleMore bad environmental news in the budget: Clean Water Management Trust Fund...
At first glance the budget line item for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund looks generous by this legislature’s standards: $18 million. But the legislature’s largesse was not so large. The...
View ArticleFormer Wilmington mayor: “We’re here to express our outrage” over GenX...
J ust steps outside the door of the Coastline Conference Center in Wilmington, the Cape Fear River moseys on its last 35 miles of its journey to the Atlantic Ocean. But the 300-plus people inside the...
View ArticleUpdate: DEQ posts map, permits and info about ongoing GenX investigation
The NC Department of Environmental Quality will test water from 12 locations in and near the Cape Fear River for GenX, an unregulated contaminant found in Wilmington’s drinking water. The sampling...
View ArticleThis Week in Pollution: Randolph Packing cattle slaughter plant in Asheboro...
The Environmental Protection Agency has fined Randolph Packing, a cattle slaughter plant in Asheboro, $48,000 for violations of the Clean Water Act. According to a consent agreement with the company,...
View ArticleClimate change throws shade on five vulnerable tree species in North Carolina
The Carolina Hemlock has enough problems. The tree, which is native to the Appalachian Mountains, is under attack by the voracious hemlock wooly adelgid. And now climate change, with its attendant...
View ArticleEPA spent $3.7 million to clean up Wake Forest contamination; those...
It’s been more than 10 years since 20 households in a Wake Forest subdivision learned their drinking water wells were contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals, TCE and PCE — some at 20 times the...
View ArticleRepublicans, inspired by Ayn Rand, and Democrats, sticking up for trees, join...
A fter an hour-long debate last night that contained references to both Ayn Rand and The Twilight Zone, HB 581, aka the billboard bill, failed by a 49-66 vote. Thirty Republicans and 36 Democrats voted...
View Article“The military isn’t here today to defend itself”: At last minute, four-year...
H ouse Bill 589, a piece of complex renewable energy legislation, was supposed to epitomize the spirit of cooperation. As the bill was unveiled on April 5, lawmakers heralded a nearly year-long process...
View ArticleWindbreaker John Droz pleaded with GOP senators to kill H589; Senate to hear...
Sometime after 4 o’clock today when the Senate convenes, House Bill 589, the clean energy legislation, will know its fate. Solar will live, but wind will die. Solar and wind will both die. Solar and...
View ArticleApex security company, TigerSwan, cited by regulatory board for surveiling...
Sandwiched between BounceU of Apex and Potter’s Hand Bible Church on Apex Peakway, the headquarters of security company TigerSwan offers a palette of services: Among them, the “GuardianAngel,” program...
View ArticleWind energy sent to time-out for 18 months, HB 589 heads to Gov. Cooper’s desk
A t 1 o’clock this morning, the winds in Raleigh were blowing from the southwest at 10 miles per hour, a gentle breeze nonetheless strong enough to move the blades of a wind turbine. Inside the...
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