Analysis: Besides the money, why the plaintiffs’ win over the hog industry is...
For an industry used to getting its way, the jury’s verdict was a stunning rebuke. On Thursday in federal court, the jury awarded 10 plaintiffs who live adjacent to an industrialized hog farm $75,000...
View ArticleDEQ announces members of new Environmental Justice & Equity Board
Over six tense weeks in the fall of 1982, 550 people were arrested in Warren County, some of them after lying in front of dump trucks loaded with PCB-laden soil bound for a landfill built by the State...
View ArticleGo Backstage: Delco, methyl bromide and how to make people care about...
Go Backstage is an occasional series explaining to readers the process of reporting and writing stories. The purpose of the series is to help readers understand the nuances of journalism and to add...
View ArticleEnvironmental justice groups reach settlement with DEQ over federal...
This post has been updated with comments from the NC Department of Environmental Quality. The NC Department of Environmental Quality has settled a long-standing federal civil rights complaint that...
View ArticleA chaotic night in Delco: Angry opposition to fumigation plant, company reps...
This post has been updated with information from the Columbus County fire marshal. At 6:30 last night, the cafeteria at Acme-Delco Middle School in Columbus County was nearly empty. By 7, every chair...
View ArticleFederal judge reduces damages in hog nuisance case — far below the total of...
The 10 winning plaintiffs in a hog nuisance lawsuit won’t receive their $50 million in punitive damages — $5 million each — against Murphy-Brown, as awarded by a jury. Instead, the total amount has...
View ArticleChemours responds to DEQ with promises of new technology sandwiched with a...
This is the second of a two-part story about Chemours. Read an earlier piece, posted this morning, about a 2013 accident that injured 11 workers. Chemours had nearly three weeks to answer to demands...
View ArticleState Sen. Danny Britt to Malec Brothers: I stand by my community to protect...
If Sen. Danny Britt Jr. didn’t have a cousin who lives near a proposed log fumigation facility in Delco, he might have never heard of Malec Brothers or methyl bromide or a proposed log fumigation...
View ArticleAtlantic Coast Pipeline opponents file civil rights complaint vs. DEQ
This post has been updated with a comment from the NC Department of Environmental Quality. Thirteen environmental justice groups and their affiliates allege the state Department of Environmental...
View ArticleNC State professor “retained” by Chemours is basis for claims that DEQ...
This post has been updated with comments from Damien Shea, who responded the day after this story was posted. Analysis by a NC State University professor and scientist paid by Chemours is the basis of...
View ArticleHouse members file bill to fund DEQ, target actions by Chemours
Legislation filed today in the house would appropriate more than $14 million to the NC Department of Environmental Quality, while strengthening environmental laws that appear targeted at Chemours, the...
View ArticleIt’s raining GenX bills: GOP legislation largely ignores DEQ for funding
Within hours of House Democrats filing HB 968, four more House members, this time all Republicans, put up their own bill, HB 972, which essentially rebuffs any meaningful appropriations for the NC...
View ArticleSELC files complaint vs US Fish and Wildlife over 540 toll road threat to...
Tiny and unobtrusive, the endangered Dwarf Wedgemussel and the threatened Yellow Lance Mussel are minding their own business in Swift Creek in southern Wake County. They’re doing what freshwater...
View ArticleAnalysis: Water Safety Act constitutionally suspect, could slow down...
It’s curious how two legislators, who, in their day jobs are attorneys, have co-sponsored bills that leak state and federal law like a sieve. The Water Safety Act — Senate Bill 724 and its identical...
View ArticleState budget: DEQ still snubbed, plus Jordan Lake rules delayed again and an...
The state budget, having secretly curdled inside Republican bill writers for several weeks, was finally served to the public last night just before 9 p.m. At 748 pages long — including the conference...
View ArticleDEQ to expand testing to other fluorinated compounds; Chemours neighbors...
Joan Jackson and her husband, Lawrence, have lived a mile and half from the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant for about 40 years. They’ve relied on a 70-foot well for their water — water that hasn’t...
View ArticleSenate approves budget, now heads to N.C. House
Members of the N.C. Senate approved a $23.9 billion budget Thursday morning that, much to Democrats’ consternation, swept through the chamber with no allowance for amendments. Policy Watch has detailed...
View ArticleBlack neighbors, white farmer (and police chief): Murphy-Brown nuisance trial...
1,300 words, 6-minute read A t nine o’clock one recent morning the doors to a seventh-floor federal courtroom in Raleigh swung open, revealing an unspoken truth. On the plaintiffs’ side, nearly...
View ArticleBREAKING: SBI investigating Duplin County employee over lagoon testing on hog...
The locations of eight of the 35 farms sampled by Duplin County Watershed Technician Billy Houston. Some of the locations have more than one farm. These were sampled on March 17. Because of...
View ArticleThe plot thickens on SBI investigation of Duplin County employee over hog...
Billy W. Houston, a watershed technician who samples contaminants in hog lagoons for the Duplin County Soil and Water District, also moonlights as a private consultant doing the same work. And that...
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