NC’s coal mines are defunct, but we should still care about the Stream...
The billboards along the West Virginia interstates advertise many types of coming attractions: the Lion’s Den adult bookstore, Wendy’s hamburgers, the Beckley Travel Plaza. Some also signal the coal...
View ArticleGoing, going, gone: DEQ Secretary Michael Regan announces big leadership changes
The Assistant Secretary of the Environment Tom Reeder is out, as are four other key leaders at the NC Department of Environmental Quality, according to an announcement made by DEQ Secretary Michael...
View ArticleIn Asheville, a scientific squabble ignites a flurry of fake news over...
The headlines in the Daily Mail range from “Is Is applying makeup with a CONDOM the secret to flawless skin?” to “Human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves reveals despair after giant cyst appears behind his ear as...
View ArticleDuke University researchers find high levels of selenium in lakes receiving...
At 1,100 acres, Sutton Lake is home to schools of largemouth bass, catfish and crappie. However, the lake also contains high levels of selenium, both in the surface water and in muscles of fish, a...
View ArticleFormer DHHS deputy Randall Williams nominated to head Missouri health department
Randall Williams, among the state officials entangled in the coal ash and drinking water controversy, could be the next leader of the Missouri health and senior services department. The story was...
View ArticleTrump considering ex-DEQ’s Donald Van der Vaart for No. 2 post at EPA
Donald van der Vaart wrote a helluva cover letter. Shortly after the November elections, divining that he would soon be out of work, the former secretary of the NC Department of Environmental Quality...
View ArticleEnvironmental news to watch for this week: Endangered Species Act, Atlantic...
Federal energy officials have scheduled three “drop-in sessions” this week for public input on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Coast Pipeline, built by Dominion Energy. These...
View ArticleIn Wilson, media shut out of FERC public listening session on Atlantic Coast...
Just 15 minutes after the doors opened last night, the auditorium at Forest Hills Middle School — a public school — in Wilson was beginning to fill with people. But the “public” listening session about...
View ArticleMuch ado about nothing: DEQ Sec’y Michael Regan has potential conflicts of...
Before Republican lawmakers get lathered up over State Ethics Commission findings that Michael Regan, nominee for NC DEQ Secretary has “potential for a conflict of interest,” they should re-read...
View ArticleOver objections from EPA employees, environmental advocates, scientists, U.S....
No amount of concern that Scott Pruitt is too friendly with the fossil fuel industry, that he has improperly withheld 3,000 emails about his business dealings with coal, oil and natural gas companies;...
View ArticleReporter’s notebook: People, places and the potential harm of Atlantic Coast...
When some asks me how I settled on becoming an environmental reporter, I reply that I had no choice. I grew up in a 19-acre woods in rural Indiana, where my mother, an amateur naturalist, and I raised...
View ArticleFour states, 10 years and 6,648 spills from fracking
Fracking’s first wave also brought a wave of drilling-related accidents — 6,648 in Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota and Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2014. A recent study by Duke University’s Nicholas...
View ArticleBack from the dead: Environmental bills weaken stream protections, billboard...
Like Chucky the doll, regulatory reform legislation will not die. Although a regulatory reform bill succumbed to political disagreements in the final throes of last year’s session, a new(ish) measure,...
View ArticleNC DEQ and Attorney General withdrawing from Clean Power Plan lawsuit
For once, North Carolina wants to quit a lawsuit rather than file or join one. Late yesterday afternoon NC Attorney General Josh Stein announced he has asked a federal district court to allow the state...
View ArticleThis Week in Pollution: A big fine for the Mt. Olive Pickle Company
For 24 of its 91 years in business, the Mt. Olive Pickle Company illegally discharged industrial storm water through a pipe that emptied onto Vine Street and flowed along Cucumber Boulevard. From...
View ArticleDuke Energy says computer models don’t accurately represent the flow of...
For more than two years, Duke Energy has consistently reassured residents living near its unlined coal ash basins that contaminated groundwater flowed away from their drinking water wells. Computer...
View ArticleThis Week in Pollution: Bacterial contamination closes 2,450 coastal acres to...
High levels of fecal bacteria have prompted state environmental officials to close some coastal and inland waters to harvesting oysters, clams and mussels. The 2,450 acres stretching across eight...
View ArticleMonday surprise: Jeffrey Warren named research director of NC Policy...
Jeffrey Warren finally got the job he wanted. After a national search, the soon-to-be former science adviser to Sen. Phil Berger, Warren has been named the research director of the NC Policy...
View ArticleThis is what’s at stake in North Carolina when Trump cuts the EPA budget by 24%
This is the first of several stories about how EPA cuts could harm North Carolina’s environment and economic development. A dozen buzzards roost atop the smokestack like sentinels, guarding 15 acres of...
View ArticleGOP introduces bills to roll back renewable energy standard, repeal plastic...
In 10,000 years, archaeologists will excavate our landfills and ask one another, “What was the deal with the 21st century obsession with plastic bags?” The environmental bane –500 billion used...
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