Legislative Updates: Week of April 10th

The North Carolina General Assembly experienced a big shift last week, when Representative Trisha Cotham switched from democrat to republican. This has happened before in North Carolina, most notably when Representative Jim Black bribed Representative Micheal Decker with $50,000 in an IHop in 2006. But this shift means the Governor will no longer have the power to veto bills that are passed by the Republican leadership in the General Assembly. 

With that in mind, there have been several bills introduced in the past week that would significantly roll back environmental protections in our state.

Though it takes a long process for bills to become laws, and bills may only be heard in committees and never move to a vote, it is a worthwhile effort for YOU to call or email your representatives to educate them on these bills and let them know that this would have serious implications for the places that you care about. It will be a lot harder for the representatives we’ve come to rely on to move good bills and stop bad bills on their own. Your representatives need to hear from you. 

This type of direct action really works. Last week, we discussed a bad bill that would allow development of residential homes in industrial areas. Because some of the representatives on the bill heard from their own constituents who did not approve of the bill, the bill was blocked by Senator Rabon. 

House Bill 579 – Amend Certain DEQ/EPA Agreements/Proceedings

This bill would eliminate the permitting process for local programs to require sedimentation and erosion control permits for new developments. The NCG01 permit, authorized by the state but required by EPA, is a bare minimum permit that is often rubber stamped for approvals. Currently, developments require both permit processes, and the local program permit is where thorough evaluation is done to determine if stormwater control measures or erosion control devices will be adequate. This bill would require only the NCG01, which could also eliminate jobs within local programs. 

This bill would also eliminate any environmental stakeholders from the State Sedimentation Control Commission. This commission, which Emily currently sits on, reviews local sediment and erosion control programs and revokes their authority if they are not adequately protecting water resources and have multiple sites out of compliance. The commission would be primarily homebuilders, contractors, and designers, which is like having a group of foxes in charge of security in a hen house. 

S.B. 744, Environmental Permitting Reforms

S.B. 684, Stormwater Program Revisions

S.B. 686, Regulatory Reform Act of 2023

S.B. 582, North Carolina Farm Act

The Environmental Permitting Reform and Stormwater Program Revisions bills would deem any permit issued by default if NC Department of Environmental Quality does not issue or deny the permit within a very constrained time period. This bill comes at a time when NCDEQ is severely understaffed and the budgets are continually cut. The bill also limits the amount the agency can charge for permit reviews. Rather than giving the state agency the tools they need, they are deeming permits granted if NCDEQ can’t adequately manage the increasing workload with fewer staff. 

The Regulatory Reform Act would eliminate vegetative buffer requirements on developments, as long as the stormwater control measures discharge treated stormwater through a segment of vegetative buffer. This bill would also allow developers to exceed density limits by treating the increased stormwater. Minimizing the volume and decreasing the velocity of stormwater runoff is the only way to protect the receiving streams. 

All three of these bills would define state wetlands as restricted to what the federal government determines as a “Water of the United States” or WOTUS. That term has been argued since the Obama administration. In North Carolina, our own state rules added waters to that protection to cover isolated wetlands. This would eliminate that protection. All three pieces of legislation need to have this provision removed in order to protect our waterways, avoid flood risks, and preserve the flood protection values of wetlands. 

S.B. 658, Water Safety Act of 2023

This bill grants the NC Policy Collaboratory funds to conduct research on PFAS. $20 million would go into research for PFAS containing firefighting foams (AFFF), included a buyback program, but would also construct the training site using PFAS foams to research the personal exposure risks for firefighters and their families when they are exposed to this toxin. 

S.B. 673, Water and Wastewater Regulatory Relief Act

This bill seeks to eliminate regulatory processes that have limited development based on wastewater capacity. This bill would make inter-basin transfers easier and have less regulatory requirements. It would also allow increased use for water withdrawals and discharges that exceed the existing capacity.

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What is happening at the General Assembly and how does that affect our watershed?

Written by Emily Sutton

This week, Hannah and I held a lobby day in Raleigh with two Haw River Assembly members. We had a packed schedule and managed to meet with four representatives and briefly speak with three others: Representatives John Faircloth (R), Ashton Clemmons (D), and Pricey Harrison (D) of Guilford County, Senator Amy Galey (R) of Alamance County, Senator Natalie Murdock (D) of Chatham County, Senator Graig Meyer (D) of Orange County, and Representative Vernetta Alston (D) of Durham County.

The legislative buildings were buzzing with the latest drama within the General Assembly, in which a Democratic representative from Mecklenburg County, Trisha Cotham, flipped to join the Republican Caucus. This has spurred protests and calls for resignation from her constituents, but in Raleigh, the implications of this switch made a significant change. The Republican party now has enough members of its caucus to have a veto-proof majority, which means if the Governor vetoes a bill, they have enough votes to override his veto.

Some Helpful Vocabulary before we dive in:

We remember from middle school government class that there are three branches of government: the legislative branch (House and Senate), the executive branch (Governor or President), and the Judicial branch (Supreme Court).

General Assembly: This the the term for the two bodies of the legislative branch of state government- the house and the senate.

Chamber: This is a term for the collective House members (120), or the collective Senate members. ex) House chamber, Senate chamber

Speaker of the House: the presiding officer of the House Chamber. Wields the most power. The speaker assigns representatives to committees, and determines which bills are up for votes. Currently held by Rep. Tim Moore (R) – Rutherford.

Senate President Pro Tempore: the presiding officer of the Senate Chamber. Same powers as Speaker of the House, but for the Senate. Currently held by Senator Phil Berger (R) – Rockingham.

Committee: There are House Standing committees (44) and Senate Standing committees (18) ranging from agriculture to education to local government and everything in between.

How does a bill become law anyway?

To get a bill approved and made into state law, the bill goes through a maze of processes. We’ve worked with legislative members to draft bill language, and this is only the first baby step of the process. Schoolhouse Rock made the bill process look easy. This is how it works in North Carolina:

1. We start with a good idea, or an identified problem and proposed solution. Let’s take Rep. Harrison’s Environmental Justice Considerations for example. Permits for large scale projects are being approved without taking cumulative impacts on environmental justice communities into consideration. Harrison worked with environmental justice advocates and her legal team in bill drafting to write the bill, which amends sections of existing permits to include language requiring the agencies to deny permits if there will be a disproportionate adverse impact on low-income or minority communities. Often times, bills will contain “WHERE AS” clauses that provide information to explain the problem. Then the bill ends with “THEREFORE” to propose the solution identified as law.
2. The legislator, and the advocates, then work together to find no more than three primary sponsors. The primary sponsor is typically the person who has worked with their team to craft the bill. The leader of the House and the leader of the Senate have the sole power to determine what bills will be put on the floor for a full vote once they move through committee (we’ll get there). Because both chambers are Republican led, bills have a better chance of making it to the floor if there are at least two Republican sponsors. So advocates work to get other legislators to agree to sponsor the bill. Once primaries are identified, other members can sign on. The more Republican support a bill has, the more likely it is to reach the finish line.
3. Then it’s time for the bill to finally be introduced. The bill is sent to Bill Drafting, where it is reviewed and given a bill number. The next day, the bill is introduced in its chamber session. Is this case, the bill, House Bill 416 was introduced and explained by Representative Harrison during the House session meeting.
4. Once the bill has been introduced, it makes its way to its respective committee. The committee chairs dictate what bills are discussed, so this can be the first delay or even the end of a proposed bill. In this case, Harrison is on the House Committee on the Environment, where the bill would be discussed. The bill was selected for discussion and review by the committee chairs. Here, the committee members discussed any problems or issues they foresee with the bill and proposed amendments to address those concerns.
5. If the bill requires state funds, the bill then moves to committee on Appropriations. This committee wields a lot of power, and can be another major delay or the end of the bill. If the chair proposed the bill for discussion, the committee debates the bill and again has opportunities for amendments. If not money is required for the bill, the bill will skip this committee. This was the case for HB416.
6. If the bill is favorable and passes this committee, or skips that committee entirely, the bill moves to the Rules, Calendar, and Operations Committee. This committee holds the most power. This is where many bills meet their end. If the bill makes it onto the committee agenda, which is a major feat, the committee again hashes out logistics, debates concerns, and can propose amendments. This is where our House Bill 416 has been since March 21st.
7. If the bill were to be favorable in Rules Committee, it goes to the House floor for a full vote during a session. If the bill is to pass, the bill then moves to the other chamber, the Senate in this case, for introduction for it’s twin in the Senate. Then the process starts all over again. Often times, legislators from each chamber will work together to get a head start on this process by introducing a twin bill in the other chamber simultaneously.
8. When the bill successfully moves through one chamber to the next, both bills are brought to the Governor for final approval. The Governor has the opportunity to veto the bill, which would send the bill back to the General Assembly. Here is where the veto-proof majority comes into play. If the Republican caucus wanted a bill to pass, they could simply override this veto. If the Governor approves the bill, it is signed into law, sometimes ceremoniously.
9. While the Supreme Court doesn’t directly get involved with bills, they have the power to challenge the legality of bills, and use that power when necessary.

Haw River Assembly’s Lobby day

Our goals for this lobby day were to educate legislative members on specific bills that are currently active in the legislature, and how they impact our members and their constituents. Those bills, and our concerns, are summarized here.

Oppose or Amend

• H349 Firefighter PFAS Management/Research
  • This bill would have a voluntary buy back program for PFAS containing firefighting foams, but would also purchase a firefighting training facility in Stanley County where firefighters would use the PFAS containing firefighting foam to conduct health research on firefighters and their families. This bill would use real people to assess the health risks of a known toxin. This research would then open the door to more research grants, at the expense of the firefighters and their families’ health.
    • This bill endangers the health of firefighters. This research can be conducted using fluorine free foams to test their effectiveness. The research has been done to show the harm of these foams on communities, and this facility should focus on moving towards the transition to PFAS-free foams. 
  • Currently in Committee on Appropriations, then Rules if favorable
    
• SB317– Workforce Housing 
  • This bill aims to address a huge concern among essential staff for larger cities like Raleigh and Durham, where their firefighters, police officers, teachers, and nurses can’t afford to live in the cities they work in. The issue of affordable housing is a problem. This bill would allow developers to buy 10 acres of land for housing, as long as 20% of those homes meet the 80% average meeting income level. These housing developments would not be subject to many zoning ordinances held by local governments, which could include industrial zoning requirements or watershed buffer zoning requirements. In order to make a profit, developers can develop cheaper land in industrial zones, endangering the health of vulnerable communities, or develop land otherwise that would be otherwise restricted in watershed buffer zones. Affordable housing is a dire need, but this bill could result in vulnerable families living adjacent to industrial polluters.
    • This bill needs to be amended to clarify zoning concerns to prevent housing in industrial zones and protected buffer zones. 
  • Currently in Rules and Operations on Senate

Support

• H370 Responsible Firefighting Foam Management Act
  • Bans firefighting foams in training and prevents the discharge of those foams into the environment – unless authorized for testing purposes at a testing facility. Requires training to be conducted regarding the collection of spent foam. 
  • Currently in Committee on Environment

• SB350 2023 Safe Drinking Water Act
  • Requires Committee for Public Health to establish Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) for probable or known carcinogens including PFAS, 1,4- dioxane, and Hexavalent Chromium -6. 
    • This is a great bill and a much needed step in the right direction. However, it must be paired with legislation to target the pollution at the source in order to provide local drinking water providers with the tools they need to hold the polluters responsible and not bear the brunt of the financial burden of adhering to these MCLs. 
  • Currently in Rules and Operations on Senate

• HB416 Environmental Justice Considerations.
  • Amends permit requirements to include the ability to require permits to be denied if cumulative impacts would have disproportionate impact on environmental justice communities. Applies to mining, solid waste management, significant expenditures of state money, projects on public lands, developments, hazardous waste facilities, industrial animal agriculture, air contaminants, and any expanding facilities.
  • Currently in Rules, Calendar, Operations Committee

• HB511 Enhance Urban Stormwater Management 
  • Requires stormwater control measures for redeveloped property for all increased impervious surfaces, with the exception of small scale single family residential developments. 
  • Currently in Local Government- Land Use, Planning, Development
    
• HB28 NC Managing Environmental Waste Act of 2023
  • Provides additional funding to clean up Inactive Hazardous Waste Sites and solid waste management programs with plastics recycling programs. Requires state facilities to use recyclable, compostable products for food service ware, or no disposable single use plastics. Commissions a study to examine all impacts of plastic pollution, effectiveness of plastics recycling, new technologies for plastic waste reduction, and others. 
  • Currently in Regulatory Reform
    
• HB279 Break Free from Plastics and Forever Chemicals
  • Requires producers to register and provide any information about plastics packaging, issues costs associated with end of life disposal of plastics, requires statewide education and outreach about proper recycling or disposal of plastics. Bans manufacturer and distribution of any PFAS in packaging materials. Gives authority to NC DEQ to issue fines for improper hazardous waste disposal for toxic substances for violations of this bill. 
  • Currently in Rules, Calendar, Operations

What’s Next?

Haw River Assembly will continue to work with legislators to move strong legislation, stop bad legislation, and educate legislative members on important issues to get bills drafted. Outside of active bills, we have policy goals that we continue to work towards. Download that list of policies here. Contact your representatives about the bills above and keep up with our newsletters to join our next lobby day!

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Pittsboro sues 20 PFAS companies- Now What?

In January, the Town of Pittsboro filed a long awaited lawsuit in response to decades of contaminated drinking water from PFAS discharges upstream. Pittsboro is the only town in the Haw River watershed that pulls their drinking water directly from the Haw River. This lawsuit has the potential to make progress towards PFAS reduction if other municipalities and impacted communities also join in this effort. As a stand alone lawsuit, this outcome of this litigation will only be recouping costs incurred for the Town of Pittsboro to investigate, monitor, and treat for the PFAS contamination.

Industrial Toxins Addressed in Lawsuit

This lawsuit focuses not on 1,4-dioxane, but solely on PFAS (per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances) including AFFF fire-fighting foams. PFAS is a class of compounds with over 6000 chemicals. This family of chemicals has been studied extensively since a lawsuit in Parkersburg, West Virginia between a cattle farmer and DuPont. A cattle farmer notices his cows were sick, their teeth were rotting, and they began to die off after drinking from a creek downstream of a DuPont discharge. Piles of white foam were seen at the discharge. This led to the largest public health study ever condcted, where it was discovered that two of these PFAS compounds, PFOA and PFOS, were detected in extremely high levels in the community of Parkersburg. While searching for a control, or a clean blood sample with no PFAS present, it was also discovered that these compounds were present in every study participant across the globe, even polar bears. These two toxins have contaminated the world. The newest health advisories set by the EPA are 0.004 ppt for PFOA and 0.02 ppt for PFOS for lifetime exposure. These toxins lead to increased risks of cancers, low birth weights, hyper tension, high cholesterol, immune disorders, low vaccine response rates, and other serious health concerns.

Summary of the Lawsuit

Pittsboro has named twenty major corporations as defendants in this lawsuit. Some of the most recognizable defendants include 3M, Dupont, Chemours, and BASF corporations. Many others are subsidiaries of these larger corporations, but all are responsible for having “designed, manufactured, marketed, promoted, sold, supplied, distributed, used, or disposed of PFAS products, including AFFF,” or fire-fighting foams. The lawsuit states that these companies had the financial resources, legal and scientific expertise, and time to fully know and understand the risks of these products. Pittsboro is seeking to “ensure that those profited from the production promotion and sale of PFAS products also bear the costs stemming from the ordinary and foreseeable handling and use of those products.”

Two of the five claims in the lawsuit include design defect and failure to warn. This argument states that these products were not adequate in their intended use and were unreasonably dangerous. These companies knew the risks of public and environmental harm, but failed to use safer products and practices. Two additional claims include public and private nuisance. This argument states that the drinking water, natural resources, surface water, groundwater, and the Town’s property including the drinking water plant have been contaminated. Lastly, the claim of trespassing covered the contamination and unwarranted harm to public and private property.

Pittsboro’s solution proposed in this lawsuit is solely focused on relief for costs associated with past actions. These companies conducted business within the Haw River watershed, and therefore, are being held responsible. The lawsuit seeks recovered costs for administrative and response, loss of use, natural resource damages, investigation, sampling, monitoring, and treatment costs, court costs, and punitive damages for the malicious actions of the corporations named in the suit.

What does this mean for Pittsboro?

After six years of pushing the Town of Pittsboro to take meaningful action to hold upstream polluters accountable, this is an encouraging sign. However, it took six years of presenting at Town Council meetings, holding public meetings, sending mailers and phone calls to every resident, working with amazing community members like Katie Bryant, Jessica Merricks, Reverend Carl Thompson and his wife Mechelle Thompson to get the word out to Pittsboro residents that the drinking water supply was extremely contaminated. The lack of action meant increased and prolonged exposure for these communities. Yet, the recognition of these levels of contamination in the drinking water supply shows the Town’s commitment to addressing this. Just last year, a granular activated carbon treatment facility was put in place. That system has reduced PFAS levels in finished drinking water by over 90%.

This lawsuit focuses only on the financial burden that Pittsboro faced because of past actions by these corporations. What is missing here is any accountability for the industries in the watershed that have been using those toxins and dumping the products into surface water. Elevate Textiles, Shawmut Textiles and Unichem in Burlington, and Lanxess, Shamrock Environmental, and the Piedmont Triad Airport in Greensboro continue to use and discharge these products. For multibillion dollar corporations, this lawsuit will have little impacts, unless this action is followed by other impacted communities pushing towards this same goal. These products have to be eliminated from all production lines at the source in order to protect communities not only in the Haw River watershed and North Carolina, but worldwide. These chemical corporations need to be held accountable. The Town of Pittsboro does not have the authority to ban PFAS products from being sold within the Haw River watershed. However, legislation has repeatedly been introduced in North Carolina to enforce that and has not been passed. Representative Pricey Harrison plans to reintroduce these bills this session. We need you to contact your representatives and ask for their support of those bills.

Haw River Assembly has been working with Southern Environmental Law Center to uphold the Clean Water Act and hold upstream polluters accountable. Our litigation work against the City of Burlington and the City of Greensboro has led to increased investigation to track sources and strict limits on discharges. However, we do not have the authority to require strict discharges limits on permits across the watershed. North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality does have that authority. Upcoming discharge permits will be the opportunity the set those limitations. Sanford’s wastewater treatment plant is currently under review and a public hearing is scheduled for March 7th at 6pm. Asheboro’s permit is also under review and the comment period closed earlier this month. We anticipate a public hearing within the next month. Greensboro, Reidsville, and Burlington are also in the queue for upcoming permit reviews. All of these permits also require public input. Haw River Assembly will be pushing our members to attend public hearings and submit comments to have the most protective permits for our river and our communities.

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Bird Flu comes to North Carolina

What does this mean for water quality?

In early February, experts across the state began to sound the alarm to another infectious outbreak in our state. As of mid-February, 65 strains of avian influenza have been detected in wild bird populations in several counties across the state. Though this virus does not pose an immediate threat as a vector to infect humans, this highly infectious strain of influenza has the poultry industry on high-alert, and for good reason.

In North Carolina, the poultry industry is largely unregulated, and the few regulations that are in place are not enforced. The Department of Environmental Quality has no records of where these facilities are located, how many birds are housed in each facility, or how much waste produced from these facilities is being applied on neighboring fields. Without a permitting system for poultry operations, this industry has been exponentially growing and polluting our streams and groundwater for decades. The latest outbreak of avian influenza shows us how this lack of oversight can quickly result in catastrophic impacts to both farmers and surrounding communities. Full post here.

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Trash Trout Installed in Third Fork Creek

On Saturday, February 12th, over a dozen people came out to the Third Fork Creek Trail in Durham to install the first Trash Trout in the Haw River watershed. The Trash Trout, a product of Asheville Greenworks, is a floating litter trap that will allow us to capture litter in Third Fork Creek before it moves along the creek and eventually in Jordan Lake.

This Trash Trout isn’t the solution to the problem of litter in our streams. With 920 miles of streams in our watershed, that kind of reactionary solution would not be sustainable. However, this Trash Trout is the first of what we hope to be several traps throughout the watershed. This trap is not only meant to capture litter, but to start a conversation about the issue of plastic pollution in our waterways. What would our streams look like if we had common sense policies to minimize single use plastics? How much litter could we prevent if businesses were incentivized to switch to compostable alternatives and skip the plastic bag? How many less bits of would be scattered across a stream bank if our cities took steps to ban it like other states and municipalities have?

Haw River Assembly, along with 15 Waterkeepers across North Carolina, is working with Duke Law and Policy Clinic, North Carolina Public Interest Research Group, and other plastics policy advocates to propose legislation that would move North Carolina on a better path towards litter reduction.

To read the full blog post, click HERE.

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EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap Explained

Earlier this month, EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited Raleigh, NC to unveil a new plan to regulate PFAS compounds over the next five years. This plan is a big step forward, and though much of the stronger pieces of enforcement fall on a longer timeline that we’d like, this plan provides state agencies the tools they need to regulate these compounds right away. However, the NC Department of Environmental Quality has released their own proposed plan that involves many more years of sampling and research before any meaningful regulation occurs. To read the good, the bad, and the next steps click here.

What’s happening with the MVP Southgate project?

May 2021

Last week, we learned that NCDEQ used it’s authority to reissue the denial of the stream crossing permit for the MVP Southgate project. This followed an original denial letter in August of 2020 and a federal court hearing that ruled NCDEQ had the authority to deny the permit. This is a huge win for impacted community members, and communities in the Dan and Haw River watersheds. See our press release here. MVP Southgate has a few options of how to proceed, but all options are costly and cause significant delays.
Additionally, MVP Southgate is now THREE YEARS behind schedule. The mainline project is four years behind schedule and $2.5 Billion over budget. These pipelines face an increasingly uncertain future. To read the full blog for MVP Southgate updates, click here.

Act Now: Support Clean Water Funding in North Carolina

North Carolina legislators have a chance to improve our state’s water quality. Take action NOW to ask our legislators to protect your water quality further with these easy 2021 budget inclusions.

Please take time to contact your legislators NOW. It’s easy, we have a letter ready for you to personalize!  https://actionnetwork.org/letters/water-lovers-demand-higher-water-quality-standards?source=direct_link& 

For talking points and a list of water protections we’re asking for, visit the full blog post here.

Restoring Eroded Farmland through Creative Partnerships

Controlling Erosion with Mushrooms

Saxapahaw, North Carolina is a tiny riverside village nestled against the Haw River in southern, rural Alamance County. It is a community of artists, environmentalists, creative business owners, chefs, and farmers. 

Two of these farmers, Ches and Laura Stewart, recently purchased new land to expand their mushroom business, moving them closer to Saxapahaw. Haw River Mushrooms grows a diverse variety of mushrooms, and boasts of creating a “business model that values people, profit, and planet.” After the first major rain event on the new farm, they quickly realized that there was no soil left to hold in stormwater runoff. The creek bisecting their farm ran bright orange with clay from the eroded banks and compacted soil from years of intensive livestock. Ches and Laura were concerned – they knew that unless something changed, erosion and runoff would continue to harm their land, the creek, and ultimately the community they care about, but they weren’t quite sure what to do. So they called their Riverkeeper. 

When Haw River Assembly got involved, we had the experience and tools to restore banks and minimize stormwater runoff, but Laura had a vision of something different. Mycoremediation is the science of using mushrooms to pull pollutants and toxins from water and soils. Rather than creating traditional check dams, we would use the byproduct of spent mushroom substrate as material for our erosion control. In addition to targeting the volume and velocity of the runoff, we would also be filtering the runoff before it reached the stream. Read the full post here.

Microplastics Study Measures Impact On Waterways

Durham – Measuring microplastics in North Carolina’s waterways is no small job. In collaboration with Waterkeepers Carolina, Haw River Assembly is launching a two-year study to collect surface water and sediment samples to understand better the volume of microplastics and macroplastic pollution in North Carolina’s streams, rivers, lakes, and bays.

The study “Improving Human and Ecosystem Health through Microplastic Reduction” launched in February as a collaborative project across 10 nonprofit environmental organizations. To get baselines, 15 Riverkeepers collected two surface water samples and sediment samples. This is the first of bi-monthly samples that will be collected over two years. Read the full post here.

To follow this study and learn more about North Carolina’s Riverkeepers’ work, visit Waterkeepers Carolina – https://waterkeeperscarolina.org.

What’s happening on the MVP Southgate fight?

Haw River Assembly, represented by Southern Environmental Law Center, has been approved to join the case to defend NC Department of Environmental Quality’s decision to deny the 401 permit. That decision, denied in August of 2020, was based heavily on the likelihood of MVP mainline not being successfully completed due to ongoing legal challenges, ballooning costs, and environmental violations. These challenges were also faced in the Atlantic Coast pipeline project, which was canceled and abandoned earlier this summer. 

Divestment meetings have begun with MVP mainline investors. Who are these investors? Big banks. Banks do not hold their customers’ money in the building, they use the money to invest in fossil fuel projects. Check out this report from Oil Change International, and make sure your money isn’t funding this fossil fuel projects. Read the full post here.

Building Relationships and Organizing Communities – Community Leader Spotlight of Brenda Hines

Written by Lucy Gray

Brenda Hines speaks very highly of community organization Down Home North Carolina, which is a group that is working to build multiracial power for working families across North Carolina, and which focuses on mobilizing small towns and rural communities. Ms. Hines has been a
member since Down Home began in 2017, and one of her current goals is making people aware about the effects of the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate project. The pipeline is proposed to cut through several central NC counties, including Alamance, which is where Down Home began.

“It takes a long time to develop relationships, and that’s what people have to be rooted in – the relationship building, not just the issue of the moment… Everybody is giving up something. Don’t be shortsighted because it’s a Black life or a Brown life in the forefront, but everybody is affected by it no matter what your racial background may be.”

View full post here.

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A quick update from your Haw Riverkeeper, Emily Sutton on Jordan Lake!

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MVP Updates

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Industrial Contaminate Updates

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