Let UNC know we don’t want their coal plant anymore!

 

By JennGaller

Every major polluting facility in the country must have an air permit to operate. Permits are required by Title V of the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act empowers state agencies to issue the Title V permits for each major polluting facility in the state. In North Carolina, the Division of Air Quality issues air permits. Title V permits must be renewed every five years.

North Carolina’s Division of Air Quality has just issued a draft of its air permit for the UNC coal plant. After a public comment period and public hearing, it will issue a final permit that will last for five years.

 

Talking Points/Comment Letter

· The draft permit will significantly increase pollution from the UNC coal plant and worsen the health impacts on the community.

· DAQ has removed the heat input limit from the draft permit, which allows UNC to burn even more coal and emit more toxic air pollution. 

· Without a heat input limit, there is no way to enforce the limit on the amount of pollutants that can be released from the coal plant’s smokestack.

· Without a heat input limit, this permit allows the UNC coal plant to pollute as much as it wants.

· This permit will lead to increased asthma attacks, respiratory illness, heart attacks, and premature death for the surrounding communities.

· The coal-burning power plant is located less than a quarter-mile from UNC Hospitals, harming the health of patients and worsening outcomes during a respiratory pandemic.

· The aging UNC coal plant is the dirtiest coal plant in the state. It has no scrubbers or other pollution control technologies, and UNC has not invested in any upgrades.

· This weakened permit will harm the adjacent Pine Knolls community, a historically and predominantly African American community that has already been disproportionately harmed by the UNC coal plant’s pollution.

 

What is the duration of the public comment period and how do I submit a comment?The public comment period began March 31 and will end May 6.

Comments can be submitted by email to DAQ.publiccomments@ncdenr.gov with the subject line ["UNC.15B"] You may also leave a voicemail comment at (919) 707-8726. Comments will be accepted until May 6, 2021 at 5 p.m.

When is the public hearing?

A public hearing will be held (by telephone) May 4 at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Here are the details about how to register and participate by phone:

Event title: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Date and Time: May 4, 2021 at 6 p.m.

Phone: US TOLL +1-415-655-0003, Access Code 185 344 4346

How can I sign up to speak?

If you wish to speak at the public hearing, you must register by May 4 at 4 p.m.

WebEx Link and Register to speak please visit: https://deq.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2021/03/31/release-public-hearing-draft-unc-title-v-permit-be-held-may-4 or call (919) 618-0968.

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Link to Winter 2021 League Line: https://www.bredl.org/theleagueline/Winter2021.pdf

#unc #cleanenergy #coalplant

 

 

Tracing the muddy tracks of MVP

 

By Ann Rogers 

Franklin and Roanoke Counties, Virginia have each taken action in response to a request from BREDL that they petition Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to require Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP, LLC) to revise its stormwater management calculations prior to any further pipeline construction in Virginia. Both counties requested that DEQ require these revisions in light of MVP, LLC's consistently abysmal failures to manage stormwater runoff during pipeline construction to date.

 

On October 6, 2020, Roanoke County forwarded to DEQ a request from BREDL and 49 residents of Roanoke County and neighboring communities to require MVP, LLC to revise the Project Specific Standards and Specifications for Virginia, the Erosion and Sediment Control Plans, and the Stormwater Management Plans for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), prior to any further pipeline construction in Virginia.

 On October, 20, 2020, the Franklin County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution requesting that DEQ provide appropriate plan revisions of the MVP project to protect surface and groundwater resources in Franklin County. The following are excerpts from the resolution:

 

WHEREAS Franklin County is required by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to implement a comprehensive stormwater management and erosion and sediment control program to reduce the environmental impacts of development projects within the County; and

WHEREAS Franklin County has been assigned a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for sediment in the Roanoke River and is required by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to implement an action plan to lower sediment loads to the Roanoke River to meet the TMDL; and

WHEREAS the required amount of land-disturbance associated with the MVP excavation far exceeds the area of all land disturbing activities in a typical year for Franklin County and has the potential to cause severe erosion in the County's steep mountainous terrain and sedimentation in the County's lakes, rivers and streams; and

WHEREAS many Franklin County Citizens rely on untreated groundwater from wells or springs for their domestic water supplies; and

WHEREAS the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) by letter dated October 6, 2020 has identified a number of continued concerns related to erosion and sediment controls and stormwater management in Virginia and Franklin County; and

WHEREAS without very careful engineering and construction oversight, erosion and sediment from the construction of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline could have severe negative consequences for the County's lakes, streams, and rivers as well as its domestic, agricultural, and business water supplies.

BREDL's October 6 letter to Franklin County, as cited in the resolution, was signed by 35 residents of Franklin County. The letter contains a map created by BREDL illustrating the MVP's 78 stream crossings in Franklin County. 

 An article in the October 23 Franklin News Post described the Franklin County Board of Supervisors meeting at which the County’s resolution passed unanimously, saying:

 

Speaking on behalf of North Carolina-based Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and a Franklin County group, Preserve Franklin, organizer Ann Rogers implored the board to demand that MVP submit erosion and sediment control and stormwater management plans specifically for Franklin County sites to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

 

Rogers asserted that considerable damage has already been done by the pipeline construction and the continuation risks tons of excess sediment washing into the Blackwater River and Smith Mountain Lake. In a Wednesday phone interview she said she believed an attempt by MVP to come up with specific stormwater plans for the county would show that the potential problems could not be managed.

 

At the meeting, board members were on board with her. “When we have all these rains, it seems like our rivers and streams are a lot more dirty, a lot more mud running through those,” said Blackwater District Supervisor Ronnie Mitchell. “Everywhere you see the pipeline, it’s bare ground. There’s very little vegetation growing on it.”

 

Rocky Mount District Supervisor Mike Carter pointed out flooded pipeline sites that drain into the town’s water system. “I do not understand why Mountain Valley cannot get this route under control,” he said.

 

County Administrator Chris Whitlow noted that the county made a similar request in 2015, which was not fulfilled. Assistant County Administrator Steve Sandy explained that the county has no enforcement power over MVP’s erosion control measures.

 

“This board has done this in the past,” said Boone District Supervisor Ronnie Thompson. “They’re not doing what they promised, and our hands are tied, and it’s very frustrating, it’s very aggravating.”

 

On October 26, the Blue Ridge Soil and Water Conservation District unanimously passed a resolution requesting that DEQ “consider the concerns raised by BREDL and determine whether revisions or project specific erosion and sediment control and stormwater management plans for environmentally sensitive areas of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline project that meet all Virginia standards, should be required to ensure that the continued pipeline construction will not have detrimental impacts to the tributaries of the Roanoke River, Blackwater River, Smith Mountain Lake and our aquatic life including the endangered Roanoke logperch.”

 BREDL presented a request for revision of the MVP erosion and sediment control and stormwater management plans directly to DEQ and the State Water Control Board on December 9.

 Thank you to our chapter members and allies in Roanoke and Franklin Counties who signed our requests to their county governments, and thanks to the governments of Roanoke County and Franklin County for taking significant action at the request of their constituents.

 We in BREDL look forward to next steps.

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Link to Winter 2021 League Line: https://www.bredl.org/theleagueline/Winter2021.pdf

#NoMVP #pipelines 

LEAGUE LINE DIRECTOR’S REPORT:The tears of things

 

By Lou Zeller, Executive Director 

The test of our time is raised in sharp relief by the corona virus; that is, the manner in which we confront the plague which has claimed four hundred thousand lives in the U.S. alone and over two million worldwide. 
But will we set our sights high enough? Or will we settle for the possible? Justice and simple fairness require more.

 

The encyclical letter of Pope Francis, quoted below, takes issue with the business-as-usual approach to international relations, an observation extending beyond public health.

 

“We are reminded of the well-known verse of the poet Virgil that evokes the ‘tears of things,’ the misfortunes of life and history.  All too quickly, however, we forget the lessons of history, ‘the teacher of life.’ Once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egotistic self-preservation . . .. If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as a result of the dismantling, year after year, of healthcare systems.” [1] 

 

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. invoked thunder with his sermon most often remembered as accepting of a drum major for justice; however, only as an exception and otherwise unapproving of self-centered drum majors. In his sermon, he was critical of the world’s major drummer, saying, “But this is why we are drifting. And we are drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. ‘I must be first.’ ‘I must be supreme.’ ‘Our nation must rule the world.’  And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I'm going to continue to say it to America, because I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken.” [2]

 

Recent reports on COVID-19 vaccines by the World Health Organization lambast widespread profit-seeking and favoring of the rich over the poor.  Healthier adults in wealthy countries are getting vaccinated before older people or health care workers in poorer countries. WHO’s Director-General Tedros said, “Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest income country—not 25 million, not 25,000—just 25. I need to be blunt: The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure.” The people he referred to are in the west African nation of Guinea.[3]

 

Pope Francis offers further insights, based on meetings with Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb and representatives of many faiths, recognizing all human beings as equal in rights, duties and dignity. He said:

 

“True, a worldwide tragedy like the Covid-19 pandemic momentarily revived the sense that we are a global community, all in the same boat, where one person’s problems are the problems of all . . .. If everything is connected, it is hard to imagine that this global disaster is unrelated to our way of approaching reality, our claim to be absolute masters of our own lives and of all that exists . . .. The world is itself crying out in rebellion.” [1]

 

In Virgil’s epic poem, Aeneas sees a mural that depicts battles of the Trojan War and the deaths of his friends and countrymen. Aeneas is moved to tears and says, “There are tears of things and mortal things touch the mind.” [4]

 

Pope Francis concludes, “If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless but enable us to take a step forward towards a new style of life. If only we might rediscover once for all that we need one another, and that in this way our human family can experience a rebirth, with all its faces, all its hands and all its voices, beyond the walls that we have erected.” [1]

 

- - -

[1] Encyclical Letter, “Fratelli Tutti” Pope Francis on Fraternity and Social Friendship, October 3, 2020

 

[2] Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Sermon Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, on 4 February 1968

 

[3] “WHO chief lambasts vaccine profits, demands elderly go first,” Associated Press, 1/18/2021

 

[4] The Aeneid, Book I, line 462

 

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Link to Winter 2021 League Line: https://www.bredl.org/theleagueline/Winter2021.pdf

Chatham Citizens Against Coal Ash Dump : Endurance prevails

Photo from Chatham News-Record

    By Judy Hogan

January 6, 2021 a coal ash victory, at last! In 2014, I didn’t want to be an activist any more. It took too much time, and I’d been fighting environmental issues in Moncure since the summer before I moved here. It was a low-level nuclear dump then, and I wanted the house I’d found and could afford, so I said I’d buy the house and join the fight. I’ve been fighting ever since 1998. Somehow I thought we’d win, but I had no reason to believe that, and it didn’t happen fast.

Then we won in the Superior Court with Judge Fox, but the Court of Appeals sent us back to the first court, and she, who had ruled against us in 2016, ruled for us in 2020. It took a year for Charah to admit that they would not contest her judgment, and papers were signed to mean we had won. As early as 2015, our own Board of Commissioners had made a deal with Duke for receiving 19 million dollars for taking 12 million tons of coal ash. Meantime, some of our activists –Terica Luxton, Johnsie Tipton, and John Cross --had all died of cancer. The groundwater became polluted. The coal ash was being put down where the land was known to have dikes and other irregularities such that it was impossible to monitor the groundwater accurately. The site was wrong, but it took years to win in court.

 

BREDL Chapters EnvironmentaLEE and Chatham Citizens Against Coal Ash, Duke intern Kristina McKean and BREDL’s Therese Vick outside the courtroom (“mine reclamations” case)  August 6, 2019

 

Dr Andrew George (UNC) presenting well-test results at Chatham Citizens Against Coal Ash Dump meeting June 7, 2019

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Link to Winter 2021 League Line: https://www.bredl.org/theleagueline/Winter2021.pdf

#coalash

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EnvironmentaLee Organized to WIN

 

By Debbie Hall and Keely Wood

 

For the past six years, ELEE has been involved with the battle to keep coal ash out of Lee and Chatham Counties, North Carolina.  Part of our effort to achieve that goal sent us into the Colon Community, canvassing the residents, gleaning information that would help us understand the people and what was important to them.  We learned that the clay holes Duke Energy/Charah proposed to “reclaim” were used for the fishing and hunting that supplemented food resources. When Mt. Calvary Baptist Church opened its doors as a meeting place for us, we engaged with the concerned community residents.  We held many fundraisers, ate cornbread and pintos, attended gospel sings, and even looked for Big Foot. We talked, we listened, and under the leadership of BREDL Community Organizer, Therese Vick, we planned actions. We learned of possible legacy contamination that had already claimed some wells in a disenfranchised community. That contamination made it impossible for some residents to drink or use their water in any way.

We attended Lee County Commissioners’ meeting with Colon residents, provided bottled water donated by many churches in the area, and purchased water filters for the affected households.  We rejoiced as Lee County Commissioners extended county water to the community. We heard stories of past industry “sharing” coal cinders to pave driveways, and an unusually large number of people who suffered from illness. The Colon Community became more to us than another community faced with industrial abuse -- they became our neighbors and friends.  Their backyards became our own. 

We are grateful for the reversal of decision from Judge Owens Lassiter.  It was the right thing.  It was proof that our voices and a community’s justifiable concerns matter.  We are grateful to Therese Vick, John Runkle, and Cathy Cralle-Jones for their untiring leadership and work. We remember those faithful activists who left us way too soon. We are thankful and proud to be a BREDL Chapter. There are so many thanks to be given, hugs to be hugged, pats on the back, and of course, food to be shared. But that will have to wait.

 

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Link to Winter 2021 League Line: https://www.bredl.org/theleagueline/Winter2021.pdf

#coalash