The Board of Directors of Clean Water for NC continues to evaluate various options for carrying out our mission with a smaller staff, and we have enlisted the help of former Executive Director Hope Taylor in resuming our community and policy work. She will work with the Board to prioritize our program work and resume our contacts with communities, partners and policy allies. You can reach Hope most afternoons at hope@cwfnc.org or 919-401-9600.   The post Clean Water for NC to Carry on Our Mission, Hope Taylor Returns first appeared on Clean Water for North Carolina ..read more

After several internal transitions, Clean Water for North Carolina has decided to step back, reevaluate, and take some much-needed time to refocus our efforts on environmental justice and drinking water advocacy. For almost 39 years, Clean Water has operated with the mission of promoting clean, safe water and environments, and empowered communities for all North Carolinians. Now, we plan to place a hold on our external, public-facing communications and shift gears to strategize for the future of the organization. We will be limited in our ability to take on volunteers, interns, and new progra ..read more

By: Lisa Sorg January 12, 2023 Around 6 o’clock on the evening of Friday, Dec. 30, when anyone who could be was mentally checked out for the holidays, the North Carolina Utilities Commission dropped one of its most important rulings of the last decade: The 137-page Carbon Plan, the commission's directive to Duke Energy to drastically reduce its carbon dioxide emissions and to do its part in thwarting a planetary crisis. However, many clean energy and environmental advocates quickly decried the plan as deferential to the utility. “Tragically, the NC Utilities Commission went along with Duke En ..read more

The Haw Riverkeeper routinely monitors sediment running off cleared land and into Gulf Creek, which feeds the Haw River. This picture was taken in September 2018. (Photo: Peter Theye) By: Lisa Sorg January 2, 2023 With stands of loblolly pine, rivers, creeks and expanses of farm fields, southeastern Chatham County feels like the country. But this neck of the woods is home to many polluting industries: Arauco, a wood products company with a history of air quality violations; the Shearon Harris nuclear plant; the former Brickhaven mine, where 7.3 million tons of coal ash is buried in lined cell ..read more

By: Will Atwater, North Carolina Health News December 6, 2022 After nearly three decades as a contract hog producer, Tom Butler is working with his son to return the family farm to a lagoon-free enterprise.   Tom Butler has had enough and wants out. In 1995, he and his brother Robert took over the family tobacco farm just as the industry was declining. Both their father and grandfather were tobacco farmers, but soon after taking over that legacy operation, they decided to pivot away from growing tobacco and signed on as contract hog growers for Prestage Farms. Tom Butler said he and his ..read more

  By: David Boraks November 18, 2022 The state's growing wood pellet industry came under fire at a meeting in Raleigh last night from scientists, activists and residents who live near wood pellet plants. The meeting's main target was Enviva, the world's largest wood pellet manufacturer, which has four plants in eastern North Carolina. The company cuts trees and turns them into wood pellets that are shipped to Europe to be burned for electricity. All four of Enviva's North Carolina plants are in counties with high poverty rates and large populations of people of color. At the meeting of t ..read more

Watch the Livestream! Press Release 828 Martin Luther King Boulevard is the location of a police station and 60,000 cubic yards of coal ash waste in Chapel Hill. The Town acquired the property after coal ash waste was already deposited, and discovered it in 2013.The Town’s plans for remediation uses the cap and contain approach, which includes some ash removal and off site disposal, capping with 3-4 ft of clean soil, a retaining wall and restricted use of groundwater.   In May, the Town hosted a meeting which included town staff, environmental consultants, and DEQ’s Brownfields program ..read more

By: Lisa Sorg November 14, 2022 Under a special state fund 658 drinking water wells were sampled for contamination, many of them in Wake County Since 2007 state regulators have sampled more than 5,500 private wells for potential contamination under the Bernard Allen Memorial Emergency Drinking Water Fund, according to an annual report filed by the Department of Environmental Quality. The state legislature created the fund — named after a former Wake County state legislator — in 2006. The money can be used to pay to notify persons whose wells are at risk of contamination, t ..read more

Our latest Clean Currents newsletter is available to read! Check out one of the articles below. Read Clean Currents Fall & Winter 2022 Finding Camaraderie at the EJ Summit In 1998, the 1st annual NC Community Environmental Justice (EJ) Summit was held at the historical Franklinton Center at Bricks in Whitakers, NC. The summit was created from groundwork done the year prior, and helped form the NC Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN) that we know today. This past October, Clean Water for NC staff were able to attend the most recent EJ Summit and connect with fellow advocates, academi ..read more

By: Robert Zullo November 7, 2022 Duke Energy facility in NC cited as among the worst contamination sites, but company pushes back   In the wake of major coal ash spills from power plant containment ponds in Tennessee and into the Dan River along the North Carolina and Virginia border, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2015 laid out the first federal rules for managing the ash, one of the nation’s largest waste streams, and the toxins it contains. But more than seven years later, few utilities and other owners responsible for the often unlined pits where billions ..read more