Defending clean water rules
As the state’s legislative short session begins, Environment North Carolina is gearing up to defend attempts by developers to overturn critical clean water rules.

In 2005 a state panel approved rules that would protect coastal waters and rivers, lakes, and streams from polluted runoff in the state’s fastest-growing counties. But powerful developers, who have been fighting the rules for years, are expected to work with their champions in the Legislature to either dilute the rules or overturn them altogether.

Polluted runoff occurs when rain hits paved surfaces and carries dirt, oils, toxic residues, and other pollutants directly into waterways, poisoning fish and wildlife and degrading surface drinking water supplies. Polluted runoff is considered to be the leading threat to water quality in the state.

Proposed mercury rules inadequate
Governor Easley and state officials are planning to adopt rules that would not require any reductions in mercury emissions from the state’s power plants until 2017 or later.

Scientists estimate that one in six women has enough mercury in her body to put her child at risk should she become pregnant. North Carolina’s power plants emit 58 percent of the mercury that ends up in our state’s waterways. That pollution has resulted in mercury-related fish consumption advisories that cover every mile of the state’s coastal waterways and all waters south and east of I-85.

Several states have moved to require mercury reductions of 80 percent or more in the coming years, but North Carolina’s mercury plan more closely resembles the plan proposed by the Bush administration. That plan, which is being contested in court by Environment North Carolina and other groups, allows power plants to emit six to seven times more mercury than what is achievable and required by the nation’s Clean Air Act.

Protection proposed for North Fork First Broad
Thanks to Environment North Carolina, working together with Concerned Citizens of Rutherford County, officials are proposing the state’s highest protections for the North Fork First Broad near South Mountains State Park in western North Carolina.

Environment North Carolina worked with the local citizens’ group to
file a petition with state officials for the protection of the First Broad—
one of the state’s last pristine waterways—from development. As a result, officials are finalizing a plan to designate the river an “Outstanding Resource Water.”

If approved by the Environmental Management Commission, the measure will protect the river and the rare wildlife habitat there by restricting development near the river and barring future pollution from being discharged into its waters.