Environmental News to Use

Conservation Insider Bulletin
Published weekly for the Conservation Council of North Carolina
Conservation News to Peruse & Use
Editor: Dan Besse, earthvote@ccnccpac.org

April 20, 2007

The Navy's proposed landing field adjacent to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge continued to lose altitude this week. We present that story and more environmental policy news in this week's CIB:
--Washington Watch: More Congressional Voices Add to No-OLF Chorus; EPA Finally Allowed to Act on Small-engine Pollution
--CoastWatch: Endangered Neuse; Nags Head Skeptics
--Administrative Watch: Duke Won't Appeal Half-a-Cliffside Order

Washington Watch: More Congressional Voices Add to No-OLF Chorus; EPA Finally Allowed to Act on Small-engine Pollution

More Congressional Voices Add to No-OLF Chorus: The big turnout in Charlotte against the OLF, including participation from traditionally conservative groups like the NRA and "property rights" organizations, seems to have knocked Elizabeth Dole off the fence. The day after hundreds of North Carolinians from western and central North Carolina turned out to the Navy's final public hearing on the OLF, Senator Dole publicly voiced her opposition to the Navy's "preferred" site adjacent to the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Also speaking out against the site this week were other N.C. members of Congress, including Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC13), who called for the removal of funding for the OLF from this year's defense appropriations bill, pending a satisfactory resolution of the siting question. Both major Democratic candidates for governor in 2008 (Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and State Treasurer Richard Moore) sent representatives to the hearing to oppose the proposed site as well.

EPA Finally Allowed to Act on Small-engine Pollution: It came after years of dispute, including being tied up by Congress at the behest of U.S. Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) (who was doing the bidding of his home-state small-engine-manufacturer, Briggs & Stratton Corp.). This week, the EPA finally issued proposed rules tightening pollution controls on small engines (less than 50 horsepower), primarily lawnmowers and outboard boat engines. (Studies show that in some areas those engines account for up to 10 percent of urban smog-forming emissions.) Environmental groups praised the rules as being needed and long overdue. Comments will be accepted on the rules through August 3.

CoastWatch: Endangered Neuse; Nags Head Skeptics

Endangered Neuse: The national conservation group American Rivers this week released its annual list of the top ten most endangered rivers in the United States, and once again one of our own has received this dubious honor. The Neuse River was included among these threatened waterways, making the list for the fourth time in the last 12 years. According to the group, the Neuse is threatened by sediment and stormwater runoff, excess nutrients, and massive hog waste operations. For more details, go to the Neuse River Foundation website at www.neuseriver.org or American Rivers' site at www.americanrivers.org.

Nags Head Skeptics: The voters of Nags Head went to the polls this week to say neigh...excuse us, nay...on a proposal to subsidize beach renourishment (i.e., sand pumping) in front of threatened private structures. The town's voters turned down a referendum to increase property taxes for five years to pay a $24 million share of a $32 million sand-pumping project. The measure lost both townwide and (narrowly) even within a special oceanfront/oceanside district which would allegedly benefit most from the project. It looks like even beachfront towns are starting to get tired of pouring their cash into the surf.

Administrative Watch: Duke Won't Appeal Half-a-Cliffside Order

This is a good news—bad news kind of item from an environmental standpoint. Duke Energy announced this week that it won't seek court review of the N.C. Utilities Commission's order which authorized it to move forward with plans to build just one of two proposed new coal-fired units at the Cliffside plant in Cleveland and Rutherford counties.

From a clean air and climate change standpoint, that's considered good news, in that it reduces the chance that two new coal plants will be built at that location. Tactically, it's also bad news to some degree for environmental groups fighting the plants, as an appeal by Duke would have taken months or years. If those groups want the Utilities Commission's approval of one unit reviewed by the courts, now they will have to bring the appeal.

Alternatively, they could wait for the N.C. Division of Air Quality (DAQ) to issue the plant's air emissions permit, and challenge it. Duke says it won't make a decision on whether to actually build the plant until it reviews costs further, after DAQ acts on the permit request.

Plant opponents say that the additional coal-fired plant is unnecessary, and that Duke should instead be required to submit a plan for energy efficiency investments—which will cut both costs to consumers and air pollution.

That's CIB's report for this week. Happy Earth Day!