2006 State of the Environment

Each year, Jack Betts and the Charlotte Observer pick North Carolina's ten most pressing environmental issues:

Energy Policy: The state's most pressing challenge: how to encourage conservation, cleanup, alternative fuels.

Hog Waste: It's been more than a decade since a hog lagoon brimming with feces and urine overflowed into eastern waterways.

Climate Change: Global warming especially threatens wildlife habitat in the northeastern region of the state.

Gentrification of the coast: Fishing families have moved away from waterfronts as individuals built huge houses.

Political interference: North Carolina has a long tradition of adopting good conservation laws but letting political considerations undermine good intent.

Landfills: There are proposals to build six mega-landfills in Eastern North Carolina.

Air pollution: The job of cleaning up the air is not done.

Declining wildlife refuges and national parks: Developed land in the N.C. mountains increased 77 percent during the past two decades.

Polluted runoff: Stormwater control rules were adopted in 2006, but there are glaring holes.

Loss of forests, traditional viewscape and natural areas: Strong growth has resulted in the consumption of 100,000 acres of trees and forests each year.

I see a few in there that we've worked on.  You can read the full article here, and tell us what you think are the state's top environmental issues by commenting below.