water

From Carolina Newswire:

"Establishing significant reductions in the amount of water transferred out of the Catawba River during drought conditions has enabled the Protect the Catawba Coalition and Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation, Inc. to reach an agreement with the cities of Concord and Kannapolis to resolve the appeal of the Interbasin Transfer (IBT) granted Concord and Kannapolis by the State of North Carolina.

[...]

Catawba Riverkeeper David Merryman approved of the settlement, stating “When coupled with the amendments that the North Carolina General Assembly made in the IBT law, this agreement will ensure the future protection of the Catawba River and its environment, while assuring adequate access to water by Catawba River basin residents and our neighbors."

Congrats to our friends at the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation! For more information, check out this article.

This past weekend, there was a great article in the New Bern Sun Journal about a man contributing his time and passion to cleaning up the Neuse River. Marty Lawrence is a volunteer of the Neuse RiverKeeper Foundation, and takes part in two of their programs: RiverWatch and Muddy Water Watch. From the article:

"His Riverkeeper foundation volunteer duties include maintaining and updating the library – cataloging the history of the Neuse over the years by converting nearly 300 VSH tapes to DVD and organizing printed media clippings.

'It is a way to preserve the history,' he said.

He hopes that the work can eventually be uploaded to the foundation Web site as a resource for anyone interested in the history of protecting the river."

I wanted to pass along this article because we so seldom hear stories in the news media today of passionate people doing great work--cheers, Marty!

I really don't want to be one of those people who doesn't have the ability to believe in any politician because of the ill deeds of a (small?) group of corrupt leaders. And luckily, I'm not that jaded...yet. But I must say I was quite disheartened to learn that back in 2002 former Governor Easley was not exactly practicing what he preached. As he encouraged North Carolinians to cut down on water use during a horrible statewide drought, he apparently also was ensuring that his golf course was not suffering from the water restrictions that every one else was facing. From the Charlotte Observer:

"[Easley] was the first Southern governor to seek federal disaster aid because of the drought. A high-profile visit to a Wake County farm showed a concerned governor sifting through the stunted shoots of a shriveled corn field. In mid-August he issued an executive order halting non-essential water use and creating a Water System Protection Team to study water restrictions.

It was just the sort of thing a governor ought to do in a crisis. But what only a few insiders in Raleigh knew was that his administration was helping Easley's golf club get permission to pump millions of gallons from a tributary of a major water supply to water the club's greens. Despite warnings from some officials about how it would look if the public caught on, the Easley administration cleared the way for Old Chatham Golf Club to pump 450,000 gallons a day from Northeast Creek, which eventually flows into Jordan Lake, a source of water for Cary in Wake County and for Chatham County."

And there's plenty more where that came from: an editorial from the Greensboro News and Record, an article from the Raleigh News & Observer, and an editorial also from the N&0.

Is there no end to the hypocrisy of the people we are supposed to trust?

It's been 20 years since the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill tainted Alaska's Price William Sound with over 11 million gallons of oil. I was only 10 when the spill happened, but I remember hearing about it, watching stories on the news, and being shocked by the damage done to plants, animals, and the beautiful coast. I recently came across a question from a reader of E-Magazine who asked, "I haven’t heard much of late about big oil spills like the infamous Exxon Valdez. Has the industry cleaned up its act, or do the media just not report them?"

Their response provides a basic recap of what's been done over the past 20 years in terms of deterring another accident like the Valdez spill, and discusses what still needs to be done. It's a short article and worth a quick read if you have time!

From the Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Last year, around this time, I posted on the discharging of human waste into the sounds and oceans near Wrightsville. I was so disgusted by the thought of it all that I couldn't resist posting again, this time regarding a call for public comments on a proposed waste discharge ban in New Hanover county-area waters. From Star News Online:

"The Environmental Protection Agency has determined there are enough waste-pumping stations in New Hanover County to support banning boaters from discharging their waste into the area’s coastal waters.

[...]

The proposed no-discharge zone would cover the entire coast of New Hanover County, out to three nautical miles, plus the Intracoastal Waterway and all the tidal creeks that drain to it. The effort was started by officials in Wrightsville Beach who were concerned about swimming advisories due to high bacteria counts in Banks Channel. Researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington found evidence pointing to human waste as the likely culprit."

I did some digging and found the link to the EPA site regarding this issue. If you scroll to the bottom, the public comment details are there. Check it out!

No, I'm not talking about Now and Laters, the delicious fruit-flavored candy that provides a tangy treat for any occasion; I'm talking about Falls Lake: a major drinking water source for all of Raleigh and much of Wake County which is very polluted and in need of some drastic clean up measures. However, the cities of Raleigh and Durham are arguing over when the clean up should happen. Raleigh says NOW while Durham says LATER. From the News & Observer:

"No question, Falls Lake -- the reservoir serving 435,000 Wake County residents -- is polluted. No question, it must be cleaned up and better protected against future pollution. The question is -- when?

Raleigh says now. Durham says later. Either way, it could be very expensive for taxpayers. Estimates for a similar cleanup program at Jordan Lake run to more than $2 billion. And more than taxpayer dollars are at stake -- in the name of preventing present and future pollution of Falls Lake, the new rules could place significant and potentially pricey restrictions on developers, homebuilders and homeowners, local governments, road construction and agriculture.

July 1 was the deadline for the N.C. Division of Water Quality to have a cleanup plan for Falls Lake. They're still working on it. In the meantime, the state legislature could give the stalled cleanup effort a jump-start."

I'm sure there's much more to the debate than my candy-ridden brain can understand, but there seems to be a bottom line here: we're talking about drinking water. Public health. You know, not being sick. If there's no argument that Falls Lake needs cleaned up--why would we wait for things to get worse if the health of Wake County residents is at stake?

In recent years, increased stormwater contamination and point source discharges have contributed increasingly high levels of bacteria and nutrients that threaten the health and beauty of the Falls Lake State Recreation Area and Water Supply Reservoir. Today, the Lake is listed as “impaired,” a status that requires the State to take certain actions to improve the condition of the water.

Recently, the state Division of Water Quality asked for another two-and-a-half-year extension to delay any action to clean up this vital water supply. This extension should not be granted, and measures must be taken to protect and clean up Falls Lake. We mustn’t delay this process any longer as the longer we wait, the more sickly Falls Lake and surrounding waters get, and the more costly this process will be.

Send an email by clicking here to your legislators asking them to clean up Falls Lake without delay!

Click here to take action!

With more hogs than people in the state, hog farming is a huge issue in NC. Even more so, our 10 million hogs generate about 13 million pounds of hog waste per day – posing a huge problem of how to properly dispose of this raw waste in a manner that doesn’t affect our water supplies, public health or quality of life.

There is a proposal for a new monitoring rule that would make sure that industrial animal facilities are properly handling their waste and complying with the law, just as any other industry is required to do. The enhanced monitoring at livestock operations will evaluate the effectiveness of the industry's waste management measures, enable accurate compliance oversight by the state, and ensure that the public and state agencies are able to identify water quality trends related to the performance of livestock operations. The information gained through this monitoring rule will aid in the protection of North Carolinians’ public health, water quality and quality of life.

Take action today and send an email to the NC Division of Water Quality - they need to know that you support this rule! For more information, please visit our Tell Me More page.

In honor of Earth Day, I watched a great documentary last night on our nation's contaminated water supplies. Aired by PBS through their show Frontline, Poisoned Waters takes a look at some of the major drinking water sources in the United States and delves into the sticky issues of agricultural and pesticide contamination, fish kills, endocrine disruptors, PCB contamination (just to name a few) and how these issues are impacting public health.

You can watch the full program or read the interviews with some of the people highlighted in the documentary.

Check it out if you have time--it's definitely worth the watch. Happy Earth Day!!!!

[This blog entry has been cross posted from NC Policy Watch's weblog, The Progressive Pulse, where it was originally posted by Rob Schofield, editor.]

How polluters and ideologues are attempting to block the clean-up of a vital water resource.

In case the recent deregulation-induced meltdown of much of world capitalism wasn't enough to convince you, here's another reminder of why the myth of the infallible "free market" is just that - a myth: It's a little thing called "the environment."

The guiding premise of the market fundamentalist ideology extolled by the likes of Milton Friedman, cinema icon Gordon Gekko and Raleigh's local conservative think tanks is, in essence, that "greed is good." If humans pursue what's in their own selfish interests, goes the tired old mantra, the "invisible hand" of the market will make it all work out for the overall societal good. While the flaws in this crude and often evil ideology are plain to see in many areas, the environment is one of the most obvious examples. It is precisely this "what's in it for me?" approach to human behavior that has left modern society on the cusp of ecological catastrophe. Dying oceans, disappearing species, and a rapidly warming planet - all remind us on a daily basis that we humans are in deep trouble if we don't start working together to curb (or at least alter) our individual appetites.

Unfortunately, turning such macro-realizations into practical policy solutions on the ground (or in the air or water) can be incredibly difficult - especially when shortsighted public officials and businesspeople team up with polluters and conservative ideologues to make sure that each and every attempt at incremental regulatory improvement is the equivalent of an administrative law steel-caged death match. (more...)