Pipeline, chemicals and coal ash will lead North Carolina environmental news in 2020
Our reporters are writing about what they expect to be some of the big topics on their beats in 2020.
The futures of many North Carolina communities may turn in 2020 on a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
Construction of the 600-mile pipeline planned to run from West Virginia, through Virginia and through eight counties in North Carolina has stalled while environmental groups challenge the permits it has received from the government. Environmental groups scored a victory in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 with a ruling that the U.S. Forest Service did not have the authority to allow the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail.
Dominion Energy is leading a group of pipeline developers that includes Duke Energy that is appealing the lower court decision.
Pipeline spokesman Aaron Ruby said in an email when the Supreme Court decided to hear the case that a ruling for the pipeline would allow construction to resume by late summer.
Doug Jackson of the Sierra Club said in an email that the pipeline faces obstacles to completion no matter what the Supreme Court decides.
Environmental groups in North Carolina have appealed unsuccessfully to the the state Department of Environmental Quality to reconsider a crucial permit it granted the pipeline in early 2018. They argue the pipeline is unnecessary and will disproportionately harm communities of color.
On the political side, Republicans in the legislature may act on an investigative report they commissioned on Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s role in establishing a $57 million mitigation fund that was announced at the same time as the permit approval. The report concluded that Cooper improperly used his authority to get the pipeline developers to commit to the mitigation fund, The News & Observer has reported. Cooper’s office has called the investigation a sham and the report full of inaccuracies.
Ongoing conflict over coal ash
In April ,the DEQ ordered Duke Energy to dig up coal ash deposited in nine pits at six power plants and take the residue to lined landfills. Duke Energy had excavated coal ash from about two dozen other pits, but had planned to put caps on nine pits and keep the ash in place. Duke Energy has appealed DEQ’s order. The company has had several setbacks in administrative court, including a ruling that DEQ had the authority to order the excavations.
Coal ash has been at the forefront of state environmental concerns since 2014, when a broken pipe sent about 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River.
At the federal level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump is likely to finalize a rule that loosens coal ash regulations. One of the changes would remove the cap of 12,400 tons of coal ash that can be used for fill without performing an environmental assessment.
Environmentalists said they will probably sue to stop the changes, The New York Times reported.
Forever chemicals
A statewide network of researchers is expected to release in mid-October its final report on levels of PFAS chemicals in state air and water. PFAS are family of manmade chemicals, including GenX, that don’t break down and can accumulate in the human body.
There’s evidence that PFAS can harm human health. The EPA set a health advisory of 70 parts per trillion for two types of PFAS in drinking water.
The state legislature gave the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory — a UNC research partnership that focuses on natural resources — about $5 million in 2018 to assemble a group of researchers into the N.C. PFAS testing network. The Collaboratory has directed an additional $2.3 million toward the project.
PFAS are widely used in consumer products such as stain-resistant carpet, grease-resistant food containers, nonstick cookware and waterproof clothes.
A team of researchers reported PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear River in 2016. The source was the Chemours plant in Fayetteville. The discovery resulted in a consent order where Chemours paid the state Departmental Quality a $12 million fine.
Wild red wolves are close to disappearing in North Carolina
The reintroduction of red wolves into the wild is faltering — no pups born in the wild this year, no breeding pairs, and as few as 11 individuals, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has stopped management actions that helped restore red wolves, and stopped issuing reports on what it was doing, said Sierra Weaver, a senior attorney with the law center .
The law center has a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking documents about restoration efforts.
“I think 2020 is the year when the Fish and Wildlife Service decides whether we’re going to have a population of wild red wolves,” Weaver said.
Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild in 1980, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service website. The federal agency launched an effort to restore wolves to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in 1987.
At its peak, the wild population reached 130, Weaver said.
In a November letter to the U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, Gov. Roy Cooper said the Fish and Wildlife Service should work to rebuild the wild population.
“The American red wolf is on the brink of extinction in the wild,” Cooper wrote. “I urge the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to act immediately to rebuild and sustain a wild red wolf population.”
A Fish and Wildlife spokesman said in an email that an update is under review.
Lynn Bonner covers the environment. For smart, reliable and timely coverage of the issues you care about, subscribe to The News & Observer at newsobserver.com/subscribe or subscribe to The Herald-Sun at heraldsun.com/subscribe.