As the smoke clears from this year’s final legislative attacks on the environment, we look at some of the budgetary damage; plus more news, this week in CIB:

Legislative Watch: Budget Blues

When you’re talking about legislation 340 pages long and densely written, it naturally takes some time to sort through the impacts. With that caveat in mind, we note this week some of the bigger environmental items that stand out in the 2013 budget act approved July 25.

Water Quality loses: The Division of Water Quality (DWQ) was shut down and most of its functions sent to the Division of Water Resources (which formerly had responsibility only for state rules over water supply/large withdrawals issues). In the process, DWQ personnel are losing posts, and many even their jobs. Due to personnel losses, the combined budgets of the formerly separate divisions are cut by $2 million annually. This translates to a 15% cut of active employees (not including vacancies). It seems hard to imagine an action more clearly signaling this legislature’s disdain for clean water than the literal elimination of the state office charged with protecting water quality.

EMC fired: In a non-budgetary ‘special provision’ incorporating one of the worst ideas from the various “regulatory reform” bills, the budget fires all present members of the Environmental Management Commission (EMC). Several of the members who won’t be coming back are among the most experienced and technically knowledgeable voices for environmental quality. The EMC–and the state’s air and water quality protection efforts–take a heavy hit from this move.

Untrusted funding: The Natural Heritage Trust Fund, long a key source of funding for protection of critical natural areas, is eliminated and its revenues absorbed into the (greatly shrunken) Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Meanwhile, $1.65 million of this scarce money is earmarked for use of a controversial technology which would have no effect on the amount of pollution draining into Jordan Lake, but which supporters claim could mask some of the effects.

Biofuels Center defunded: The budget eliminated funding for the N.C. Biofuels Center, which represented a major effort to boost research and development of transportation fuel alternatives to petroleum. Since the state has been the principal funder of this center, it is now in the process of shutting down.

Judicial Watch: NC Sues Alcoa for Control of Yadkin River

The long-running fight between Alcoa aluminum corporation and various public and local government interests took a major new turn last week, when the state of North Carolina sued Alcoa over control of the river bottom and the dams which rest on it. (These are the dams at Badin Lake, in Stanly and Montgomery counties near the Uwharrie National Forest.)

Alcoa built the dams more than 50 years ago, receiving a federal license to build, own, and operate them in return for using the resulting hydroelectric power to operate its manufacturing facility, creating local jobs. Those plants are now closed, but Alcoa has continued to operate the dams and sell the power, retaining all profits, under the original license.

Alcoa has applied for a renewal of its FERC (Federal Electric Regulatory Commission) license, a request which is being fought by river groups and nearby local governments. The new state lawsuit signals that it is prepared to use the courts to assert its public interest in the use of the Yadkin River water.

On the same day, N.C. Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources announced that Alcoa has been denied a renewal of its Clean Water Act Section 401 Certification to operate the dams. An entire set of water quality issues, including toxic contamination of lake sediment, is involved in that related dispute.

Reacting to the double news, Yadkin Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks called the situation “both a media and legal nightmare for Alcoa”, adding “What a great day! Wow!”

More details can be read here.

Nuclear Update: Duke Set Back on Florida, SC Nukes

Two moves viewed as a setback for Duke Energy’s once-ambitious “nuclear renaissance” plans were announced last week.

First, Duke said that it was canceling an engineering and construction contract for its proposed Levy County, Florida, nuclear plant. The two reactor units there had been projected to cost up to $24 billion (at last estimate). Duke says it’s still planning to ask for a federal construction license while it decides whether or not to actually try to build it.

Second, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it does not expect to issue a construction license for Duke’s proposed Lee nuclear plant in upstate South Carolina before 2016, three years later than anticipated. The NRC indicates that this decision was affected by both redesigns in the proposed plant, and budgetary issues.

Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), called Duke’s move on the Levy County plant “absolutely…the right decision” and expressed approval that the “fleecing associated with this nuclear project will end.”

The clean energy citizen group NC WARN called the Levy decision “one more nail in the coffin of the ‘nuclear renaissance'”. Observers generally noted that the projected cost of the Levy units had exploded from “just” $4 billion to $6 billion when first announced in 2006, to nearly $25 billion in the most recent estimate. That’s a greater than 400% estimated cost rise in seven years.

Evidence continues to pile up that new commercial nuclear power plant construction is simply not financially feasible.

Conservationists: Maria Kingery, New NCLCV President

NCLCV has a new president: Maria Kingery, co-founder and now CEO of Southern Energy Management (SEM). SEM provides solar energy installations, energy efficiency and building services around the southeast and mid-Atlantic. Kingery, a resident of Raleigh, also serves as the board chair for the N.C. Sustainability Center, and a board member for the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

Kingery takes the head position for NCLCV following Nina Szlosberg-Landis. Szlosberg-Landis stepped down in May after more than a decade of service as a board member, vice president, and president of NCLCV (and its predecessor Conservation Council of NC).

CIB welcomes Maria to her challenging new role, and once again thanks Nina for years of outstanding leadership!

Education & Resources: Complete Streets; Rules That Create Jobs

Complete Streets: Are you interested in seeing the “complete streets” concept implemented in your community? That’s the new state policy of ensuring that pedestrian, biking, and transit access are part of new or renovated street construction. If so, then the N.C. Dept. of Transportation has a training opportunity for you (in fact, more than 20 of them around the state): http://www.completestreetsnc.org/training/

Rules That Create Jobs:In the eternal debate over whether environmental regulation is good or bad for the economy, the pro-rules side has a powerful new example. New fuel economy rules for autos are shown to be creating more American jobs in the auto industry: http://autos.aol.com/article/stringent-fuel-economy-rules-creating-jobs/