The state flushes away key clean water research funding, plus more news, this week in CIB:

Executive Watch: Water Resources Down the Drain

The NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is laying off staff because of legislative funding cutbacks and reorganization–but is also turning down almost $600,000 in federal funding for needed monitoring of water quality and wetlands by a division being slashed of staff. The combination speaks loudly of the low priority being placed by the current DENR administration on both protection of clean water and solid scientific research.

One of two grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) being turned back is a $359,710 grant to establish a long-term wetlands monitoring network in the Piedmont and coastal plains regions. That’s work that would greatly inform the state’s analysis of requests to dredge and fill wetlands. John Dorney, who two years ago retired as the long-time head of the state’s wetlands regulatory unit within DENR, explained that his former unit relied on the grant funding to make its scientific analysis possible. That unit is being disbanded by this DENR administration when its current grant funding expires.

The current head of DENR’s water resources division says the money is not needed to carry out the department’s new priorities as defined by DENR Secretary John Skvarla. Water Resources Division Director Tom Reeder said, “Quite simply the grants were not needed for the division to meet our core mission…We’re simply slimming down.”

More details and discussion are available in an article for the N.C. Coastal Federation’s Coastal Review here.

The other grant being declined is for $222,595 for monitoring water quality in areas that could be impacted by potential fracking operations. It would establish water quality “baselines” against which to compare potential future contamination. Gathering such data is viewed by environmental resource professionals as an essential part of effectively regulating the potential impacts of fracking.

This baseline monitoring was a key recommendation in the state’s own 2012 report on oil and gas exploration issues. Refusing to accept funding to carry out that monitoring is nearly inexplicable–the agency equivalent of sticking fingers in one’s ears and shouting LA LA LA LA.

Fifteen citizen conservation groups, including NCLCV, co-signed a letter sent last week to the Mining and Energy Commission (MEC), urging it to ask DENR to reverse its decision to decline the grant. The letter argues that rejecting the grant “undermines [MEC’s] mandate from the N.C. General Assembly” to establish a modern regulatory program for fracking.

According to EPA sources, the North Carolina decision to decline the new funding may be nationally unprecedented. State Sierra Club director Molly Diggins called the unprecedented refusal to take the grant a part of the current administration’s deliberate effort to starve DENR of resources and “hamstring” its effectiveness.

We cannot offer any other rational explanation of DENR’s decisions.

Judicial Watch: AG Appeals Another Duke Rate Hike

Here we go again: The NC Utilities Commission last week approved another rate hike for Duke Energy Carolinas. The increase is Duke’s third since 2009.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who opposed the requested hike in proceedings before the Commission, announced that his office would appeal the latest rate hike approval to state court. Cooper’s appeal of the most recent previous hike (granted in 2011) resulted in the N.C. Supreme Court returning the decision to the Commission for further review. That matter is still pending a conclusion, even while the latest case goes forward.

As in that case, a substantial part of this latest rate hike would go to cover new power plant construction costs. Cooper argues that the Commission again failed to adequately consider impacts on electricity consumers. (Information for this item is taken in part from Associated Press coverage published 9/26/13.)

That’s our report for this week.