Our state’s highest court last week let Duke out of legal time pressure on coal ash cleanup. This week in CIB..

Judicial Watch: Duke Can Take Its Time With Ash Pits Cleanup

North Carolina’s state Supreme Court last week torpedoed chances for accelerated cleanup by Duke Energy of most coal ash pits in the state. The Court ruled that Duke was bound by state legislation passed last year requiring action to cap or remove all ash pits by 2029, instead of by a trial court’s order last year requiring “immediate action” for cleanup. Under legislation upheld as applicable to the case, only four ‘high-priority’ coal ash sites must close by 2019.

The state Supreme Court’s order disappointed environmental advocates who had cheered Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway’s ruling last year that Duke was to take “immediate action” to clean up groundwater pollution seeping from its unlined coal ash pits. Environmentalists criticized state legislators last year for passing legislation to allow Duke to stretch out its cleanup schedule for another 15 years. It was noted at the time that the bill undercut Ridgeway’s court order mandating much faster cleanup action. Last week’s Supreme Court order confirmed the damage done to state water quality protection by that legislation.

The Court’s ruling came in a case originally brought by several river watch/riverkeeper and other environmental groups in 2012 against the N.C. Environmental Management Commission (EMC). The groups sued the EMC for its determination that Duke could delay cleanup of groundwater pollution so long as it developed a plan for stopping it at some future time. (Some of the information for this item was taken from an Associated Press article appearing 6/12/15 in the Winston-Salem Journal.)

Legislative Watch: Buffers and Bike Lanes

Another week, another package of “regulatory reform.”

Last week in the NC Senate, it was local government rules on the hot seat (or in the guillotine, as the case may be). What started in the House as one-page bill HB 44, “Cities/Overgrown Vegetation Notice” metastasized in the Senate into the 18-page HB 44, “Local Government Regulatory Reform.”

Among the new bill’s most controversial, anti-environmental measures is a provision to exempt most properties in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river basins from the riparian buffer requirements so important to protecting water quality. Sen. Josh Stein (D-Wake) prepared an amendment to remove that provision, but held it after an agreement was reached to postpone the final Senate floor until this week to provide time for him to confer with the Senate’s designated local government “reformer” Sen. Trudy Wade (R-Guilford).

Meanwhile, the bill retains a provision requiring N.C. Board of Transportation approval for any local government which wants to reduce auto lane space in order to install bike lanes on a designated state route within that local jurisdiction. The thinking appears to reflect a conclusion that cars are legitimate state vehicles while bicycles are not – perhaps because they don’t require oil to run. Sen. Mike Woodard offered an amendment to leave these decisions to the local governments in question, but it was voted down.

Most of the problematic provisions in the bill were lifted from one or another of the “rules reform” packages that have been rolled through one chamber or another this year. For more details on problem provisions within the new and ‘improved’ HB 44, see here.

Conservationists: Glazier Heads to Justice Center

The NC Justice Center’s gain this fall will be the NC General Assembly’s loss. Representative Rick Glazier announced last week that following the end of the 2015 session he will step out of his House seat to take the post of executive director at the Justice Center.

As a legislator, Glazier (D-Cumberland) has been a strong and eloquent voice for protection of public health and our environment. A seven-term member of the House, he has a 94% lifetime positive score on the NCLCV Environmental Scorecard. He was honored as “Defender of the Environment” at NCLCV’s 2011 Green Tie Awards.

Education & Resources: Drilling Deep Into the Offshore Issue

Coastal Review Online last week started a four-week series of online articles exploring the background and complexity of the offshore drilling issue in North Carolina. Week one provided an overview of the “Science, Politics & Process.” Week two started today going into the “Pros, Cons & Reality.” Interested citizens who hadn’t yet discovered the series can start out with a little binge-reading here.

The series is designed in part to build interest and lead up to a special hearing hosted by the NC Coastal Federation in New Bern on July 31.

That’s our report for this week.