For the sake of North Carolina’s clean water future, the Governor’s veto must be upheld.
Governor Cooper has vetoed SB 582, which would remove state protections for millions of acres of North Carolina wetlands. For the sake of our clean water future, his veto must be upheld.
These at-risk wetlands act as natural sponges, soaking down stormwater runoff that would otherwise flood downstream land and communities, filtering out sediment that would clog our streams and pollutants that would foul our drinking water supplies. They serve as essential habitats for birds and other wildlife, and hatcheries for fish and shellfish. Clean water depends on working wetlands.
“We call on the legislature to sustain Governor Cooper’s veto of SB582 – The Farm Act,” said Dan Crawford, Director of Governmental Relations for the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV). “This bill shouldn’t have passed in the first place. It allows for mass destruction of our wetlands – millions of acres representing half of those currently protected. The real beneficiaries of this legislation are builders and developers; nobody who calls themselves a friend of the environment, clean air, or clean water can consider this anything other than a catastrophic rollback of protections fought for over the past 50 years. When you consider that a single acre of wetlands can store a million gallons of water – at a time we are in the midst of hurricane season and facing increasingly severe storms – there is no justification for supporting this bill. If we allow our wetlands to become parking lots, developments and highrises, this destruction will create irrevocable harm to our state. We will ultimately pay billions to repair the storm damage our current wetlands would protect us from. This bill is bad for clean water, bad for flood and storm mitigation, bad for the environment, bad for taxpayers, and bad for North Carolina.”
Read more on how SB 582 would wreak this damage, or read a more in-depth legal review.
