NC General Assembly adopts the 2023 Farm Act, endangering wetlands.

Millions of acres of North Carolina wetlands are now at grave risk of loss to drainage and development over the new few years. That’s the result of the polluter-dominated NC General Assembly’s override of Governor Cooper’s veto of SB 582, the “Farm Act” containing a trigger clause allowing massive wetlands destruction in our state.

Citizens and conservation advocates organized an all-out public education and advocacy campaign in support of Governor Cooper’s veto. Voices across North Carolina called for a pause in the rush to destruction of clean water. As a result, on the override votes the margins narrowed in both legislative chambers, especially in the NC Senate. In the end, however, it was not enough to overcome the death grip by big-money polluters on the party leaders now wielding a veto-proof majority in the NC General Assembly.

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.

As Dan Crawford, Director of Governmental Relations for NCLCV, said in calling on legislators to uphold Governor Cooper’s veto, “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 when 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 high-rises, this destruction will create irrevocable harm to our state. We will ultimately pay billions to repair the storm damage from which our current wetlands would protect us. 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.”

Now that the “Farm Act” has become law, this trail of wetlands destruction will begin. Tragically, it will continue until our state’s voters remove and replace the pro-polluter politicians who so recklessly abandoned their responsibilities to the long-term health of our state’s people and the clean water on which we all depend.