Environmentalists say they are fighting a defensive battle this session of the North Carolina General Assembly, hoping to fend off changes in state law that they believe threaten the state’s air, water and other natural resources.
Changes afoot in the Republican-controlled legislature would limit local governments’ power to create buffer zones beside streams, shield agribusinesses from high damage awards in certain types of lawsuits and fully endorse a new landfill technology that some consider iffy.
Other proposals still under consideration as the session moves into its second half include restrictions on wind-farm development, efforts to roll back state support for solar power and the repeal of a regional ban on plastic grocery bags aimed at protecting sea turtles.
“We would definitely like to see more pro-environmental legislation,” said Dan Crawford of the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters. “If you take a quick look at the score card, you see that there is not a lot of positive, environmental legislation being considered right now.”
The clash between environmental advocates and conservative legislators stems from deep-seated convictions on both sides. Activists see right-of-center legislators as beholden to business interests and too willing to sacrifice natural resources for commercial ends.
Business-oriented partisans counter that environmentalists are too quick to sacrifice individual property rights and free enterprise to trendy ecological concerns.
Critics on the environmental side say that the state Senate has been the more tone deaf chamber in Raleigh this session when it comes to the environment. That’s where the measure that many environmentalists see as the worst so far this session, Senate Bill 434, emerged.
Entitled “Amend Environmental Laws-2,” the bill would repeal buffers along the Catawba River, delay the cleanup of Falls Lake in the Triangle region and prohibit local governments from establishing waterside buffers on private lands any wider than the minimum required by state or federal rules — thereby limiting one of the more effective ways to prevent erosion and other pollution.
The measure also would lift the Outer Banks’ plastic bag ban that was intended both to curtail litter and to save turtles that are endangered when they consume waterborne plastic bags they mistake for jellyfish.
The bill — sponsored by state Sens. Norm Sanderson (R-Arapahoe), Bill Cook (R-Chocowinity) and Andy Wells (R-Hickory) — passed the Senate last week and was sent to the House for additional scrutiny.
“I just hope that the House shows leadership and values water quality and local government control more than the Senate did,” said Cassie Gavin, legislative lobbyist for the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club.
Landfill pollution
The landfill technology at issue this session involves “leachate aerosolization,“ a fancy name for the process of dredging up the contaminated water that collects under a landfill and using specialized equipment to spray it into the air within a confined sector of the landfill.
The mist separates into water that evaporates and various pollutants that fall back onto the landfill surface.
The House approved a proposed aerosolization bill last week that would require state environmental officials to approve the relatively new technology at landfills under conditions where pollutants presumably would not migrate off site.
State environmental regulators have said that they are OK with that. But environmentalists would like those regulators to have more of a say in whether a particular landfill is suitable for a technology about which many questions remain, said Grady McCallie, policy director of the North Carolina Conservation Network.
Among other things, they worry about making sure pathogens and other contaminants sprayed into the air actually would remain on landfill grounds and not threaten surrounding property owners.
“In our view, that bill still has some serious problems,” McCallie said.
Renewable power
Measures to restrict or roll back renewable energy are particularly disconcerting to environmentalists this session because North Carolina has made steady progress in recent years in expanding both technologies, but especially solar.
Several bills in both houses include such provisions as retreating from North Carolina’s goal to derive 12.5 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2021, making wind farms more difficult to site and approve, and studying the decommissioning of solar installations to understand better their impact on the land.
“It’s a study of something that has already been studied to death,” said Crawford of the solar inquiry. “I know we live in world of alternative facts these days, but the real facts don’t show any need for this.”
‘Smell’ bill vetoed
Environmental groups also are critical of the nuisance-suit bill that would shelter agricultural and forestry operations from high damage awards in that singular type of case, which routinely is brought against farming conglomerates by neighbors who are not wealthy and who contend their lives are being made miserable by the odor of hog waste and other intrusive smells, noises or distractions.
If enacted, the measure — House Bill 467 — would limit damages in such cases to the rental or resale values of the neighbors’ property, meaning that winners in a nuisance lawsuit could not be compensated for such other impacts as pain and suffering or for wages that have been lost to poor health linked to the nuisance.
Supporters assert that the measure would apply only to nuisance suits, leaving the way open for other types of civil lawsuits that could seek compensation for those additional kinds of damage.
Critics said the bill was made only slightly more tolerable by an amendment introduced by state Rep. John Blust (R-Greensboro) that exempted cases currently underway from the proposed cap, meaning that it would not apply to a series of high-profile nuisance cases currently underway against corporate hog farms run in eastern North Carolina by a massive Chinese corporation.
But they say the bill is still unfair because it would apply to future cases only after a farming or forestry operation has been found guilty of causing problems for its neighbors, McCallie said: “So the judge and jury already would have found that they were harmed. In our view, that’s just wrong.”
Both state House and Senate approved the nuisance-suit measure in its amended form last week and sent it to Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, who vetoed the bill on Friday. The bill will return to a General Assembly containing large enough GOP majorities to override.
Environmental pros
The nonprofit groups that advocate for the environment say there are several bills in the General Assembly’s hopper this session that they rate highly and think would be helpful.
They include a proposal to require schools and child care facilities to test their water supplies for lead and to respond properly if too much of the metal is found. Another sponsored by state Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Greensboro) would give taxpayers the option of sending some or all of their annual state tax refunds to a grant program for conservation projects.
In fact, Harrison has sponsored a number of bills this session that environmental groups applaud, including one that would forbid Duke Energy from recovering coal-ash cleanup costs by hiking customer rates and another that would encourage conservation by letting state agencies keep in their budgets whatever money they save by cutting energy usage.
But as a member of the minority party, Harrison has limited ability to make things happen in a General Assembly.
Also popular with environmentalists are several bills that would expand the state parks and trails system, including a new Black River State Park in Bladen, Pender and Sampson counties, and additional natural areas in Bertie, McDowell and Robeson counties.
More to come?
Overall, it’s too early to say with any certainty how many pluses and minuses the opening year of the 2017-18 session will end up delivering to environmentalists.
The new budget looms, and legislators can make sweeping changes to state environmental policy depending upon where they ultimately decide to put taxpayer money, said the Sierra Club’s Gavin.
“We always see budget provisions added that don’t have anything to do with budget matters. So there’s more to come, I’m sure,” she said.
McCallie agreed, noting that “we’re only part way through the session.”
“A lot depends,” he said, “on the legislature making good choices in the budget.”
