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Chemours says it will offer alternative water to more GenX-affected households, but is vague about future
By: Lisa Sorg, NC Policy Watch July 15, 2022 Chemours told the NC Department of Environmental Quality this week that it would offer replacement water supplies to more North Carolinians whose wells are contaminated with GenX, but was vague as to whether it would continue to do so if the company wins a federal court case. In a July 13 letter from Chemours plant manager Dawn Hughes to DEQ, she wrote that the company “reserves its rights to take appropriate actions … based upon the results of the pending federal litigation, including in the event EPA’s Final Advisory is found to be invalid.” Chemours, which operates its Fayetteville Works plant near the Cumberland/Bladen county line, is responsible for contaminating public and private drinking water supplies in the Lower Cape Fear River Basin with GenX. An estimated 800,000 people who live in the basin have been affected. Exposure to GenX has been linked to myriad health problems: including reproductive problems, low birth weight, high cholesterol and several types of cancers. The new EPA toxicity assessment said the liver “is particularly sensitive” to the effects of GenX. As part of a 2019 consent order between DEQ, the company and Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours must offer alternative water supplies to private well owners whose water tests either greater than 140 parts per trillion — the state’s health advisory goal at the time — or above EPA thresholds, even if they change. Last month, the EPA sharply reduced its goal to 10 ppt; it was originally 70 ppt. Chemours has challenged the EPA’s scientific basis for the new goal in a petition to a federal court. A health advisory goal is not legally enforceable, but it is among the steps toward a national drinking water standard, which is law. Nonetheless, the more stringent threshold legally forces Chemours to offer alternative water to more than 1,500 private well owners in North Carolina whose drinking water contains levels of GenX between 10 ppt and 140 ppt. In her remarks to the Environmental Management Commission yesterday, Assistant Secretary for the Environment Sushma Masemore said 1,545 well owners could be eligible, based on Chemours estimates. That number has since been updated to 1,697 residences or other properties in Cumberland, Bladen, and Robeson counties. Policy Watch reported yesterday that the cost of installing, operating and maintaining these replacement water systems could cost Chemours $200 million, based on the maximum amount per customer, as laid out in the consent order. Regardless of the federal court’s decision, which could be months away, Assistant Secretary Masemore reiterated to Chemours that it must immediately begin complying with the updated health advisory goals. In a letter dated July 14, Masemore responded to Chemours: .. the Department wishes to make clear its position that the Consent Order is unequivocal in requiring Chemours to provide replacement drinking water supplies in the form of public water or whole building filtration systems to parties with private drinking water wells impacted by EPA’s new health advisory, which is now in effect and applicable. This requirement is of real and immediate importance to parties whose wells have been contaminated by pollution from the Fayetteville Works Facility. Affected parties must be assured that the replacement drinking water supply provisions in the Consent Order will be fully and timely implemented.” Chemours itemized to DEQ the status of replacement systems. This does not include households downstream, such as in New Hanover and Brunswick counties, who are connected to public systems. 885 have reverse osmosis systems that were installed by Chemours and are operating; 124 already have public water connections, including 84 that were connected by Chemours to public water systems, and are receiving public water; 108 are under consideration for public water connections and in the interim are receiving bottled water or have reverse osmosis systems already installed; 3 have had new deeper wells constructed by Chemours, producing water tested to have below 10 ppt for HFPO-DA; 5 (all non-residential properties) have granulated activated carbon (“GAC”) systems that were installed by Chemours and are operating; 4 of the wells are no longer in use; 519 have not accepted Chemours’s offer for reverse osmosis systems and are receiving bottled water deliveries or vouchers; and 49 have declined Chemours’s offer for reverse osmosis systems, and are not currently receiving replacement drinking water. There are an additional seven wells in New Hanover County whose owners have been provided with bottled water deliveries or vouchers. DEQ is hosting a public meeting on Tuesday, July 26 about the impacts of the new EPA goals on private well owners. The meeting will be held at the Crown Theatre, 1960 Coliseum Drive in Fayetteville, at 6 p.m. Read the article on NC Policy Watch
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Preparing for an Active Atlantic Hurricane Season
The Atlantic hurricane season officially starts June 1st and lasts until November 30th, with the peak falling around September 10th. The effects of climate change have been felt more deeply in recent years, with wildfires and drought in the West, and rising sea levels and flooding on the East Coast and elsewhere. The climate crisis has also been linked to increased storm frequency and hurricane strength. Just last year, the Atlantic Hurricane Season produced 21 named storms (winds of 39 mph or greater), including seven hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater) of…
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Say NO to Duke’s Carbon Plan!
On May 16th, Duke Energy submitted a proposed Carbon Plan for public comment in compliance with NC HB 951 requiring the NC Utilities Commission (NCUC) to develop a Carbon Plan by the end of 2022. The Commission is directed to achieve a reduction of 70% from 2005 levels by the year 2030 and carbon neutrality by the year 2050. Duke’s Plan doesn’t do enough to cut carbon emissions per HB 951 while lacking transparency and allowing for increased costs against ratepayers. Adding insult to injury, it does nothing to combat fracking and pipelines or animal waste digester and biogas activities, which directly impact drinking water resources in addition to climate and air quality. These practices disparately impact rural, low-income, and BIPOC communities. Below are some great resources including public hearings, rallies, talking points, report cards, and additional resources created by other fantastic organizations with whom we often collaborate or partner. *Two hearings will be held remotely via Webex, with members of the public participating by phone. People who would like to testify must register in advance by 5:00pm, August 16, 2022, by emailing the Commission at ncucpublichearing@ncuc.net or by calling 919-733-0837. People who want to register must provide their name, the docket number (E-100 Sub 179), the telephone number that they will use to participate in the hearing, and the topic of their testimony. Only the first 20 people registered for each remote hearing session will be allowed to testify. People who simply want to observe a remote hearing may do so via the live stream link on this website. Here is more information on how to participate in a remote hearing. Rallies People Power NC and other organizations are holding rallies and events before each meeting! These will have an art and community building focus outside each public hearing venue at the times provided below. Check back for more updates as information becomes available. • Durham rally at 5:30pm. Doors for the hearing will open at 7pm, folks will line up in advance and sign up to provide comments as soon as doors open. • Asheville rally at 5:30pm. • Charlotte rally at 3:00pm. Submitting Comments Any person or entity may submit written statements to inform the Commission of their positions on the Carbon Plan. Statements should be mailed to the address below, and reference Docket No. E 100, Sub 179. Persons may also electronically submit a position statement to the Commission about the Carbon Plan via the Commission’s website To send your comments via mail: 4325 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-4300 Reference Pages NCUC: Carbon Plan Page House Bill 951 (S.L. 2021-165) Duke Proposed Carbon Plan Fact Sheets, Resources, Analyses Stay updated on energy news in NC and surrounding areas: Sign up for NC Energy Digest Southern Alliance for Clean Energy: Overview of Duke's Proposed NC Carbon Plan Clean AIRE NC: Carbon Plan Talking Points (cleanairenc.org); NC Carbon Plan - CleanAIRE NC People Power & Fossil-Free NC: Fossil Free NC; Carbon-Plan-Report-Card * Note: Some environmental groups offer the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) as an alternative option, but Clean Water for NC and several community groups maintain reservations about RGGI due to EJ impacts, particularly hot-spotting and race-to-the-bottom impacts on low-income, rural, and BIPOC communities. These items would need to be adequately addressed to eliminate disparate and cumulative impacts on EJ communities.
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Much Work Remains for Meaningful Public Participation in North Carolina
On January 7, 2022, NC Gov. Roy Cooper signed Executive Order (EO) 246, “North Carolina’s Transformation to a Clean, Equitable Economy.” The EO 246 required, among many things, that each of the Governor’s agencies appoint an EJ Lead and updated Public Participation Plans for “meaningful, fair, and equitable public engagement in state agency decision-making.” In March, the Governor’s office began accepting comments via a “NC Access Survey” and similar efforts were conducted by the Andrea Harris Taskforce and DEQ Secretary’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board. Clean Water for NC, as well as numerous other environmental, social justice, and community members submitted comments and even met with Governor’s representatives to flesh out the details of our concerns regarding meaningful public participation in NC. Over the last several months, Governor’s agencies began appointing an EJ Lead and on June 1st, DEQ released its updated Public Participation Plan and Language Access Plan (Plan). We appreciate that DEQ took heed of some items we and numerous other folks raised, particularly efforts to reduce barriers to accessibility of hearings and meetings, as well as language barriers. However, DEQ’s draft Plan does not address a number of concerns we raised. Specifically, we are concerned with inadequate notification and comment periods, limited transparency with limited tools, and community disempowerment during decision-making processes. Meaningful Public Participation should mean that people: Have an opportunity to be heard AND That their concerns carry weight. Adequate Notice & Comment We applaud DEQ for recognizing that notification about permitting decisions need to go beyond a single newspaper notice. Flyers should be posted where the impacted community can see, such as grocery stores, post offices, or other local centers or information boards frequently used by the public. For rural areas with limited community centers, mailers would be used. The Plan also mentions potential use of social media and radio. We appreciate the acknowledgement that “current statutory requirements for disseminating information for public notice have not kept pace with evolving media communications.” This is an aspect in which DEQ recognizes an existing barrier with negative ramifications and goes beyond the explicit limitations and requirements of agency-authorizing statute in a manner that is equitable and fair for the needs of North Carolina’s residents. Yet, the way in which DEQ implemented its review and comment period for this Plan came across as a bit disingenuous and in opposition to DEQ’s claimed effort for enhancing public participation and engagement. The Plan itself was only open for 30 days for public review and comment, a standard DEQ applies to most of its actions. However, a 30-day review and comment period is simply not enough time, especially considering that agencies often spend months and years developing their rules as do polluting industries when they apply for permits—leaving the public scrambling to catch up and provide timely, thoughtful, and necessary comment to often highly technical matters. Statutorily, 30 days is only the floor and DEQ certainly has the authority to allow for more public review and comment time. A more appropriate timeframe is at least 60 days, even though the public is nonetheless at a disadvantage compared to the agency’s and permittee’s preparation time. Enhanced Public Engagement Another major concern is what the agency considers “enhanced” public engagement, which we deem to be the standard by which DEQ should apply all of its public outreach and engagement. According to DEQ’s Plan, enhanced engagement entails “project-specific and community-oriented communications methods” which may include, but does not require, (1) distributing flyers in locally-owned business, libraries, places of worship, and other community gathering places; (2) non-English language social media and other media outlets; (3) providing vital documents in non-English language; and (4) coordinate with community, faith-based, and other organizations to implement public engagement; among others. These “enhanced” approaches should be applied across the board, but the Plan would only allow DEQ to apply them if a community first qualifies to receive enhanced engagement. The systems used to determine whether enhanced approaches may be implemented include an EJ Report and the Community Mapping System (CMS). These are two helpful but flawed tools that ultimately do not provide for anticipated outcomes. For example, the EJ Report carries no bearing or weight on the decision of whether a permit will be approved. Rather, it is purely a tool to determine whether the enhanced engagement may be appropriate. According to the Plan, the CMS is to be used to identify community demographic, socioeconomic, and health data that may fit the definition of underserved communities, but it does not provide this data at the same scales for comparison, such as county-wide vs. the census block level vs. the extent of the map view in the tool. Our past two newsletters from Spring 2022 and Fall/Winter 2021 have discussed some of these CMS deficiencies and efforts at progress to better account for inequities. Equitable Outcomes or Continued Disempowerment? The Plan outright acknowledges the need for equity and claims to “strive to be transparent and accountable, to seek equitable outcomes through inclusive processes,” and uses the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) definition of meaningful involvement as one in which the “public’s contribution can influence the regulatory agency’s decision” and in which “community concerns will be considered in the decision-making process.” It even provides a process for distributing and posting Title VI material. However, DEQ has time and again stated that its authority is limited and cannot consider disparate, health, or cumulative impacts, nor can it consider the non-technical comments and concerns of community members. This means that DEQ will not consider or weigh community concerns about disparate, health, or cumulative impacts— that is, not without an explicit statutory framework. Ultimately, the purported limitation of authority begs the question of whether the Plan will have any efficacy or whether it simply checks a box for an “opportunity” to be heard where those voices ultimately fall on deaf ears. Conclusions & Next Steps With these pitfalls in mind, we do appreciate DEQ’s effort to provide for increased public engagement, opportunity to be heard, and make improvements to further build DEQ’s relationship with the public. We hope for continued opportunities to provide input on the Plan and look forward to continuing to communicate with DEQ officials. We will continue to work towards a robust and equitable Plan that ensures robust notification and comment periods, increased transparency and effective tools, and overall decreased barriers to hearing and meeting accessibility, language barriers, and community disempowerment during decision-making processes. We look forward to meaningful public participation where the people not only have an opportunity to be heard, but one in which their non-technical disparity/EJ, cumulative, and health impact concerns carry weight in decision-making processes. We reiterate: Meaningful participation should mean that people have an opportunity to be heard and that their concerns carry weight. Check out some additional talking points Clean Water for NC put together for better understanding meaningful public participation, as well as a joint-submission of comments to DEQ in response to their draft Public Participation Plan.
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Join us at our Durham Community Picnic!
You’re invited! Join Clean Water for North Carolina at our summer picnic and listening session! The event will be held on Saturday, July 23rd at 1pm at Hillside Park in Durham. We’re hosting this event to engage with the community, build relationships, and get to know you! We are also hoping to speak with folks on what social and environmental justice issues they’ve faced, and how they would best benefit from a Community Toolkit to assist with organizing, working with public agencies, and more. We are redeveloping our Community Toolkit “A North Carolina Toolkit for…
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EPA warns toxic ‘forever chemicals’ more dangerous than once thought
By: Gino Grandoni, The Washington Post June 15, 2022 The Environmental Protection Agency warned Wednesday that a group of human-made chemicals found in the drinking water, cosmetics and food packaging used by millions of Americans poses a greater danger to human health than regulators previously thought. The new health advisories for a ubiquitous class of compounds known as polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, underscore the risk facing dozens of communities across the country. Linked to infertility, thyroid problems and several types of cancer, these “forever chemicals” can persist in the environment for years without breaking down. “People on the front-lines of PFAS contamination have suffered for far too long,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. “That’s why EPA is taking aggressive action.” The guidance aims to prompt local officials to install water filters or at least notify residents of contamination. But for now, the federal government does not regulate the chemicals. Health advocates have called on the Biden administration to act more quickly to address what officials from both parties describe as a contamination crisis that has touched every state. “Today’s announcement should set off alarm bells for consumers and regulators,” said Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization. “These proposed advisory levels demonstrate that we must move much faster to dramatically reduce exposures to these toxic chemicals.” Since the 1940s, chemical makers have used the highly durable compounds to make nonstick cookware, moisture-repellent fabrics and flame-retardant equipment. But that same toughness against water and fire, which made the chemicals profitable, allowed them to accumulate in nature and build up in the body — with long-term health effects. The sun sets behind the control tower of the former Loring Air Force Base on July 18, 2020, in Limestone, Maine, where the Air Force plans to test for contamination by “forever chemicals.” (David Sharp/AP) Agency officials assessed two of the most common ones, known as PFOA and PFOS, in recent human health studies and announced Wednesday that lifetime exposure at staggeringly low levels of 0.004 and 0.02 parts per trillion, respectively, can compromise the immune and cardiovascular systems and are linked to decreased birth weights. Those drinking-water concentrations represent “really sharp reductions” from previous health advisories set at 70 parts per trillion in 2016, said Erik Olson, a senior strategic director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. The announcement, he added, sends “an important signal to get this stuff out of our drinking water.” More significantly, the EPA is preparing to propose mandatory standards for the two chemicals this fall. Once finalized, water utilities will face penalties if they neglect to meet them. The advisories will remain in place until the rule comes out. The EPA also said Wednesday that it is offering $1 billion in grants to states and tribes through the bipartisan infrastructure law to address drinking-water contamination. The advisories’ levels are so low that they are difficult to detect with today’s technology. Some lawmakers, including Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement that this meant the new guidance is impractical. “EPA’s announcement will only increase confusion for water systems’ compliance efforts and further complicate risk communication to the public,” she said. The American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s main trade group, said in a statement that it supports developing enforceable standards for these long-lasting compounds. But it faulted the EPA for issuing the advisories before outside experts on the agency’s Science Advisory Board had finished reviewing the underlying research, suggesting the process is “fundamentally flawed.” “Rather than wait for the outcome of this peer review, EPA has announced new Advisories that are 3,000 to 17,000 times lower than those released by the Obama Administration in 2016,” it said. Already in the United States, manufacturers have largely replaced PFOA and PFOS with other fluorinated compounds. The EPA determined that two of those alternatives — dubbed GenX and PFBS — also are dangerous to ingest even at relatively low levels, according to a review of recent research on mice. Among the communities hit hardest with contamination are those near military bases, where PFAS-laden foams were used for decades to fight jet-fuel fires. Many residents in Oscoda, Mich., for instance, have heeded warnings from state health officials and stopped drinking untreated well water and eating deer hunted near the now-shuttered Wurtsmith Air Force Base. “There still is no plan in place for the cleanup,” said Anthony Spaniola, an attorney and co-chair of the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network whose family has a lakeside home in Oscoda. “The Department of Defense, quite frankly, has mismanaged this site, bordering on reckless.” Spaniola hopes the new health advisories mean the military will “change the scope of what they need to clean up.” In North Carolina, Emily Donovan’s family of four started carrying around bottled water and installed a filter under their sink after PFAS were discovered in and around Cape Fear River. Instead of asking parents to donate cookies and cupcakes, schools request bottles of water for dances and other events. “It’s a layer of stress that we all live with now,” said Donovan, now an activist who co-founded Clean Cape Fear and is on the leadership team of the National PFAS Contamination Coalition. “You’re constantly wondering,” she added, “is there something inside of me? Is there something inside of my children?” Regan, who served as North Carolina’s top environmental official before joining the EPA, ordered the chemical company Chemours to stop the compounds from trickling into the river. On Wednesday, the company took issue with the analysis the EPA used to craft its latest guidance. “We are already using state-of-the-art technologies at our sites to abate emissions and remediate historical releases,” Chemours said in a statement. “We are evaluating our next steps, including potential legal action, to address the EPA’s scientifically unsound action.” While the agency is planning to regulate two PFAS, thousands of distinct compounds have been discovered. Many health advocates say federal regulators need to crack down on the compounds as a group. “We can’t continue this whack-a-mole approach to regulating them,” Olson said. “We’ll never be finished in anyone’s lifetime.” Radhika Fox, who heads the Office of Water at the EPA, said the agency is considering more sweeping regulations of the class of compounds. “We are exploring options to propose a rule that is for groups, not just PFOA and PFOS,” she told reporters Tuesday in a Zoom call. Read the article on The Washington Post
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Climate-driven flooding poses well water contamination risks
By: Michael Phillis and John Flesher, Associated Press June 08, 2022 ST. LOUIS -- After a record-setting Midwestern rainstorm that damaged thousands of homes and businesses, Stefanie Johnson’s farmhouse in Blandinsville, Illinois, didn’t have safe drinking water for nearly two months. Flood water poured into her well, turning the water a muddy brown and forcing Johnson, her husband and their two young children to use store-bought supplies. Even after sediment cleared, testing found bacteria — including E. coli, which can cause diarrhea. The family boiled water for drinking and cooking. The YMCA was a refuge for showers. “I was pretty strict with the kids,” said Johnson, who works with a private well protection program at the local health department. “I’d pour bottled water on their toothbrushes.” Though estimates vary, roughly 53 million U.S. residents — about 17% of the population — rely on private wells, according to a study conducted in part by Environmental Protection Agency researchers. Most live in rural areas. But others are in subdivisions near fast-growing metro regions or otherwise beyond the reach of public water pipes. While many private wells provide safe water, the absence of regulation and treatment afforded by larger municipal systems may expose some users to health risks, from bacteria and viruses to chemicals and lead, studies have found. Risks are elevated after flooding or heavy rainfall, when animal and human feces, dirt, nutrients such as nitrogen and other contaminants can seep into wells. And experts say the threat is growing as the warming climate fuels more intense rainstorms and stronger and wetter hurricanes. “Areas that hadn't been impacted are now. New areas are getting flooded,” said Kelsey Pieper, a Northeastern University professor of environmental engineering. “We know the environment is shifting and we're playing catch-up, trying to increase awareness.” Pieper is among scientists conducting well testing and education programs in storm-prone areas. After Hurricane Harvey caused widespread flooding along the Texas coast in 2017, sampling of more than 8,800 wells in 44 counties found average E. coli levels nearly three times higher than normal, she said. Sampling of 108 wells in Mississippi following Hurricane Ida in 2021 produced a similar bump in E. coli readings. Other studies turned up higher levels in North Carolina after Hurricane Florence in 2018. The following year, above-average snowfall and a March storm unleashed flooding in Nebraska. Levees and dams were breached. Fremont, a city of more than 25,000, turned into an island when the nearby Platte and Elkhorn rivers overflowed. The municipal system continued to supply drinking water but some nearby private wells were damaged or contaminated. Julie Hindmarsh's farm was flooded for three days, and it took months to make the well water drinkable again. At times, the cleanup crew wore protective suits. “They didn’t know what was in that floodwater,” she said. CONTAMINATION RISK Groundwater is often a cleaner source than surface supplies because soil can provide a protective buffer, said Heather Murphy, an epidemiologist at the University of Guelph in Canada. But she said that can give well owners a false sense of security, leading them to forgo testing, maintenance and treatment. “There's a big misconception that it's underground, therefore it's safe,” said Murphy, who estimates 1.3 million cases of acute gastrointestinal illness in the U.S. are caused annually by drinking untreated water from private wells. Old, poorly maintained wells are especially vulnerable to floodwaters entering through openings at the top. “It just runs right in and it’s full of bacteria,” said Steven Wilson, a well expert at the University of Illinois. It doesn’t always take a flood or hurricane to pollute wells. Industrial contamination can reach them by seeping into groundwater. Around 1,000 residential wells in Michigan’s Kent County were tainted for decades with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in landfill sludge from footwear company Wolverine World Wide. The pollution, discovered in 2017, spurred lawsuits and a $69.5 million settlement with the state that extended city water lines to affected houses. “We thought we were getting this pristine, straight-from-nature water and it would be much better for us,” said Sandy Wynn-Stelt, who has lived across from one of the dump sites since the early 1990s. She said tests detected high levels of PFAS chemicals in her water and blood, leaving her fearful to drink or even brush her teeth with well water. In a suit later settled, she blamed the contamination for her husband’s 2016 death from liver cancer. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer four years later. LITTLE REGULATION FOR WELL OWNERS While many well owners don’t have the option of hooking up to a public water system, others are happy with well water. They might favor the taste or want to avoid monthly bills and government regulation. “What I hear from people is freedom,” said Jesse Campbell, private well coordinator for the Midwest Assistance Program Inc., which addresses rural water needs. Private well owners are responsible for them. While public water systems must meet federal safety standards, those rules don’t apply to wells that have fewer than 15 connections or serve fewer than 25 people. State and local standards usually involve only construction and design, although some states set tougher rules. New Jersey requires water quality testing before sales of property with private wells. Rhode Island requires testing when new wells are built and when property with a well is sold. But many states rely on public outreach and voluntary action to protect private well users. “There’s an overall lack of education,” Campbell said. He meets with well owners from Montana to Missouri, providing free inspections and advice. A lot of harm can be prevented if owners make sure the well's top keeps out debris and that the pump is turned off before a storm to keep out floodwaters. Experts recommend testing after a flood and decontaminating wells with chlorine if a problem is found. “People aren’t regularly testing,” said Riley Mulhern, an environmental engineer at the research group RTI International. Indiana’s health department offers testing for bacteria, lead, copper, fluoride and other contaminants. Some land-grant universities and private labs provide similar services. While many owners know how to maintain their wells, others ignore problems even if the water isn’t sanitary. Water that tastes fine can still be contaminated. “I wish I had a nickel for everyone who's walked into a workshop and said, ‘I’ve been drinking this water forever and it's fine,'” said Jason Barrett, who directs a Mississippi State University program that educates well owners. It provides free testing. But where such assistance isn't available, costs can run to a few hundred dollars, according to experts. Some owners avoid testing because they are concerned it will reveal an expensive problem. Johnson, the Illinois resident whose well was fouled by the 2013 downpour that killed four people and caused $465 million in flood damage, paid about $3,500 for repairs and upgrades. “Luckily, none of us became ill,” she said. Even ordinary rainstorms can carry diseases into groundwater, said Mark Borchardt, a microbiologist formerly with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “A lot of times people say, ‘Well, no one got sick,'” Borchardt said. “It's hard to see when people get sick unless it is a huge outbreak." Bea and Neil Jobe live in Primm Springs, Tennessee, an hour’s drive from Nashville. Several times a year, when there is heavy rain and a nearby creek floods, their well water turns “dingy," Bea Jobe said. The discoloration disappears after a few days but Jobe takes precautions such as keeping bottled water available. “I guess I’m used to it,” she said. Read the article on ABC
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Celebrate Freedom on Juneteenth: Community Events Near You!
Juneteenth, also called Emancipation Day, Freedom Day or Freedom Day or Jubilee Day commemorates June 19, 1865, as the day enslaved African Americans in Galveston, TX learned they were free. While the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863 and the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, the news was slow to reach people in Texas. Finally on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger with Union troops landed in Galveston and read aloud General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” Read below to learn more about how you can celebrate Juneteenth near your community! 2022 North Carolina Juneteenth Festival Concord, NC June 18th, 1:00 - 5:00 PM ChenMed & Accellacare present The 2022 North Carolina Juneteenth Festival themed "Educating, Empowering, Entertaining" will feature 80 black owned companies. Crafts, culture, performances, art, kids games, information and more is some of what attendees can expect. Free giveaways, discounts, and coupons make the vendor shopping experience like no other. Come support black business and black excellence. Recommended for all ages; admission is free. Cabarrus Arena & Events Center, 4751 North Carolina 49, Concord. For more information, see https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2022-north-carolina-juneteenth-festival-tickets-216003511317. Capital City Juneteenth Celebration Raleigh, NC June 18th, 1:00 - 5:00 PM Juneteenth (June 19th) is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the United States. As part of the Capital City Juneteenth Celebration 2022, enjoy an afternoon of entertainment and food on Harvey Hill at Dix Park! The theme for this year's celebration is “Preserving the Past, Moving it Forward.” During this event, the mission is to “to celebrate the freedom of formerly enslaved African Americans by acknowledging their history and achievements through commemorative and historical services and activities.” Bring your lawn chairs and blankets to enjoy an afternoon of entertainment, family activities, vendors and food on Harvey Hill and the Chapel Event Center at Dix Park! Learn more today! Juneteenth Festival of the Carolinas Charlotte, NC June 16th - 19th Each year, the Juneteenth Festival of The Carolinas celebrates the end of slavery, and the African American community is taking the opportunity to come together to reflect and remember the historical event. Come join us for a peaceful celebration and learn more about the schedule and speakers at our website! www.juneteenthofthecarolinas.com Juneteenth of Asheville 2022 Freedom Festival Asheville, NC June 18th, 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM Celebrate freedom with the greater Community of Asheville. We will pay honor to our enslaved ancestors while enjoying awesome food and festivities. Join us as we travel to the past in solidarity to those we lost. There will be parade, vendors, food trucks, art, music, live performances, so much more. Visit the event website for more information! Juneteenth Jubilee Fayetteville, NC June 18th - 19th Organizers are pleased to announce the full performance schedule for the 2022 Juneteenth Jubilee, held on Saturday, June 18 from 12:00PM–9:30PM in Festival Park (335Ray Avenue). In addition to Grammy Award-nominated artists Amythyst Kiah and hometown rapper, Morray, the Jubilee stage will come alive with performances from Diali Cissokho and Kaira Ba, The Fatback Band, and Reggie Codrington. Diali Cissokho follows in the tradition of Senegalese musicians and storytellers known as griots. Together with his band, Kaira Ba–composed of Tarheel natives John Westmoreland, Jonathan Henderson, Austin McCall, and Will Ridenour–Cissokho weaves the traditions and rhythms of West African music with subtle notes of blues and folk sounds from the American South. NPR’s Frank Stasio described their sound as “at once unique and universal.” Learn more about the festivities here!
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Your Utility’s Annual Water Quality Report is on the Way!
Can you believe we're already heading into the summer months?! Summer is the time for cookouts, family gatherings, and taking advantage of NC's beautiful swimming holes. It's also the period when your public water system will send out their Annual Water Quality reports! (Click the images above to check out examples of these reports from different size utilities) LEARN MORE! What is an Annual Water Quality Report? Annual Water Quality Reports (also called Consumer Confidence Reports or CCRs) are yearly reports that your public water system is required to publish that outline different aspects of your drinking water quality, including contaminant information, health risks, and contact information if you have any questions. If you receive your drinking water from a public community water system, like a municipal or county utility, keep an eye out for your utility’s Annual Water Quality report around June or July! The "Anatomy" of Your Annual Water Quality Report These mandatory reports outline different information about your drinking water, like where it's coming from, what contaminants are in it, any health effects from consuming your water, and how your water quality compares to national standards. These are all important aspects to understand as an informed drinking water consumer! You may have questions about how these reports will be distributed or who you should contact to find them. We can help! Depending on the size of the population your utility serves, the reports will be distributed differently. Utilities serving large populations will provide their Annual Water Quality report on their website. Smaller populations will either have theirs delivered by mail, included in the newspaper, or have copies available upon request. If you are renting, you can contact your building manager to get a copy. If you have limited English language proficiency, your utility may provide a translated version of your CCR, but give them a call to be sure. If you need assistance translating these documents, CWFNC has resources to help! ¡Hablamos español! Póngase en contacto con shelby@cwfnc.org o christine@cwnfc.org si tiene alguna pregunta con respecto a su Informe de la Calidad del Agua. For general questions about your Annual Water Quality Report, please contact our Water Justice Program Director, Rachel Velez for assistance: rachel@cwfnc.org or 919-401-9600.
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The Lithium War Next Door
By: Alexander C. Kaufman, The Huffington Post May 22, 2022 This story was published in collaboration with The Assembly, a digital magazine about the people, institutions and ideas that shape North Carolina. GASTON COUNTY, North Carolina — Brian Harper opened the door to his back porch, stepped outside, and inhaled the brisk air. Exhaling, he stretched his arms out wide as if to embrace the bucolic scene before him. Moments like this were sacred — and, he feared, fleeting. On that late afternoon in early January, the sun cast a golden tint over the brown frost-nipped fields behind the Harper family’s stately brick home. Just a few hundred feet away was the red barn containing his workshop, where he makes precision gears for clients like Duracell, Dart Container Corp. and Nestlé. Harper, 54, wanted to catch the last bit of light on his quiet stretch of farmland about 45 minutes northwest of Charlotte. He crunched onto his icy lawn and cut a diagonal path across his neatly mowed 12 acres. Past the neighboring home where his sister-in-law and her family live and down a gentle slope, he came to a stop on the squishy banks of a brook. He crouched down and pointed to a small mound of mud — a crayfish burrow. Before long, Harper said, a herd of deer would make its nightly visit to drink and munch on greenery the recent cold snap hadn’t yet claimed. “This, to me, is paradise,” Harper said. “And all this, when they start mining, will disappear.” Brian Harper, a local business owner, walks between his home and his sister-in-law’s on their properties in Cherryville, North Carolina. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST Beneath these rolling hills lies what many investors now call “white gold.” And just beyond Harper’s tree line, the mining startup Piedmont Lithium wants to dig up to four 500-foot-deep pits to pull out the lithium reserves that once made Gaston County the world’s top source of the soft metal now used to make batteries for cellphones and electric vehicles. If permits and local zoning changes clear the way for the project, Piedmont could begin digging as early as next year, making this likely the first major new supply of American lithium since demand started surging over the past two years. The mine has become an unlikely microcosm of a clean-energy conflict starting to take center stage in the debate over how to avert catastrophic global warming. To preserve a planet with hospitable weather patterns resembling what we see today, the world needs to rapidly phase out oil, gas and coal. But quitting fossil fuels means dramatically increasing the supply of minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt that make it possible to do with electricity what today requires igniting liquid carbon. And in places from Chile to Serbia, Nevada to now North Carolina, the clashes erupting between mining companies and the people who live near resource deposits are increasingly known as “lithium wars” and could dictate how that transition happens. Lithium’s Tar Heel Foothold Few places in the U.S. better exemplify the demand for battery metals than the American South, where the power grid is especially dirty, the lack of public transit makes personal automobiles necessary, and labor laws that are unfavorable to unions have helped attract car factories. Last December, Toyota unveiled plans for a $1.3 billion battery plant in Greensboro, North Carolina. In March, Vietnamese electric-car maker VinFast announced it would build its first U.S. plant in North Carolina. This week, Hyundai confirmed Savannah, Georgia, as the site of its next big electric vehicle factory. The South Korean battery behemoth SK Innovation was already building its manufacturing hub in northern Georgia to supply lithium packs to the Tennessee factories building Ford’s electric F-150 and Volkswagen’s signature crossover models. Beneath the soybean fields, pine stands and trickling streams of this county is a uniquely pure vein of minerals containing the most valued type of lithium on the market today. The price of the metal overall surged nearly 500% between 2021 and 2022, with forecasts showing demand is set to increase fourfold by the end of the decade. Lithium hydroxide, the type of finished product Piedmont would sell, sold in mid-May for as much as $72,000 per metric ton — a 127% increase since the start of the year. Pines dot the landscape at a farm adjacent to the site of a proposed pit mine in Cherryville. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST But as the Biden administration and lawmakers from both parties push to ramp up domestic mining and processing in hopes of breaking China’s near-monopoly on the metal, local opposition is mounting. In Nevada, Native American tribes, ranchers and environmentalists complain that a big proposed lithium mine in the desert threatens to desecrate sacred land, deplete a drought-dried water table, and kill off rare plant species. In California, plans to extract lithium from the inland Salton Sea have stoked concerns over air pollution and toxic contaminants. Projects to mine copper, nickel and rare earth minerals — all critical ingredients to a post-fossil future — have faced similar complaints across Western states. With the roughly 3,200 acres of land it now controls, Piedmont vowed to make this county — which in the 1950s was the epicenter of global lithium production — the home of “the world’s most sustainable lithium project.” The company is spending millions on infrastructure and equipment that it said will set a new standard for reducing air pollution and noise from a mine of any kind. It has pledged to treat and recycle water, help neighbors whose water wells run dry as a result of the mining, and pay local employees salaries about 50% higher than the county average. “You couldn’t possibly design our project in a more environmentally friendly way — our team is smart, experienced and cognizant of what the rules are,” said Keith Phillips, 62, Piedmont’s chief executive and a former mining banker on Wall Street. “We think it’s the best lithium asset on the planet, and we think the community should be inordinately proud of it.” But that sales pitch is falling flat with many residents here, who fear the mine dooms a community with families who trace their roots back centuries. Unlike projects out West, which are largely located on sparsely populated tracts owned by the state or federal governments, Gaston County has more than 610 people per square mile — nearly seven times the average U.S. population density. There’s no municipal water supply, and the mine will draw millions of gallons from the same water table that replenishes local wells and streams. Residents here worry about pollution: Small-scale mining from decades ago left behind toxic waste. And in a county close to one of the nation’s fastest-growing financial capitals, property owners wince at how much value their land could lose if there’s a mine practically in their backyard. Signs like this one opposing Piedmont Lithium’s proposed pit mine mark the roadsides of Gaston County. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST Piedmont, by its own admission, has been slow to reach out to the community, many of whose members now see the company’s executives as opportunistic carpetbaggers. In a place where children bear surnames etched on gravestones older than the United States itself, many residents worry the horizon for any benefits from the project is short. If mining lasts only 30 years, as company statements have suggested, or alternative battery chemistries make lithium-ion packs obsolete, they fear their sacrifices will have only enriched Piedmont’s shareholders. Now a coalition of those neighbors wants to stop the project in its tracks. For months now, signs calling for Piedmont to leave have fluttered up and down the country roads that crisscross the county. Fearing state and federal mining rules are stacked in favor of permitting the project, these locals have focused on what they see as the most vulnerable chokepoint: persuading the Gaston County Board of Commissioners to reject Piedmont’s bid to rezone the area from agricultural to industrial use. At public hearings so far, these opponents of the mine outnumbered supporters. Both sides of the feud see it as an existential fight. If wells dry up, if contaminants make it less safe to live here, or if the wildlife and landscapes that define the area disappear, many lament the possibility of becoming the final generation of their families to call this place home. But others worry that if a state-of-the-art mine can’t move forward in a place with a history of lithium production at a time when political and market demand is this high, then the chances of seriously slashing fossil fuel use in the world’s largest economy look slim. “Right now, the battery plants that are there in the U.S. are dependent on imports,” said Caspar Rawles, an analyst at the British-based battery supply chain research firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “Having a domestic, secure supply of lithium is critical. And obviously Piedmont is one of those projects.” The sun rises over the Appalachian Mountains near Mt. Pisgah, about two hours west of Gaston County. TERESA KOPEC VIA GETTY IMAGES Old Rocks, New Demand Long before there was a Gaston County or a United States — hundreds of millions of years ago — the tectonic plates beneath northern Africa and North America collided, forming the Appalachian Mountains. Molten magma oozed into cracks in the Earth’s crust and formed veins of igneous rock geologists call pegmatite containing a mineral named spodumene, the ore that is processed into lithium. The deposit, known as the Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt, is one of the oldest and most economically important formations of its kind in North America. The belt is roughly 25 miles long, snaking northeast from the South Carolina border to Lincolnton, North Carolina. The thickest portion, barely 2 miles wide, is in Gaston County, where outcroppings of the yellowish, flaky mineral are abundant enough that you can pluck samples from boulders in the woods. It’s hard to tell from today’s quiet, rural landscape, but this area was the cradle of the lithium industry throughout the mid-20th century. Small mines along the belt supplied most of the world’s lithium, then primarily used for pharmaceuticals and, later, in nuclear weapons. Demand for the commodity grew quickly after World War II as industry and Cold War arms makers alike increased their appetites. Some mom-and-pop miners even dug trenches in their backyards and sold ore to the federal government. In 1939, the value of lithium mined in the U.S. came out to a little over $500,000 annually, according to inflation-adjusted data from a 1955 U.S. Geological Survey report. By 1953, that output was worth more than $21 million. The next two decades were the heyday of Gaston County’s lithium boom. And it was, quite literally, a boom. Back in the 1970s, when miners set off dynamite to break up rocks at the now-defunct Hallman-Beam lithium mine in Bessemer City, the windows would rattle in Dean Crocker’s home. “Those blasts could be heard for miles and miles,” said Crocker, now in his 80s, a cattle farmer whose family has lived in Gaston County for seven generations. At peak capacity, Piedmont could set off multiple explosions per day as it mines deeper into the ground. That might be an irritation for Crocker and others. But Harper, who runs Stine Gear & Machine Co. from his barn, said even a single routine blast would make it impossible for him to run his business, which relies on highly sensitive machines calibrated to carve precise grooves into metal cogs. The number of explosions will depend on where the miners are in the ore body, Phillips said, noting that local ordinances would bar Piedmont from blasting “when it’s dark, weekends or holidays.” He insisted the company has every incentive to blast as little as possible because it’s a difficult and time-consuming process. “Ideally you blast just enough so the team can move it from the processing area,” the chief executive said. “The fewer times you blast, the better off everybody is.” Harper said he met with Piedmont executives and told them it would cost about $250,000 to move all his equipment to a new location, and asked what they could offer him to help. The company never responded, he said. “That’s completely inaccurate,” Phillips said. “To be crystal clear: A man with a machine shop who needs a quarter-million dollars, do you think we’re going to let him stand in the way? If he needs a quarter-million dollars, we’ll find him a quarter-million dollars. That’s the world’s easiest answer. But we want to really understand it. We’re actually not convinced it’s true that anything we do will have any impact on what he’s doing.” The lithium industry’s legacy in the region is one of the stronger arguments in favor of starting a new chapter. After all, it never fully went away. In the 1980s, the Hallman-Beam and other mines closed down as lithium production shifted overseas, where more lax rules made it cheaper to extract. Australia became a top producer, particularly of lithium extracted via hard-rock mining. South America — Chile and Argentina, in particular — emerged as major sources of lithium produced by a process known as brining, where miners flood pools of water in the desert and collect the metals that remain after evaporation. Little by little, China came to dominate the supply chain: By 2020, it became a top-four supplier of raw materials, the No. 1 refiner of processed lithium, the No. 1 manufacturer of lithium batteries and components, and the No. 1 market demanding more lithium, according to a ranking from the energy consultancy BloombergNEF. In 2021, a newer version of BloombergNEF’s report that laid out its findings in slightly different categories ranked China No. 1 in battery raw materials, manufacturing and demand. The U.S., by contrast, ranked 15th in lithium production in 2020, despite coming in second for market demand, and came in 11th last year for raw materials. That the U.S. placed in the top 20 at all owes on some level to the legacy industry that remains here in North Carolina’s Piedmont region. Albemarle Corp., one of the largest lithium mining companies in the world, is still headquartered in Charlotte. In March, the firm began holding public meetings about restarting production at a shuttered lithium mine in Kings Mountain, just south of Gaston County. Livent Corp., the modern spinoff of the mining company that once owned the Hallman-Beam mine, still operates a lithium refining business in Bessemer City, where in 2019 it said it would spend $18 million to increase its output of the metal. A spokesman for Livent said the company stopped all hard-rock mining in North Carolina in 1996 and sold Hallman-Beam in 1998. Today the site is located next to a quarry owned by Martin Marietta Materials. A spokeswoman for the Raleigh-based building materials seller did not respond to multiple requests for comment. One scar the mine left behind was an artificial pond so polluted with arsenic that two neighbors separately relayed stories of watching birds land there only to die shortly afterward. Arsenic occurs naturally along the spodumene belt, and state regulators have long considered Gaston County a “hot spot” for contamination. Chronic exposure to arsenic causes diarrhea and stomach cramping in the short term and increases the risk of cancer over time. While I could not find any studies or reports that independently verified locals’ claims about avian deaths, federal studies have documented the deadly effect arsenic has on animals, and examples abound of migratory birds dying after landing in arsenic-contaminated ponds. The South Fork River in High Shoals. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST The Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation, a local environmental group focused on the region’s water systems, said modern mining techniques generally produce fewer tailings, or leftover materials, than in the 1950s, so the risk of similar arsenic contamination from Piedmont’s project is lower. But the county’s natural waterways could suffer, the nonprofit said. Last November, the Catawba Riverkeeper joined researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in conducting a survey of the area that discovered two new species of crayfish. The researchers asked Piedmont for permission to survey some of the land the company owns. The firm had no legal obligation to comply and declined, said Brandon Jones, the Riverkeeper’s chief scientist. (Phillips said he did not recall that conversation.) “There’s actually much more diversity and we’re just starting to tell the different crayfish apart,” Jones said. “We’re certainly concerned about losing some of those species.” Well Water Concerns Stirring up arsenic is the least of many residents’ worries. Most of the ore Piedmont plans to dig is below the water table, meaning as the company excavates, water will flood in and it will need to be pumped out. The firm said in regulatory filings that it would pull between 860,000 gallons and 1.1 million gallons of water from the ground per day at peak capacity. “This is certainly going to be dropping the water table, and it will certainly be impacting wells,” Jones said. Piedmont acknowledged in filings that its mining may lower the water table, which is uniquely close to the surface. Abundant streams like the one on Harper’s property are one visible effect of that geological reality. Another unseen one is how shallow some residents here have dug their wells. Some household wells, one resident said, go down only 30 feet. More common, though, are wells dug 300 feet deep. “We don’t think we’re going to impact anybody directly,” Phillips said. “If we do, we’ll be happy to remediate it.” In a state permit application, Piedmont suggested that it would drill new wells for homeowners at its own discretion if its experts determined that mining operations were responsible for a well going dry. A small creek runs through a farm in Cherryville. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST As a secondary solution, the company said it would pay to connect homeowners to a municipal water source. That could prove tricky, since the area around the proposed mine is not currently piped for that, and the nearest municipal supply has, in the past, struggled to service its existing customer base in times of drought. It may not be a popular option, either: Households on wells do not pay for water, and the company said in the application that it would not pay people’s water bills once they’re hooked up to a municipal supply. Piedmont said it “may also” supply neighbors who lose their wells with water tanks and short-term deliveries that “meet the minimum water volume used or needed by the resident prior to the groundwater level decline.” If all else fails, the company said it will “negotiate in good faith” to buy the property. “We know that there’s different depths of where some of the aquifers are. Everybody thinks you drill a hole in the ground, and there’s one big lake under here. It’s not like that,” David Klanecky, then Piedmont’s chief operating officer, told me during an hourlong drive around Gaston County in January. “There are all these different pockets. We’ve done all these different water studies with hydrogeologists out here. There may be some impacts.” (Klanecky and another executive who gave me a tour around Piedmont’s properties, vice president of corporate communications Brian Risinger, have since left the company. Phillips said Klanecky took a job as chief executive of a battery recycling firm, but remains a “technical adviser and close friend” of Piedmont. He said Risinger “left on his own accord.”) Piedmont’s opponents, Klanecky said, think “we’re going to drain all the water in Gaston County and this is going to be a desert in five years. That’s probably not going to happen, right? So, we can talk through this with people.” “The truth is, nobody knows how it will affect our water system,” said Bob Lancaster, 71, a retiree who relies on well water and lives just north of the county. “But once you ring the bell, you can’t unring it.” Bob Lancaster is a retiree in Lincolnton, North Carolina, who relies on well water. Locals are worried mining could lead to pollution. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST On a cold night in January, I met Dan Setzer, 58, at his tidy one-story home near the proposed mine. While we discussed the possibility of relying on bottled water, he hurried to the kitchen sink to fill me a glass. It tasted crisp and mineraly, distinct from the highly treated but prized tap water in New York City, where I’m from. “We’ve got springs and creeks that are some of the nicest around,” the upholstery manufacturing worker said. He just didn’t believe Piedmont’s promises to ultimately restore whatever land it tarnishes with its operation. “They’ll never put that back. … This is just a money grab to them.” Locke Bell, a retired former district attorney who lives with his wife on a sprawling property dense with woodlands and gardens, suspected the company didn’t even have a full picture of which wells its project would affect. He has three operating wells on his land. A map Piedmont submitted in public documents last year showed just one, he said. “I’ve got four creeks, too, and three of them will be dry if they mine,” Bell said, puffing on a cigar on his back porch. “Everybody else, and all the wildlife that lives off these things, it’ll all be gone.” The Catawba Riverkeeper also worries about runoff pollution in the surface streams. Right now, Piedmont is proposing 30-foot setbacks — or undisturbed buffer zones between the mine and streams, which is the requirement under North Carolina law. “We’d prefer 100-foot setbacks,” Jones said. “That’s the gold standard for the industry.” The company would, in fact, have a “different setback for different things,” Phillips said, adding that for “our pits, we’re expecting [the setback] to be 100 feet.” From Australia To North Carolina Piedmont Lithium got its start six years ago, when Taso Arima, an Australian investor who works on mining startups, joined forces with Lamont Leatherman, a geologist who grew up in Lincolnton, near the end of the Tin-Spodumene Belt. Canadian-born Phillips, who previously worked at JPMorgan Chase, joined a year later. In September 2016, the company secured the rights to buy at least five separate tracts of land in Gaston County, according to property records. By the end of 2017, it added at least nine more and registered at least one separate shell company to make land deals in North Carolina. At first, the company planned to mine in Gaston County but build its chemical processing plant near Kings Mountain, just south of the area. But the firm ultimately acquired land adjacent to its mining tracts that it deemed suitable for the facility, and changed its plans to consolidate everything in one area. Piedmont inked its first major deal in September 2020, to supply electric auto giant Tesla with one-third of the mine’s annual output of unprocessed spodumene for five years. Last year, Piedmont, which had until then been headquartered in Australia, officially “redomiciled” in Belmont, North Carolina, roughly 30 minutes away from the proposed mine, on the opposite side of Gaston County. It also currently occupies a small field office closer to the site. Piedmont Lithium has set up a local office near the proposed mining site in Cherryville. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST As of last October, the company controlled approximately 3,245 acres, of which 1,526 acres were claims on private property through option or deferred purchase agreements, 113 acres were under long-term mineral leasing deals, 79 acres were under lease-to-own contracts, and 1,527 acres were owned by Piedmont outright, according to figures in a feasibility study it published. That, the firm said, is more than enough to begin its work, though it claims on its website to be “actively and aggressively adding further options to considerably expand our presence in the region.” “We want to continue to acquire property here, because we think there’s more development opportunity,” Klanecky said. “Realistically, this could be double the size of what we’ve announced today if we continue to acquire more land. We know there’s spodumene on the belt, and we know there’s lithium.” The main obstacle, he said, were landowners who refused to sell their property, or asked the company to pay 10 times what the firm believed the parcel was worth — which Piedmont considered exorbitant. Once the company has mining permits, Klanecky said, that will serve as a “trigger event” where holdouts will lose hope of stopping the mine and instead see the project as inevitable. “Once the state mining permits have been issued, that’ll be another trigger event. People will say, ‘They’re going to mine here, so let’s let them buy the property,’” Klanecky said. “We’re being patient. We’ve done a lot of really good deals with owners. I think we’ve paid them very well.” Asked if Piedmont’s generosity may be more limited if a landowner has a change of heart once mining begins, he said: “If it’s a relationship where it’s contentious, then they’ve got to understand the risk of not doing something. We try to point that out.” Rich Pembleton, left, worries about how the proposed mine will affect his new home and small farm, pictured at right. LeAnne and Rich Pembleton hoped to live out their days at the farm they moved to from Atlanta. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST Perceptions of bad faith cut both ways. Crocker said he suspected Piedmont “thought Gaston County was an ignorant county, and they thought they could hoodwink us.” Harper said his first impression of the company was “gentlemen coming down from New York, thinking we were dumb hicks.” Even newer residents felt the company’s representatives had talked down to them. LeAnne Pembleton, a 64-year-old clinical health researcher who relocated here from Atlanta in 2015 with her husband, Rich, said: “My impression is they feel they’re dealing with a bunch of hillbillies. They acted so hoity-toity.” Klanecky conceded that “there’s some people who truly have an emotional connection,” not just property owners playing hardball. “Their grandfather grew up here. Their whole family lived here forever, and it’s hard to see their property sold or their neighbor’s property sold and be potentially impacted by that. That’s why we’re trying to minimize the impact to the people who can still live here,” Klanecky said. “Those are the hard conversations.” I asked Risinger, the spokesman at the time of my trip, if Piedmont could provide names or numbers for some of the 150 or so landowners who made deals to sell the company their property. He initially said yes, but did not respond to follow-up requests. At least half a dozen residents in Gaston County told me their neighbors had signed nondisclosure agreements with the firm. But what the firm called “trigger events,” Pembleton saw as bullying. “Some people feel they don’t have any choice,” she said at her dinner table one night. “A lot of them were snookered into signing the contracts.” LeAnne Pembleton sits at her kitchen table at her home in Cherryville. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST ‘The Worst Rollout,’ Or ‘Abrasive’ Change? If approved, the project would be a massive undertaking, dwarfing past mining and chemical operations in the county. The mining would start by digging a 500-foot-deep open pit. The miners will bore into the rock, load the holes with dynamite, and clear the area before blasting it apart. Workers would then sort through the remains and use machines to crush boulders into smaller rocks. Normally, at that point, a mining company would fill diesel trucks with excavated materials and drive them to a processing facility. But Piedmont plans to spend over $50 million on an electric-powered covered conveyor system that will snake thousands of feet from the dig site to the neighboring chemical plant. Another, smaller facility on the site will gather other rocks of value such as quartz and feldspar, which the company plans to sell for construction materials. Rocks and dirt without value will end up in a pile more than 21 stories high. At the chemical plant, the spodumene rocks will be roasted at lava-hot temperatures, cooled, crushed and cooked in sulfuric acid, which converts the spodumene from its alpha to beta form, a necessary prerequisite to refining it into lithium hydroxide. The mining operations and sorting plants will be powered completely with solar electricity, but the chemical plant will use natural gas. Despite the natural gas required — it’s difficult to reach the temperatures needed for processing without fossil fuels — Piedmont claims its lithium will be among the cheapest and cleanest in the world because of its local supply chain. Most lithium on today’s market is either mined similarly in Australia and then shipped to China for processing, or produced using the brining method in Chile and Argentina. Much of that, too, typically gets shipped to China for processing. The processed materials then go to battery manufacturers in China, Europe, South Korea or the U.S., where automakers are increasingly sourcing their electric vehicle components. A map of the proposed pit mine. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST “We think our project is, from an environmental perspective, going to be a world leader, located in an area where it can be closer to important customers, car companies and battery companies,” Phillips said. At some point in the next decade, Piedmont plans to dig a second pit, also as deep as the length of two football fields. Once it exhausts the first mine, it will dig a third and backfill the first, then repeat that process again with a fourth pit. Phillips declined to give a timeline for digging all four holes. The plan is to eventually leave the final pit open as a quarry. “You build one, mine one, then mine another and backfill the waste rock,” he said. Despite years of buying up properties and studying the mining potential of the area, Piedmont did not approach the Gaston County Board of Commissioners until April 2020. Phillips said mining projects take years to fully conceive, and a local adviser had told him to wait until the company had finalized its proposal to avoid any kind of confusion over Piedmont’s plans in the county. The firm only made its first public appearance at a hearing last July. It wasn’t exactly a warm welcome. Four of the seven commissioners expressed anger that this was the first time a company with such ambitious plans in the county was coming before the body that would ultimately decide its fate. Commission Chairman Chad Brown called the proposal “the worst rollout of a project from a company I’ve ever seen” in a Reuters interview before the hearing. From behind his wooden dais, he complained at the hearing that Piedmont’s marketing materials included the county government’s trademarked logo, giving the appearance that the officials had already rubber-stamped the proposal. When constituents asked about the proposed mine, Brown said he was made to look foolish because the company had not yet engaged with the commission. “I find it very damaging to me to have to tell these people that I don’t know anything about it,” Brown said. “It’s very frustrating.” Gaston County Commissioner Chad Brown is skeptical of Piedmont’s plans for the mine. “Just because it’s jobs doesn’t mean it’s always the right fit.” BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST During a portion in which constituents lined up to speak, Tim Hepler, a truck driver, said he tried selling his house, but had to take it off the market because no buyers wanted to be near a likely pit mine. “Houses are selling for $30 to $50 less per square foot that are going to be near what a lot of people are saying is the big hole in the ground that’s proposed, and near a chemical plant,” he said. “The Piedmont Lithium people, are they going to live near this big hole in the ground and near this chemical plant? That’s a real big question that needs to be asked of them.” Harper warned that the project would destroy his livelihood. “What is happening here may make other people’s dreams,” he said, his voice quivering with emotion. “But mine is going away.” A handful of residents expressed support for the proposal. Kevin Gee said he recently moved to the area and urged a farming community concerned over pollution to take stock of how much pesticide and chemical fertilizer was already used here. “Change is abrasive. It’s hard. I get it … [but] any objection anyone has to this project I can overcome in five minutes,” he said. “I’m a dreamer, and I see the potential of a project like this, so I’m going to embrace it.” In response to the criticism, Phillips — dressed in a sleek, dark suit and fashionable clear-framed glasses — said at the hearing: “We haven’t spent a lot of time on community relations or government relations.” In August, Reuters reported that Piedmont indefinitely postponed its first shipments of spodumene ore to Tesla as it waited to get its permits in order, though in a public filing the company described the move as a “mutual agreement” to “extend” the “initial delivery dates.” “They might have put the cart before the horse a little bit with that deal,” said Gavin Montgomery, a battery raw materials analyst at the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Shortly afterward, shareholders filed two class action lawsuits accusing the company of giving investors and regulators a false picture of the project being ready to go and widely supported in the area. Lawyers representing the investors did not respond to repeated requests for comment. “We’re defending them vigorously and feel very strongly about our position,” Phillips said of the lawsuits. In the months that followed the public meeting, Piedmont seemed to hone its public messaging on jobs. The company promised to hire hundreds of workers — estimates in public statements have ranged from 300 to 500 — in a part of North Carolina that lost some furniture and textile manufacturing jobs to overseas competitors during late 20th century globalization. Salaries, the firm said, would top $80,000 per year in a county where the median annual income is a little over $53,000. It’s hard to tell from today’s quiet, rural landscape, but Gaston County was the cradle of the lithium industry for much of the mid-20th century. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST But characterizations of Gaston County as some post-industrial husk seeking new economic lifeblood clash with what many here see as the potential next beneficiary of nearby Charlotte’s breakneck growth. The county’s unemployment rate in February was about 4%, in line with the national average. Gleaming new office parks line the highways that cut through the county, and in January construction was underway on several new buildings. Brown said virtually all the new corporate space is leased before construction is even complete. The businesses included a food-processing plant, a vehicle-lift manufacturer and an Amazon warehouse, which provided up to 40 jobs per acre of land the companies occupied, Brown said. By contrast, the Piedmont project offered one job per 6 acres. “Just because it’s jobs doesn’t mean it’s always the right fit,” Brown told me over breakfast at Cracker Barrel. “Some of the things they’ve rolled out are that we’re not doing very well economically. Well, I beg to differ.” Klanecky said Piedmont would create jobs for generations of workers in Gaston County, and not just in mining. “We think property values are going to increase once this operation is out here because you’re going to be attracting people making $90,000-plus a year,” he said. “They’re going to want to buy stuff.” At least one native has returned here to work at the mine. Piedmont hired Emily Blackburn, a 26-year-old geologist, to work on both community relations and resource exploration. “Piedmont Lithium brought me back home. I was in Minnesota after college,” Blackburn said. “Now I’m back at church with my parents. I moved back to my hometown. I got a fiancé.” She’s set to marry here in August. Outdated Mining Laws vs. Surging Demand As the sun set over a field that would likely form the entrance to the mine, Eric Carpenter, 52, stood on his mother’s land and crossed his arms. The 5-acre parcel, once part of his grandfather’s cotton farm, is today filled with low, dense foliage and trees. The mine will “render our property worthless,” he said. Piedmont sent a representative to his 85-year-old mother’s home sometime between 2017 and 2018, he said, and proposed leasing the land. But Carpenter, who happened to be there when the employee showed up, asked to see a lease and run it by an attorney. The lease did not materialize, he said, and they never heard from the company again. In the meantime, Carpenter, an insurance underwriter, decided to research who would be liable for restoring the property after the mining was done. He found that the entire legal framework for approving projects like this in the state is the 1971 Mining Act, which caps the money state regulators can require a mine owner to set aside for cleanup and reclamation at $1 million. Eric Carpenter’s family goes back centuries in Gaston County. The spot near his mother’s property may be the site of a proposed pit mine. BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST “This is really designed for a farmer who wants to sell sand from his property,” Carpenter said. “It doesn’t contemplate a mine of this size.” As things seemed to be moving forward last November, Carpenter said he spoke to L.T. McCrimmon, director of legislative affairs for Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. McCrimmon said the governor did not have the authority to issue an executive order halting mine permitting to give the legislature time to review and update the mining law. There didn’t seem to be much appetite in the legislature, anyway. That same month, Carpenter emailed his state legislators to ask about reviewing the law. State Sen. Kathy Harrington, who represents his district and is the Republican majority leader, never responded. State Rep. Kelly Hastings, a Republican, said the legislature had nothing to do with permitting the mine, and directed Carpenter to the governor, who oversees the regulatory agencies responsible for permitting mines. When Carpenter asked if Hastings would look into updating the law, he responded: “The General Assembly is not currently in session. Have a great Christmas.” By coincidence, the same week Carpenter started contacting his state leaders, an effort to reform a similarly outdated national mining law fell apart. On the federal level, the 1872 General Mining Law still governs hard-rock mining. Designed to encourage white settlement of the American West around the time of the California gold rush, the statute allows individuals or companies to stake claims on minerals found on public lands without paying royalties to the government. Mining companies have extracted some $300 billion worth of minerals from gold to lithium to copper from public lands since 1872, according to the environmental group Earthworks. And much like the North Carolina legislature, the U.S. Congress has been reluctant to update the law; last November, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) blocked a proposal to reform the 150-year-old legislation. A new bill from Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is trying once again to add mining royalties and new protections, though critics have said it does little to require companies to seek input from communities near the projects. Carpenter said the proposed mine would “render our property worthless.” BRIAN BLANCO FOR HUFFPOST When Piedmont started buying property here, Klanecky said the county had no ordinances in place to regulate mining. Since then, he said, the county added some rules that the company supported. Those could help assuage some short-term concerns. But opponents of the project are thinking decades down the line, and remain skeptical of a technology that they do not see as a safe bet. What happens if an alternative battery chemistry seizes the market? In Australia, a company called Graphene Manufacturing Group claims its novel approach to making aluminum-ion battery cells could charge up to 70 times faster than lithium-ion batteries and hold three times as much energy as traditional aluminum-based cells. The company told Forbes it plans to roll out vehicle batteries in 2024. The Canadian startup Salient Energy says its zinc-ion batteries can compete directly with lithium-ion cells and offer a steadier domestic supply chain. But high energy costs and the war in Ukraine have sent prices soaring for a commodity that was already subject to market shocks similar to those that afflict lithium. Researchers in South Korea and a team from the U.S. and China recently made major breakthroughs with sodium-ion battery prototypes, though Arkady Krasheninnikov, a physicist studying the technology at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf laboratory, told the German broadcaster DW: “Our work is of a purely theoretical nature, and we do not claim that a new generation of batteries will be developed in the foreseeable future on the basis of our results.” Batteries built with vanadium are gaining attention as a potential competitor with lithium, particularly as prices of the latter metal continue to soar. In March, the Department of Energy issued a new category of license to help bring vanadium-based “flow” batteries to market. At an industry conference in May, James Hayter, an adviser at the natural resources investment fund Baker Steel Capital Managers, called vanadium “overlooked” and “more efficient than lithium-ion in the grid storage market,” according to a report from S&P Global Commodity Insights. “We’re bending over backwards to be as accommodating as we can to a lot of people. This is going to be a boom business. ... I think people will look back and come to the realization that this worked out an awful lot better than they thought.” - Piedmont Lithium CEO Keith Phillips But so-called flow batteries, which use external tanks of electrolyte fluids that pump through the device, will more likely “serve a part of the market that barely exists today for energy storage that can last for eight hours or more, while lithium-ion batteries will continue to be the leaders in shorter-duration storage, electric vehicles and consumer electronics,” a researcher from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado told Inside Climate News. Analysts say lithium demand is highly unlikely to drop off anytime soon — if anything, the rate of growth has exceeded projections. Piedmont, meanwhile, sees demand for the category of lithium it plans to produce soaring in the years to come. The high-nickel car-battery chemistry that yields longer range — a desirable trait in the U.S., where suburban sprawl means drivers face longer commute times than in other developed nations — tends to use more lithium hydroxide. Ideally, the U.S. could temper surging demand by increasing the availability of both public transit and recycling infrastructure to reuse existing lithium and other minerals, said Thea Riofrancos, an associate professor of political science at Providence College who co-authored a report on the U.S. battery supply chain for the nonprofit Climate and Community Project. “Our entire economic system is resource-intensive — but we live on a finite planet,” she said. “We could extract a lot less lithium, with fewer impacts on rural communities like those in Gaston County, if we took the opportunity of the energy transition to transform our transportation sector, building out mass transit and moving away from car dependency.” But Klanecky suggested some local opponents to the mine may have ideological blinders that make them less sensitive to the urgent realities of climate change. “This isn’t a place where you’re going to see something like the Bay Area, where everyone is going to convert to EVs because they think it’s good for the environment,” he said. Sixty-five percent of adults in Gaston County recognize that global warming is happening, 7 percentage points lower than the national average, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s 2021 survey. And 55% said local officials should do more to address climate change. But just 47% acknowledged that humans are causing climate change, while 37% said they believed warming was primarily due to natural cycles. That last claim was one Klanecky said he had heard before. “We want to listen to everybody and we want to educate everybody, but it’s hard to educate someone who thinks the Earth is tilted differently and that’s why it’s warmer or colder,” he said. Opponents of the project here say they aren’t numb to the climate concerns at all. Lancaster, the retiree, said he petitioned county officials to approve the big solar farm just down the block from his home. But in the face of ecological destruction on a scale few can reckon with, many here say they just want to preserve what they feel they have control over in their lives. “We have a high population here,” Pembleton said. “If things go wrong, responsibility will fall on the landowner to fight in court.” Phillips said it’s “not irrational” for the community to fear that “we’re some fly-by-night operation, and we’ll start this up and three weeks later we’ll run out of money and leave.” But, he said, “the good news is we’ve become a reasonably substantial company, we have investors like JPMorgan advising us. And we’ll have some very strong partners come into the project.” “We’re bending over backwards to be as accommodating as we can to a lot of people,” he said. “This is going to be a boom business. This is going to grow and grow and will be great for the community. I think people will look back and come to the realization that this worked out an awful lot better than they thought.” Harper doesn’t share that optimism. He had planned out his life. He would pass his business on to his 31-year-old daughter, who already works with him. He thought maybe, someday, his grandchildren would take over. And he would sit out on the porch in the afternoons watching his wife spend meditative hours listening to music on her headphones while she mowed the vast fields behind their home, and evenings observing the deer feast on the clippings. “This is God’s country. Each and every day we see turkey, deer, ringtail hawks, even a bald eagle that nests around here. This is a pristine, beautiful and tranquil area, and it’s going to be decimated,” Harper said. “All I can do is pray.” Read the article on The Huffington Post
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