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Will property owners who lost land to scuttled Atlantic Coast Pipeline get it back?
By: Lisa Sorg, NC Policy WatchOctober 28, 2021 Advocates cry foul as future of thousands of easements in North Carolina and Virginia remains uncertain Dominion Energy laid claim to 3,100 tracts of private land along the Atlantic Coast Pipeline route, including hundreds in North Carolina, but the company is not immediately returning that acreage to property owners, even though the project has been cancelled. Now property rights and environmental advocates, as well as landowners themselves, are asking federal officials to formally intervene. Under the name…
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NC Legislature Finalizing Redistricting Maps – Be A Voice For YOUR Community!
Our General Assembly is preparing to finalize the redistricting maps that could shape the state’s politics for a decade. Why Redistricting Matters! This is how funding is determined for communities,This determines how many House of Representatives each district receives, andRedlining can determine how votes are combined to favor one political party over another. The Republican-led legislature is aiming to have the maps for congressional districts and the General Assembly completed by Nov. 5. The state’s redistricting committees just announced public hearings…
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EPA to regulate certain types of ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water in 2023
By: Rachel Frazin, The HillOctober 18, 2021 The EPA on Monday released its strategy for addressing a type of cancer-linked chemicals called PFAS, including its plans to finish a rule to regulate certain types of PFAS in drinking water in 2023. PFAS stands for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and these substances are a group of man-made chemicals that have been linked to health problems such as kidney and testicular cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, exposure rates can be difficult to assess, but one…
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Pollution from N.C.’s Commercial Poultry Farms Disproportionately Harms Communities of Color
By: Aman Azhar, Inside Climate NewsOctober 13, 2021 The legislation aimed at regulating North Carolina’s huge and largely unregulated poultry industry seemed modest in scope, requiring commercial chicken farms to submit waste management plans to environmental regulators so the public would know where millions of tons of chicken “litter” ends up. But as the legislative session in Raleigh came to a close in July, the bill had moved not an inch—and no one was surprised. “We’re unlikely to see any poultry related legislation passed in the short run,”…
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Acknowledging the Sacred Indigenous Lands of North Carolina
“Our country was conceived on a promise of equality and opportunity for all people — a promise that, despite the extraordinary progress we have made through the years, we have never fully lived up to. That is especially true when it comes to upholding the rights and dignity of the Indigenous people who were here long before colonization of the Americas began. For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures. Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect…
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Powerless In The Pandemic: After Bailouts, Electric Utilities Chose Profits Over People
By: Bailout WatchSeptember 30, 2021 WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity and BailoutWatch today released Powerless in the Pandemic, a report showing some of the nation’s top electric utilities received a collective $1.25 billion from last year’s government bailouts while shutting off families’ electric service nearly 1 million times. Utilities wielded political power to secure beneficial tax-code changes in the CARES Act, but defied calls to grant their own customers temporary relief. Instead, 16 utilities suspended or canceled electric service to nearly 1 million households between February 2020 and June 2021, leaving people without…
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“Critical Infrastructure” Anti-Protest Legislation Targets Pipeline Protestors
This article has been contributed by CWFNC volunteer Hannah Budds All images in this post are from the 7 Directions of Service Water Walk along the proposed MVP Southgate route. On May 2, small teams walked, paddled, or biked the entire proposed Mountain Valley Southgate route. 7 Directions of Service, which led the Water Walk, collaborated with the Pittsylvania County, Virginia NAACP Environmental Justice Committee to begin the day near the proposed site of the Lambert Compressor Station which plans to connect the MVP Southgate to the MVP main line…
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Indigenous Tribes Facing Displacement in Alaska and Louisiana Say the U.S. Is Ignoring Climate Threats
By Dalia Faheid, Inside Climate NewsSeptember 13, 2021 WASHINGTON—About 31 Native Alaskan communities face imminent climate displacement from flooding and erosion, which could lead cultures to disappear and ways of life to transform, with four tribes already in the process of relocating from their quickly disappearing villages. The Kivalina, Shishmaref, Shaktoolik and Newtok, along with coastal Louisiana tribes, are among the most at risk of displacement due to climate change. But their efforts to move, according to tribal leaders, have been impeded by a lack of federal programs to assist in their…
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When the Faucet Runs Dry
Grist, Sponsored by NRDCAugust 31, 2021 On the gritty streets of Detroit, community organizer Sylvia Orduño has been working to help the city’s most vulnerable residents for over twenty years. “There’s one family that sticks in my mind,” she says. “He was a disabled former police officer. He had so many health problems that they couldn’t keep up with the bills, so their water was shut off. His wife and daughter were hauling water in bottles to bathe him.” The story Orduño shared should be an isolated, tragic occurrence — but it’s not….
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