• Clean Water for NC has a new NC Energy Digest!

    Clean Water has introduced our new NC Energy Digest, with weekly news about North Carolina’s energy landscape. This digest will combine two of our existing digests into one, and explores news and events related to coal & coal ash; pipelines, oil & gas; biomass & biogas; plus utility rates, environmental justice, climate change, and more! What’s inside the NC Energy Digest?  EVENTS: You can expect to find out about public hearings related to permits for energy facilities and utility rate cases. We’ll also let you know about any relevant events hosted by NC community or advocacy groups to help hold polluters and government agencies accountable. NEWS: The news digest will focus on NC specifically but also bring in federal items that could impact North Carolinians. We’ll keep everything organized into categories for you, and provide links and brief overviews. If it’s an opinion piece, we’ll be sure to indicate that it’s commentary. Our aim is to provide you with information on energy matters that could impact you and your NC neighbors!  How do I sign up? If you are already signed up for our Coal Ash Updates or Fracking and Pipeline Updates, no need to register, as you have likely seen our January editions in your inbox. If you’d like to begin receiving our weekly NC Energy Digest, great! Just sign up here!


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  • Help Protect NC Communities from Dirty Biomass Projects

    In North Carolina, black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), Superfund sites, coal ash facilities, biogas operations, and wood pellet plants. Although NC DEQ is responsible for regulating and monitoring industry operations in a manner that protects natural resources and communities from environmental and health risks, many residents across the state continue to grapple with environmental injustices and the burdens these facilities’ place on their health and quality of life. Enviva is the world’s largest wood pellet manufacturing company, with NC facilities in Ahoskie, Hamlet, Sampson County, and Northampton County….


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  • Robeson County is NOT a Sacrifice Zone – Go Home, Active Energy! 

    Active Energy LLC, a UK based company, is proposing to construct and operate a “black” wood pellet facility in Lumberton – the first of its kind to ever be operating anywhere on the planet. The NC Dept. of Air Quality is weighing the request in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when studies are showing that black and brown people are being disproportionately impacted by the health crisis due to compounding factors of living and working conditions and higher incidence of health conditions that increase risk for respiratory illness. Communities in Robeson County are overburdened by pipelines and polluting industries, and…


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  • Robeson County residents tell DEQ to deny air permit for Active Energy wood pellet plant

    By: Lisa Sorg, NC Policy Watch June 24, 2020 A proposed wood pellet plant faces vehement opposition from many Robeson County residents, including elected officials, and environmental advocates, who say the facility would not only pollute the air, but also would be financially risky and environmentally unjust. The NC Department of Environmental Quality held a virtual public hearing Monday night to receive formal comments on a draft air permit for the plant, owned and operated by Active Energy Renewable Power, in Lumberton. More than 125 people attended, and of the roughly 50 who spoke, just four asked DEQ to approve the air…


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