Tropical Storm Elsa is headed for NC: Here s how to learn if you live in a flood zone, near environmental hazards ncpolicywatch.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ncpolicywatch.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Washington, D.C. Over 75 climate and social justice groups sent a letter today to the EPA, calling on Administrator Regan to prevent electricity from wood biomass, factory farm gas, and landfill gas from qualifying under the Renewable Fuel Standard. The signers include numerous grassroots organizations from North Carolina, where now Administrator Regan served as head of the state Department of Environmental Quality from 2017 to 2021.
The letter comes following renewed lobbying pressure from factory farm gas and wood biomass interests to allow electricity from these sources to generate compliance credits, or e-RINs, under the cellulosic mandate of the Renewable Fuel Standard. The groups argue that incentivizing these dirty industries through the Renewable Fuel Standard is incompatible with President Biden’s commitment to center Environmental Justice in climate policy.
Elsie Herring dies: The hog-farm critic personified environmental justice for many Adam Wagner, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
May 8 Elsie Herring, a Duplin County woman who became one of the most outspoken critics of the state s hog industry, died Wednesday, according to an announcement from the N.C. Environmental Justice Network.
Friends and colleagues of Herring s remembered her as someone who helped put a face to the struggles that have long been reported by rural residents living near some hog farms. These stories are personal but when it comes to injustice, she was willing to tell how it affected her and her family. . Couldn t anybody tell her story the way she could tell her story, Devon Hall, the co-founder of the Warsaw-based Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help, told The News & Observer. Herring was willing to tell her story to any audience, Hall added, whether it be in Duplin County, Washington, D.C.., or Green Bay, Wisconsin, anothe
In many mystery stories, a detective boldly hunts for clues and tracks down the elusive cause for a community’s strife. Sometimes they have a sidekick, but in many cases, they act alone.
Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholar Courtney Woods could be seen as a type of detective. But she flips the traditional “hero” script by actively partnering with community residents to address their concerns.
Assistant Professor Courtney Woods.
Woods directs the Master of Public Health program in the College of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. An assistant professor who researches topics around environmental justice, she was drawn to Sampson County, North Carolina, after attending an environmental justice conference where residents raised concerns about a major regional landfill.
Align RNG is a partnership between Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy. The new company plans to build a 30-mile pipeline network among 19 farms in Duplin and Sampson counties that will install or convert one lagoon to a covered gas capture system. The farms will then ship methane generated by the hog waste to a central processing plant along N.C. Highway 24 in Turkey. From there, the Align RNG plant will upgrade the gas and inject it into the Piedmont natural gas line, where it will be purchased from Piedmont by Duke Energy.
However, Align RNG has intentionally not disclosed the full list of the farms, nor their locations, to the public or DEQ. The four farms that plan to participate in the Align RNG project M&M Waters, Benson, Kilpatrick Farm 1, 2, 4 and 5/Merritt Farm and Farm 2037/2038 are corporately owned and operated by Smithfield.