Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
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April 8
The Asheville Citizen-Times on leadership on climate change:
We are pleased that Asheville and Buncombe County are in the forefront of the national effort to pursue climate science in the face of the Trump administration’s abdication of its responsibilities.
One of Asheville’s lesser-known treasures is the National Center for Environmental Information, one of the world’s leading archives of such data. Gathered about it are various outfits dedicated to putting NCEI data to use. A major component here is The Collider, a nonprofit workspace in the old Wells Fargo building facing Pritchard Park.
Today, folks in The Collider find themselves filling a void left by the national government. Trump refuses to recognize the indisputable fact that the Earth is warming and that human activity in releasing gases that trap the Earth’s heat - so-called greenhouse gases - plays a significant role.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris accord to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, an agreement supported by nearly 200 nations, and put in charge of environmental policies people who oppose those policies. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has played down the effects of global warming as not necessarily “a bad thing.”
We imagine the residents of Pacific Ocean nations threatened with inundation as sea levels rise would disagree. The Pentagon also knows better, as its Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean is threatened.
The amount of the human role and the significance of other factors in climate change can be debated. So can many questions of what we can and should do. But the fact that the earth is warming is beyond denial. Asheville recorded its two hottest years on record in 2016 and 2017, more than 2 degrees above normal, according to NCEI.
“It’s not even a discussion for us because we operate from the principle and the fact that the climate is changing,” Megan Robinson, The Collider’s chief operating officer, said. “We’re not saying X, Y and Z are the causes - someone else might be saying that.
“But we’re saying it’s changing and we’re fostering this innovative and creative space for solutions that are ultimately going to impact the life, safety and prosperity of society everywhere.”
In a way, the location is natural. “I would say Asheville has been on this train for a while now,” Bridget Herring, the city’s energy program coordinator, said during the ClimateCon conference at The Collider last month. “Climate change, as we’ve seen, is quite a large issue, and the way you eat an elephant is one bite at time.”
The city has instituted a goal of 80 percent carbon reduction by 2050, including a 4 percent annual cut in carbon footprint, which relates to greenhouse-gas emission. Mayor Esther Manheimer was one of 274 mayors to sign a letter of support last year for the Paris Agreement.
Buncombe County commissioners voted in December to move away from fossil fuels for electricity and its vehicle fleet. The county is committed to use only clean and renewable energy for its operations by 2030 and for all county homes and businesses by 2042.
“It is critical that we strive to operate as efficiently as possible, both from an energy and cost perspective,” said Jeremiah LeRoy, county sustainability officer.
Asheville and Buncombe are not alone, as noted by the number of mayors who signed the Paris petition. Local and state leaders all over the nation, including North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, understand that other levels of government must fill the void left by Washington.
The feds must step up at some point. But we at least can minimize the damage until this nation once again has a president fit to hold the office.
Online: https://www.citizen-times.com/
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April 4
The Winston-Salem Journal on the Liberian community and the possibility of deportation:
An estimated 400 Liberian immigrants live in the Winston-Salem area, but that will change if President Trump follows through on a decision to send them back to Liberia.
The Trump administration announced last week that it would end a program, instituted in 1999 during a time of civil war in Liberia, that has allowed some 4,200 Liberian refugees to live in the U.S. They’ve been given a year to move back on their own or face deportation.
This was a needless decision that could cause a great deal of pain if it is carried out.
“I’m not a criminal, I pay taxes, I haven’t done anything wrong, but now they want me to leave?” Justin Miayen Woazeah Jr., 33, a Liberian refugee who moved here when he was 5 years old, told the Journal’s Jenny Drabble last week. “In a year, I could be deported, I would be illegal. My biggest fear is being separated from my wife because I’m not going to let her move with me to the poorest country in the world.”
“I don’t see the rationale behind this,” Bishop Seth Lartey, who came to the U.S. from Liberia in 1983, told the Journal. “You don’t see us wreaking havoc, shooting people at Las Vegas concerts or at schoolhouses. We’re working hard to better this country and our own lives. We have been model Christians, model civilians.”
It’s hard to discern Trump’s motive for this decision, which seems capricious and cruel.
“Many of these people have been in our state for decades, and they are an important part of our communities, where they serve as business owners, teachers and health care workers,” members of Congress from Minnesota, which has the largest Liberian population in the country, wrote in a letter to Trump in March, The New York Times reported last week. They’ve asked for a further extension of the program.
“Liberia is no longer experiencing armed conflict and has made significant progress in restoring stability and democratic governance,” Trump wrote in a memo to the secretary of state. “Liberia has also concluded reconstruction from prior conflicts, which has contributed significantly to an environment that is able to handle adequately the return of its nationals.”
But many Liberians see Liberia as, still, a third-world country and are not eager to return. They also cite the economic difficulty and instability Liberia would suffer with an influx of refugees returning.
It would be one thing if the presence of Liberians here had been brief, a matter of months. But after living here for 20 or 30 years, sending them away is as much a hardship for them as it would be for any of us.
It was a sign of our country’s generous nature that we allowed Liberians to seek refuge here from war. Sending them back now seems a negation of that generous spirit. We call upon our own legislators to object to this decision.
Online: http://www.journalnow.com/
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April 10
The Fayetteville Observer on the Department of Environmental Quality’s handling of GenX:
It’s becoming increasingly evident that the spread of GenX into the water supply from the Chemours plant is an air-pollution problem too. There are, in fact, several ways that the chemical used in producing Teflon and other nonstick coatings has spread into the water supply of much of this region. While state regulators initially targeted wastewater and runoff from the plant, they now understand that large quantities of GenX are escaping into the air from the chemical plant on the Cumberland-Bladen county line.
The state Department of Environmental Quality said last week that rainwater tests conducted in late February and early March found GenX as far as seven miles away from the plant at levels from 45 to 810 parts per trillion. The state’s health goal for drinking water is 140 parts per trillion. State regulators have also noted that Chemours’ estimates of air emissions have steadily increased as the DEQ’s investigation of the pollution has continued.
There are more test results awaited - including fish from the Cape Fear River and in local lakes - and there need to be tests on fruits, vegetables and meats raised in the plant’s vicinity.
But there is a substantial volume of research already done and the state appears to be taking a firmer hand with the chemical giant - a welcome move. Last week, the DEQ gave Chemours three weeks to show that it can prevent its air emissions of GenX from polluting groundwater and told the company that it will modify the terms of its air quality permit. “Chemours must show to DEQ’s satisfaction that they can operate without further contamination of groundwater or we will prohibit all GenX air emissions,” DEQ Secretary Michael Regan said. The company has until April 27 to respond and demonstrate that its emissions don’t contribute to groundwater violations. Failure to do that will result in the state prohibiting emissions of GenX.
Given the most recent test results showing the GenX content of rainwater collected around the company’s Fayetteville Works, it’s hard to see how the company will avoid the difficult sanctions.
Chemours, however, says it has made “unprecedented” efforts to clean up the plant site, including digging up and disposing of contaminated soil. It has also committed to install activated carbon adsorption systems to control emissions and will follow that with the installation of a thermal oxidizer that will prevent “at least 99.99 percent” of GenX emissions.
Those are positive steps, but it’s a little like closing the barn doors after multiple generations of horses have run out of the barn and off of the farm. It appears that water and air pollution from the plant continued for decades until they were discovered by researchers last year. Digging up contaminated soil at the plant isn’t going to clean up the huge plumes of GenX and other pollutants that are in the groundwater for miles around the plant, nor will stopping the outfall of GenX into the river offset whatever health effects the pollution has had on generations of residents around the plant and downstream from it who have been drinking tainted water.
While the DEQ’s response to this pollution emergency has been exemplary, it’s also been hampered severely by years of budget cutting that have left the agency badly understaffed and incapable of performing all the tests needed to swiftly determine the extent of the problem. And we haven’t even begun to talk about remediation efforts that will insure clean water and safe crops in the future.
Earlier this year, the state Senate walked away from a House-passed measure that would have begun restoring DEQ’s ability to determine the full scope of the pollution and to better respond. That was nothing less than a sellout of the health and safety of the lawmakers’ constituents. We hope that when legislators return to the General Assembly in May for their short session, they’ll reverse that shameful inaction and give the DEQ the tools it needs.
Online: http://www.fayobserver.com/
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