Protecting Mother Earth in NC

By Lib Hutchby, Earth Democracy Committee

Magnolias bloom in May in North Carolina so you can imagine time-lapse photographs and on recent sunny days, one can sit for an hour and watch the buds begin to open.  It's an amazing sight for sore eyes.

Between weeping, chanting, fighting, listening, and learning, we enjoy aroma therapy, right?  NC still has more hogs than people, more coal ash “ponds” than any other state,  more stored nuclear fuel rods, and Duke Energy Progress still has a monopoly's grip on rate-payers' source of electricity. In fact, Duke Energy just began removing coal ash from NC and sending it to a “lined pit” in Georgia, .out of our site, but not out of our minds; meanwhile, shareholders and their proxies, like John Wagner of the Triangle Branch, pled with Lynn Goode, the current (female) CEO of Duke Energy, to attend to the precautionary principle to protect life rather than to defend her purse.

For this news, let's focus on all three of the following that happened on the same day, May 27.  There's a rush to spend money needlessly for fracking exploration because the fiscal year ends in June.  For example, needing to spend already designated funds for “exploration,” May 27 marked the beginning of the core sample drilling in the Cumberland-Marlboro Basin, east of Raleigh, where two samples will be made on state-owned property and the other at the NC Wildlife Fish Hatchery near Fayetteville.

Though the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) may find granite instead of natural gas, they proceed.  Even though, in fact, there is not enough money for testing the contents of the core samples, they proceed. 

Lest you think little has changed, you'll understand comparisons to time-lapse photography as we report that alliances and coalitions have developed in our fight for clean air, clean water, healthy and just life-experiences.  The movement seems to be beginning to blossom as a judge ruled for a stay on fracking regulations, because the legislature never had authority to appoint a mining and energy commission in the first place.  Lawsuits against Gov. McCroy and DENR are multiplying.

Triangle WILPF continues to support anti-fracking efforts, keeping coal ash in solid containment above ground on Duke Energy’s property, and the Environmental Justice Network that focuses on statewide efforts to attend to the civil rights of individuals living close to poisoned or threatened lands.  As partners with HkonJ/NC NAACP, we speak out in efforts to connect all issues of climate change, education, health care, voting rights, and Medicaid expansion.

We continue to rally with Moral Mondays, which became Moral Wednesdays, when the NC Legislature decided to lock the doors of its office building at 5:00 pm on Mondays and arrested some who refused to leave.  Moral Monday is moving around the state to locales in trouble; for example, on May 27, Moral Wednesday morning was held in Walnut Cove, a rural community that is home to the largest coal ash site in NC and is also scheduled to have a core sample taken soon to test for natural gas/fracking. Kim Porter of NC WARN, a 26-year-old Durham-based nonprofit keeping an eye on Duke Energy’s practices, called the coal ash spill “a toxic mix of politics and corporate greed.”

She said Duke is the largest utility in the world and the largest political action committee in North Carolina. “It’s never paid its fair share of state income tax. There’s something going on here. Duke dodged the federal income tax over the last five years, and actually received a $300 million tax rebate from our federal government.”

On the evening of May 27, Moral Wednesday met in Raleigh, rallied on the issues of healthcare, the need to accept Medicaid expansion, environmental justice,  the need to stop more coal ash spills and start clean up, and fracking.

We chanted as we walked inside the legislative office-building for speaking truth to power outside the legislative chamber doors.

Triangle WILPF is also a partner in the alliance of FrackfreeNC, which doggedly tracks the schedules of the governor, the head of DENR, participates in rallies, citizen air-monitor trainings, and wakes up the next morning to continue, just as WILPFers have done for the last 100years.  FORWARD TOGETHER!  NOT ONE STEP BACK!

Photo: Magnolias bloom in May in North Carolina.