N.C. Lawmakers OK Global Warming StudyState becomes first in the Southeast to tackle climate change

In a big political victory for environmental advocates, the North Carolina General Assembly yesterday approved landmark legislation to study the impact of global climate change on the state.

"While the federal government is just now recognizing the impacts of global warming, the state of North Carolina is already taking action to address the threat," said Michael Shore, air policy analyst with the state office of Environmental Defense.

Though both chambers had approved the measure earlier this year, it got bogged down due to minor differences between the two versions. But on the afternoon of Aug. 30, with adjournment looming, lawmakers pulled the N.C. Global Warming Act from a larger study bill and brought it before each chamber for a vote.

It passed the Senate by 42-4 and the House by 86-25. No Wake County Senators voted against the bill, but several local House members did, including Russell Capps (R-41), Nelson Dollar (R-36), Rick Eddins (R-40) and Paul Stam (R-37).

The measure establishes a 32-member commission of state officials, business leaders and other stakeholders that will examine issues relating to global warming, including projected impacts to the state and economic opportunities associated with reducing global warming pollution. The commission will report its finding and recommendations in November 2006.

Lawmakers approved the bill as news from the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast grew grimmer. Hundreds of people are believed dead, and many thousands have been left homeless. Though the Category 4 storm cannot be blamed directly on global warming, it fits a pattern of intensifying weather that can be attributed in part to a warmer atmosphere.

"Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico," journalist and global warming expert Ross Gelbspan noted in an Aug. 30 Boston Globe op ed titled "Katrina's Real Name."

Riverkeeper Questions EPA Commitment to Clean Raleigh PCB Mess

Almost 30 years after it was first discovered, the PCB contamination from Raleigh's Ward Transformer Superfund site continues to threaten the environment and public health - but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appears to have little sense of urgency about cleaning up the disaster.

"It has become clear the EPA has no intentions of forcing Ward and other responsible parties to clean up the downstream water bodies, even though the City of Raleigh, Wake County (who owns the park around Lake Crabtree) and the town of Cary all want those water bodies cleaned up," according to a recent e-mail from Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks, a member of the citizen task force appointed by Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and Wake County Commission Chair Joe Bryan to come up with recommendations for addressing the problem.

Raleigh Eco News first reported on the contamination from Ward, an electrical transformer refurbishing company, last year after state health officials issued a fish consumption advisory for Little Brier Creek south of Brier Creek Parkway, the Brier Creek Reservoir and Lake Crabtree, a popular recreational fishing spot. The state recently issued another advisory for fish from Crabtree Creek, which runs through Umstead State Park.

A July 3 Raleigh News & Observer article about the spreading pollution focused local officials' attention on the disaster, leading to the task force's creation. The group has held three meetings to do date and has had the chance to ask EPA many questions - but the agency has provided very few answers, Naujoks reports.

"The EPA is moving very slowly in taking any action against Ward," he says. For example, under Superfund law the agency could have ordered an emergency removal action of transformers and drums of PCB-contaminated sludge almost two years ago, but it did not.

As a result, Naujoks and his task force colleagues have begun exploring alternative actions. They have contacted Riverkeepers on the Hudson in New York and the Housatonic in Massachusetts, which were both contaminated by PCBs from General Electric.

"Their experience has been very helpful for our recommendations," Naujoks says. "We hope to avoid the same pitfalls and decades of PCB-contaminated fish and water bodies that have become commonplace in other parts of the country."

The task force plans to release its recommendations next month.

Legislature Drags Feet on Global Warming Bill

Although an overwhelming majority of state lawmakers voted for it, legislation creating a commission to address the global warming problem in North Carolina is at risk of failing at the General Assembly.

The state House and Senate have already approved Senate Bill 1134 - the House by a vote of 78 to 29, and the Senate by 44 to 6. But there are minor differences between the two chambers' versions, and the conference committee assigned the task of resolving those differences has not yet done so.

Meanwhile, the current legislative session is drawing to a close. If lawmakers fail to act soon, the measure may not become law this session - and the state will remain woefully unprepared to deal with what scientists warn is a dramatically worsening climate problem.

Just how unprepared is North Carolina? A survey (PDF) conducted earlier this year by the N.C. Waste Awareness & Reduction Network found that only two state agencies out of more than 30 examined are taking action to address global warming.

The state chapter of Environmental Defense, which played a key role in pushing the legislation as far as it's gotten, is asking concerned citizens to contact their representatives and urge them to ensure the bill becomes law. For details on what to do, click here.

Pesticide Safety Group Excluded From Terminix-Sponsored BugfestAdvocates, museum offer different explanations as to why

If you plan to attend Bugfest at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences this Saturday, you won't be able to get information about the dangers of chemical pesticides or about less toxic pest control alternatives from a Raleigh nonprofit that advocates for safe pesticide use.

The Agricultural Resources Center & Pesticide Education Project asked to participate as an exhibitor in this year's event but was turned down.

The museum maintains that's because the group made its request too late. But ARC says it was given a very different explanation for its exclusion by Bugfest curator Bob Flook - that Terminix "is a very important sponsor for the museum, and they thought it wouldn't do to have us there at the event this year," reports ARC Program Coordinator Billie Karel. Terminix has been Bugfest's sole corporate sponsor for the past several years.

Karel says she initially left a phone message with Flook about exhibiting back in May. They talked the week of June 13, and Flook was "very enthusiastic" about having ARC participate, Karel says. He asked to see some of the group's materials, which she sent via e-mail the following week. ARC proposed holding a bug-coloring contest for children and distributing pesticide safety information.

Karel didn't hear back from Flook, so on July 13 she sent him a follow-up e-mail. He then called her to say ARC could not be an exhibitor. He "said nothing at all about there not being enough space," Karel says.

"He was really nice - very sweet and very enthusiastic," Karel says of Flook. "He sounded like he felt genuinely bad about having to tell us that we couldn't come."

Flook did not respond to requests for comment from Raleigh Eco News. But Jon Pishney, communications chief for the museum, maintains there was a misunderstanding between ARC and Flook, who told Pishney that ARC did not contact him about exhibiting until mid- to late July.

"Is BugFest 2005 sponsored by Terminix? Yes," Pishney says. "Did this have anything to do with the decision to turn down ARC? Absolutely not. We look forward to exploring future opportunities with [ARC] and don't want any misunderstanding to interfere with that potential."

Terminix does not have direct control over who exhibits at Bugfest and was not aware of ARC's request to participate, according to Pishney. "Terminix is not directing in any way what we present to people," he says. "They're a corporate sponsor because they believe in our event, and they believe in the museum's goals."

But sponsoring events like Bugfest is also part of Terminix's corporate growth strategy. A division of Downers Grove, Ill.-based Servicemaster, Terminix is currently the largest pest control company in the world, with a 20 percent market share in the United States. But it's aiming for a 30 to 35 percent share and is using sponsorships to help achieve that, Terminix CEO Steve Good recently told the online publication Pest Control Technology.

For example, Terminix was also the sole corporate sponsor of the 2001 IMAX film "A Rainforest Adventure - BUGS!" CEO Good admits he had to sell the idea of sponsoring a film with a pro-environmental message to his fellow executives.

"We had to ask ourselves why would Terminix, a company known for exterminating insects, sponsor a movie that celebrates insects and their relationship to our ecosystem," Good told Pest Control Technology. "But it makes perfect sense. Terminix loves insects. They support our 12,000 employees."

The company saw an increase in business in the markets in which the film was shown, leading to talk of a sequel, Brandweek magazine reported last November.

Terminix has good reason to burnish its public image by sponsoring environmental events like Bugfest and the "BUGS!" film: The company has been involved in numerous lawsuits involving states' attorneys general and private plaintiffs over environmental and consumer safety violations, some involving human sickness and even deaths. North Carolina pesticide regulators have issued fines against Terminix employees for improper pesticide applications, including at least one incident that contaminated a pond and caused a fish kill. Terminix has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Pishney doesn't know whether any of the approved exhibitors at Saturday's Bugfest will offer information on pesticide safety. However, anyone interested is welcome to come and distribute that sort of information at the event, he says.

"It's a public institution," Pishney says of the museum. "Bringing that information from ARC or whatever - I don't know where we'd put it, but you could certainly stand and hand it out."

Progress Under Fire for Rate Hikes, Dirty Fuel Habit

The N.C. Waste Awareness & Reduction Network and Chatham Citizens for Alternative Power will protest Progress Energy's proposed rate hikes at the North Carolina Utilities Commission hearing on Tuesday, Aug. 2 at 10 a.m.

Represented by residential ratepayers, the groups will raise questions about the Raleigh-based utility's failure to generate more power from "free fuel" sources such as wind and solar radiation or to encourage greater energy conservation.

Progress wants to raise residential rates about 9 percent and industrial rates by about 15 percent, citing the rising cost of coal and natural gas. Fossil-fuel prices are cutting into company profits, with Progress last week reporting second-quarter earnings of $155 million, down $30 million since the same period last year.

"Obviously, milder weather has impacted our earnings this quarter," said chairman and CEO Bob McGehee, "but the third quarter is off to a good start temperature-wise."

Indeed, July's heat wave resulted in record-breaking energy usage for Progress. But while that may be good for company investors, one wonders how good it was for Rito Mesa Castillo, a 56-year-old farmworker who died of heat exposure while picking tobacco in Harnett County, or the three other area residents who also may have succumbed to the heat, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Increased power usage during heat waves also worsens the state's air pollution problem. Progress generates most of its energy - 46 percent - at coal-fired power plants. Those facilities are major contributors to North Carolina's air pollution problem, and to the Raleigh-Durham-Cary area's dubious distinction of being among the 25 most ozone-polluted metro regions in the country.

Fine particle pollution from coal-burning power plants causes over 27,400 asthma attacks, 1,600 non-fatal heart attacks and 1,100 premature deaths each year in North Carolina, according to a 2004 report from the N.C. Public Interest Research Group and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. Coal-fired plants are also major emitters of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.

Tuesday's hearing will take place in Room 2115 of the Dobbs Building at 430 N. Salisbury St. in Raleigh and is open to the public.