Lecture touts city chickens

Bob Davis, a Raleigh chicken expert who I wrote about last year for my News & Observer article "Chicks in the City," is giving a lecture this Thursday, Feb. 1 at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum on "Chickens in the City Garden." Bob will discuss how living with chickens -- which he calls "flowers of the poultry world" -- helps urban dwellers nurture their connection to the earth. The lecture, which starts at 7:30 p.m., is free for arboretum members, ID-carrying N.C. State University students, and Department of Horticultural Science faculty and staff, and $5 for all others.

Locke Foundation promotes yet another fossil-fuel-funded climate skeptic

Temperatures are climbing, the international scientific consensus on manmade global warming keeps getting stronger, but Raleigh's John Locke Foundation is still continuing its campaign to cast doubt on the phenomenon's reality and urgency by trotting out yet another climate skeptic with ties to fossil-fuel interests.

This time it's Dr. Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist and professor of meteorology at MIT. In an online interview with staff at the conservative think tank's Carolina Journal, Lindzen says he doesn't believe North Carolina's legislative commission on global climate change can have any positive benefits on the situation and in fact will do more harm than good:

...[T]he thing that should be always understood with these state solutions — this is a global issue. Even if every country in the world did what North Carolina is planning to do, we’re going to have no impact on climate. So you would have pure cost, no benefit.

Of course, the irony is that Lindzen and his ilk have also argued vehemently against approaching climate change as a national or global issue, thus leaving it up to states to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare for the climate effects related to warming, such as sea-level rise and intensified flooding.

During the course of the interview, Lindzen says global warming has "become an issue tied to agendas" -- yet he fails to mention his own. At one time the professor charged oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services, his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by the Western Fuels Association, and he once wrote a speech titled "Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus" that was underwritten by OPEC, according to a 1995 article by journalist Ross Gelbspan in Harper's Magazine.

Enviros preview legislative session Monday evening

The North Carolina General Assembly session opens this coming Wednesday, Jan. 24. If you'd like to find out what environmental issues are expected to be on the legislative agenda, make plans to attend the N.C. Conservation Network's Take Action Tour, which is making a stop in Raleigh on Monday, Jan. 22.

The group's legislative monitor, Erin Kimrey, and organizer Veronica Butcher will be on hand to talk about clean energy bills, landfill legislation and other pressing environmental matters expected to be addressed during the upcoming session.

The discussion will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Cameron Village Library at 1930 Clark Ave., and light refreshments will be provided. If you'd like to attend, please RSVP by e-mailing veronica@ncconservationnetwork.org.

The tour will also be making stops in Charlotte on Jan. 29, Greenville on Feb. 5, Winston-Salem on Feb. 12, Asheville on Feb. 15, and Fayetteville on Feb. 26. For details, visit the group's Web site.

Petition to protect N.C. parks and open spaces

Environment North Carolina has launched a petition drive in support of the Land and Water Conservation Commission's proposal to dedicate an additional $1 billion for protecting more than 260,000 acres of the state's forests, farmlands, trails, parks, gamelands and other natural areas, and more than 6,000 miles of river and stream buffers. To sign the petition, click here. To learn more about land preservation efforts in the state, visit the Web site of Land for Tomorrow.

Raleigh may revisit tree protections

During last night's public hearing on Raleigh's tree ordinance, some property owners and land developers criticized the policy as unwieldy, while other residents and environmental advocates called for it to be made even tougher. In response, Mayor Charles Meeker asked the city council to consider reconstituting the task force that crafted the ordinance and asking it to revisit the policy.

While acknowledging a consensus that trees are important, Meeker said it's also important that the ordinance work efficiently. Tree preservation has been a key part of his agenda since he was first elected mayor in 2001.

The 7 p.m. hearing drew a crowd of interested citizens and a long queue of speakers. Over the next two hours, more than 20 people shared their thoughts on the policy, which the city adopted in 2005 after three years of contentious debate between conservationists and some developers.

Critics of the ordinance voiced numerous complaints: It focuses too much on saving low-quality trees. It's unnecessarily complex and hard to understand. City staff are slow in issuing permits. The review process lacks consistency. The conservation requirements sometimes conflict with sound engineering practices.

"I beseech you to review the process," said Billy Sutton of Wakefield Development Co., the Triangle's largest community developer.

There were also many who spoke in support of the ordinance. They included Dean Naujoks, the Upper Neuse Riverkeeper with the Neuse River Foundation and a member of the task force that developed the ordinance. The reason the ordinance is so complex was because the task force "tried to give the most flexibility to the development community that we possibly could," he said. "This ordinance has been watered down from the beginning."

Among those who called for toughening the policy were longtime Wade Citizens' Advisory Council Chair Bill Padgett. Because the ordinance applies only to properties of 2 acres or more, it fails to protect trees in many neighborhoods in the city's core. Padgett reported that the ordinance applies to no residential properties at all in the South Central, North Central, Mordecai and Hillsborough CACs, and to only seven in Five Points and four in Wade.

"We see a lot of tear downs," Padgett said, referring to the growing trend of demolishing older homes in the city's center and replacing them with bigger ones. "A lot of those come with properties being cleared."

Padgett brought up the possibility of changing the ordinance's associated penalties -- up to $1,000 per improperly cut tree -- to rewards. For example, he said, the city could establish an impact fee on developers and exempt those who engage in tree-protection efforts.

The council will consider whether to reconstitute the 18-member task force at its Jan. 23 meeting.

Public hearing Tuesday on Raleigh tree protections

The Raleigh City Council will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 9 at 7 p.m. to hear comments on the tree protection ordinance. The hearing will take place in the City Council chamber on the second floor of the municipal government complex at 222 W. Hargett St.

Adopted after public outcry over clear-cutting across the City of Oaks, the ordinance took effect in May 2005. It requires 10 percent of standing trees to be preserved on lots of 2 acres or more in most zoning districts. A tougher ordinance was originally proposed but met with opposition from the real-estate development industry.

Among those scheduled to speak at the hearing is a representative of the Sierra Club's Capital Group, who will ask council to preserve and perhaps even strengthen the ordinance. Part of the public task force charged with drafting the ordinance, the Capital Group objected to the fact that the final version applied only to 2-acre lots and not also 1-acre parcels as the task force suggested. The change exempted most sites, particularly in-fill development inside the Beltline.

In a statement posted to its Web site, the Capital Group warns that developers are organizing to weaken or even abolish the ordinance. Indeed, the Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County has posted a notice about the meeting to its online calendar.

The Sierra Club urges concerned citizens to attend Tuesday's meeting and show support for tree conservation efforts.

Report details John Locke climate pundit's Exxon ties

The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report yesterday documenting how Exxon Mobil gave millions of dollars to dozens of groups and individuals between 1998 and 2005 as part of an effort to discredit the growing body of science indicating global warming is a real problem requiring immediate action.

Among the people UCS lists as having received money to help the gas giant's disinformation campaign is a University of Virginia climatologist that the John Locke Foundation, an influential conservative think tank based in Raleigh, has brought to town to testify before state officials responsible for readying North Carolina to cope with the worsening climate crisis.

Pat Michaels, who first gained public attention in the mid-1990s for challenging the now-proven link between chlorofluorocarbons and the destruction of Earth's ozone layer, is one of the most prominent critics of mainstream science on global warming. In April 2005, the Locke Foundation hosted Michaels when he was in Raleigh to testify at a public forum held by the N.C. Division of Air Quality to gather input for a state report on greenhouse gas reductions. As I reported here, he and Anne Smith, an economist with the Charles River Associates consulting firm, took up most of the forum's presentation portion with lengthy PowerPoint shows arguing against taking any action.

He and Smith attended that gathering on the dime of the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a coal-fired power plant industry group -- a fact they did not disclose to the forum until I questioned them about it. CEED has also given money to Locke, part of at least $81,000 the foundation has accepted from fossil-fuel interests in recent years, as I reported in my May 2005 Independent Weekly article on climate change politics in North Carolina.

Michaels also spoke last April at a meeting of the N.C. Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change, where he discussed the findings of his review of publicly presented reports on global warming. Finding the idea that "it's worse than we thought" dominated "it's not as bad as we thought" by about 15 to 1, he took that as evidence not of a growing consensus but of "pervasive bias." As the Locke Foundation's Carolina Journal reported him as saying:

"Given that the probability that a new piece of information either making the forecast worse or better is equal, that's equivalent to flipping a coin. So what we are dealing with is an information flow in which we've thrown a coin 16 times and gotten only one head."

The Locke Foundation has helped Michaels disseminate his Exxon-funded message across North Carolina in other ways, airing his views on its syndicated radio show, in its magazine, and on its blog.

I reported in my Independent story that Michaels had received at least $115,000 for his work from coal and oil interests, and UCS further confirms his fossil-fuel industry ties. According to the report, the Exxon-funded organizations Michaels has been affiliated with include the American Council on Science and Health (which received $125,000 from Exxon in the 7-year period considered), American Legislative Exchange Council ($1.1 million), Cato Institute ($105,000), Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow ($472,000), Competitive Enterprise Institute ($2 million), Consumer Alert ($70,000), George C. Marshall Institute ($630,000), Heartland Institute ($561,500), Heritage Foundation ($460,000), Tech Central Station ($95,000) and Weidenbaum Center ($345,000).

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," Alden Meyer of UCS said in a press release. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."

And they couldn't have done it without the help of people like Michaels, and organizations like the John Locke Foundation.

Empire goes green(er)

Empire Properties, the force behind some of downtown Raleigh's most distinctive preservation-oriented development efforts, has taken on a new creative challenge:

Green building. That is, even greener than the company's usual architectural recycling.

Empire is seeking certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program for its renovation of the 1870 Heilig Levine Building at the corner of Wilmington and Hargett streets, WRAL TV reports:

More than 50 percent of the interior will be constructed with recycled wood, and 75 percent of construction waste will be recycled. Interior paneling will be made out of old tobacco-barn wood from eastern North Carolina, the cabinets will be built of wheat straw, and countertops will be made of recyclable aluminum.

Daylight sensors will require less lighting, but the building must provide daylight and outside views to 90 percent of occupants.

There must be showers and storage room for bike to encourage alternate transportation. The building must also reduce faucet-water use by 80 percent, and toilet-water use 20 percent.

Cherokee Investment Partners, a Raleigh-based firm that specializes in the sustainable redevelopment of environmentally contaminated properties, pushed for the certification, according to WRAL. The firm eventually plans to lease about half of the renovated building.

Offered by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED certification is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance, environmentally sustainable buildings.

The Heilig Levine renovation is one of six LEED-registered projects in Raleigh. Others include a former gas station at 701 N. Person St., now the offices of Brown & Jones Architects, and the Raleigh Convention Center.

Revised permit for Raleigh's sewage treatment plant concerns Neuse Riverkeeper

Late last month, Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks of the Neuse River Foundation got a copy of the revised permit for Raleigh's sewage treatment plant from the state Division of Water Quality. What he found in it troubles him -- and it should trouble anyone else who cares about North Carolina's environmental health.

Located in southeastern Wake County, Raleigh's sewage plant came under scrutiny in 2002 for spraying too much sludge on farmland around the facility, contaminating the groundwater -- including at least 39 nearby residential wells -- with nitrates. Those chemicals have been linked to health problems including "blue baby syndrome," a condition in infants that interferes with the blood's ability to carry oxygen.

At the time, Naujoks called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to investigate, alleging environmental violations and unethical management practices at that plant and also at the city's water treatment plant in North Raleigh. "I believe a full investigation would show there were violations of the Clean Water Act at both facilities and that there was an ongoing policy of repression and intimidation throughout public utilities which ultimately led to a variety of illegal environmental activities," he wrote.

The city eventually paid more than $80,000 in state fines for worker safety and environmental violations, and Mayor Charles Meeker issued a public apology to people whose wells were contaminated.

In 2003, the NRF challenged the plant's permit and pushed for revisions to limit discharges of nitrogen, which besides nitrification of drinking water also causes harmful algal blooms, outbreaks of Pfiesteria and other serious ecological disturbances. While the state did revise the plant's permit to address some issues related to nitrogen, it did not require additional nitrogen reductions. Furthermore, it lifted previous limits placed on heavy metal and cyanide pollution coming from the plant.

The permit took effect yesterday. Here is Naujoks' reaction, taken from his 2006 Neuse River Update e-mail (bold emphasis mine):

The primary focus of the permit (change) is to address the 1000 acres of ground water contamination caused by over applying sludge. According to NC DWQ this is the largest ground water contamination in the state and is currently leaching 120,000 lbs per year (slowly decreasing over the next 30 years). This source of ground water contamination contributes more nitrogen per year to the Neuse River than the town of Apex, Benson, Butner, Cary, Clayton, Johnson County, Wake Forest and Zebulon combined.

The Neuse River Foundation challenged this permit in 2003 to address the additional nitrogen loading from the ground water by adding this allocation to the permit and working to offset the additional nitrogen (through additional reductions in the discharge from the plant or other means). While we are pleased the state agreed with us to allocate the additional nitrogen into the Raleigh permit (and the Neuse River Compliance Association Group Permit), no additional nitrogen reductions were required by the state. Heavy metal and cyanide limits were removed. The Clean Water Act of 1972 stipulates that an NPDES Permit must have effluent parameters set for heavy metals; cadmium, chloride, copper, silver, mercury and zinc (40 CFR 122.44(d)(1i). This permit, issued days before Christmas, will go into effect on January 1st with out the ability of the public to request additional reductions. We are pleased that Raleigh has spent more than $40 million in recent upgrades. Significant improvements have been made to the Raleigh WWTP since NRF uncovered multiple violations in 2002, but Raleigh could certainly do better on this front. At the very least, they should work toward additional nitrogen reductions either individually or through the Neuse River Compliance Association (by simply adhering to EPA Guidelines). They have refused. You may see a press release on their plant recently being approved to the National Bio Solids program. I just hope we keep this all in perspective.

This is not a good way for the city to kick off the New Year. It's admirable that Mayor Meeker was willing to apologize for past problems caused by the plant, but his gesture would be much more meaningful if he also took aggressive steps to reduce the amount of pollution the city is dumping into the Neuse now and in the future.