Help shape Raleigh's environmental future

Raleigh is updating its Comprehensive Plan, which over the next 20 years will guide critical decisions about development, natural spaces, and transportation, among other things.

The city will give citizens an opportunity to share their ideas and opinions through a series of public workshops, the first set of which will be held across the city from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Nov. 13, 14 and 15. If you're interested in attending one of the workshops, register online here.

To help people prepare their comments, the N.C. Conservation Network will host two free phone briefings on Wednesday, Nov. 7 and Thursday, Nov. 8 to offer information on the Comprehensive Plan revision process and on a number of themes that local environmental groups hope to emphasize. Grady McCallie, the group's policy director, will conduct the briefing and answer callers' questions.

To RSVP for the Nov. 7 phone briefing from 6 to 7 p.m., click here. For the Nov. 8 briefing from 7 to 8 p.m., click here.

Citizens' hearing on Duke coal plant set for Raleigh 10/23

A coalition of groups concerned about Duke Energy's plans to build a huge 800 megawatt coal-burning power plant in western North Carolina will hold a citizens' hearing on the matter on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at Raleigh's Cameron Village Regional Library (click image for full-size announcement flyer).

The Raleigh hearing and two others that took place this week in Asheville and Charlotte were organized after the N.C. Division of Air Quality refused requests to hold formal hearings across the state. Instead, DAQ held only one hearing about the proposed new Cliffside plant on the border between Cleveland and Rutherford counties on Sept. 18 in Forest City, N.C. The organizers of the citizens' hearings are the Canary Coalition, N.C. Interfaith Power & Light, N.C. Climate Action Network, SURGE, and the N.C. Waste Awareness & Reduction Network.

Among the groups' concerns are the fact that the proposed Cliffside power plant will emit to the environment each year hundreds of pounds of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, as well as 6 million tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas pollutant that contributes to global warming.

Citizens who would like to speak are limited to three minutes, but everyone may offer written comments of any length that will be submitted to DAQ by the Oct. 30 deadline. People who pre-register will be allowed to speak first; you can pre-register by e-mailing info@canarycoalition.org or by calling toll-free 1-866-422-6279. DAQ has declined an invitation to attend the hearings, but the events are being taped and DVD copies sent to the agency and media.

If you can't attend the Tuesday hearing in person but still want to weigh in, send your comments on or before Oct. 30 to Don van der Vaart, DAQ Permits Section, "Re: Cliffside Permit," N.C. Division of Air Quality, 1641 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1641, or e-mail them to donald.vandervaart@ncmail.net.

The Cameron Village library is located at 1930 Clark Ave.; for directions, click here. For a copy of Duke Energy's permit application, click here. For more information about the hazards of coal-burning power plants, click here and here [PDF].

Good riddance to EQ

The Environmental Quality Co., the hazardous waste handling operation whose Apex, N.C. warehouse exploded into flames last October and exposed the surrounding community to dangerous toxins, has reached an agreement with state regulators that will void its permit to operate in North Carolina, the News & Observer reports.

The company has agreed to pay $441,944 for five violations of state hazardous waste regulations discovered during the investigation into the explosion -- less than the $553,225 fine the state initially imposed in March, according to the paper. State regulators found that the company had failed to report incidents involving chemical reactions, fires and waste releases.

Immediately after the fire, local residents complained that the smoke made their faces burn and itch, and said the fumes irritated their throats and gave them headaches. Even today, some residents report lingering health problems, with one woman recently telling the N&O that that her allergies have worsened since the incident.

Death of Environmentalism author to speak at Duke 10/17

Michael Shellenberger, co-author of Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, will discuss and sign copies of his book at Duke University on Wednesday, Oct. 17. The event will take place at 5:30 p.m. at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy, located on Science Drive on West Campus. (For directions, click here.)

The book builds on the ideas put forth by Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus in their controversial 2004 essay, "The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World." Journalist Ross Gelbspan, author of Boiling Point and The Heat Is On, has praised the book for illuminating "a new and empowering politics for America" in which global warming is viewed not as a nightmare but as a challenge to build a more peaceful future.

Shellenberger co-directs the Breakthrough Institute, a progressive think tank, and co-founded American Environics, a research and strategy firm. In 2003, he also co-founded The Apollo Alliance, a coalition of Greens and trade unionists calling for a new Apollo Project to create millions of new clean energy jobs, free the United States from dependency on foreign oil, and re-establish the nation's economic leadership. He holds a master's degree in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Public invited to attend Harris fire safety meeting Tues. a.m.

A top Nuclear Regulatory Commission official will be in Raleigh this week to meet with several watchdog groups and discuss ongoing fire safety concerns at Shearon Harris and other nuclear power plants, and the public and media are invited to come and listen in.

NRC Commissioner Gregory B. Jaczko will meet with representatives of the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, Union of Concerned Scientists, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and Beyond Nuclear on Tuesday, Oct. 16 from 9 to 10 a.m. in the Department of Insurance Hearing Room on the third floor of the Dobbs Building, 430 N. Salisbury St. (click here for directions). The groups launched a legal action a year ago over the Harris plant's 14 years of violating regulations to prevent fires, a leading risk factor for nuclear accidents.

The meeting comes as the Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative arm, and the NRC's Office of Inspector General are looking into fire safety at nuclear plants. The GAO got involved at the request of U.S. Rep. David Price (D-N.C.). N.C. WARN Executive Director Jim Warren said he expects that GAO and OIG officials will attend the Tuesday meeting.

Taliaferro cancels runoff plans...

... handing the victory in the Raleigh City Council District B race to challenger Rodger Koopman, the News & Observer reports. Koopman advocates higher impact fees for new development and opposes special tax breaks for developers, and his election further solidifies smart-growth advocates' control over the council at a critical time, as the city is about to update its comprehensive plan.

As we reported previously based on an analysis by Below the Beltline, developer-friendly Taliaferro got at least 86 percent of her campaign contributions from real-estate interests, compared to just 2 percent for Koopman, who won 44 percent of the vote. Taliaferro came in second with 33 percent, while third place went to Angel Menendez, an anti-tax conservative who got 22 percent.

Here's the text of an e-mail Koopman sent to the Wake Progressives e-mail list this afternoon:

To: wake_progressives@yahoogroups.com
From: rodger@rodgerkoopman.com
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:19:30 -0400
Subject: [wake_progressives] It's official - I won the City Council seat for District B

Dear Wake Progressives,

Thank you for your support. I also want to thank Jessie Taliaferro for having the integrity and courage to make one of the toughest phone calls an incumbent has to make, to call your opponent to concede.

This is a time to be gracious and magnanimous, and to honor Jessie's courage. I also want to thank her for her four years of service and hard work on the city council.

I look forward to serving you on the Raleigh City Council. We have a 5-3 progressive majority which means we can do many good things for the citizens of our great city.

Sincerely,
Rodger Koopman

Besides Koopman, the new progressive majority also includes Mayor Charles Meeker, District A newcomer Nancy McFarlane, District D veteran Thomas Crowder, and at-large veteran Russ Stephenson. The other council members are unchallenged incumbent James West in District C, District D veteran Philip Isley, and new at-large representative Mary-Ann Baldwin.

Raleigh voters reject Big Real Estate's candidates

It's a great day for those of us who think Raleigh would be a better place if the real estate industry held less sway over city politics.

With election results close to final, it appears that Raleigh's council may be governed by a majority that wants developers to shoulder a greater portion of the costs of growth. Mayor Charles Meeker, who wants higher impact fees on new development and limits on tax breaks for developers, will now have key allies in victorious council challengers Nancy McFarlane in District A and perhaps Rodger Koopman in District B. (Koopman did not win 50 percent of the vote outright, and incumbent Jessie Taliaferro told the News & Observer that she plans to request a runoff.)

McFarlane appears to have defeated incumbent Tommy Craven, himself a developer, while Koopman garnered more votes than Jessie Taliaferro, an incumbent whose campaign was heavily funded by development interests. In the at-large race, incumbent Russ Stephenson, another Meeker ally, has held onto his seat by a comfortable margin. The winner of the second at-large seat appears to be Mary-Ann Baldwin, the director of marketing for Stewart Engineering (a firm involved with real estate development) and a major recipient of developer cash.

According to an analysis by the folks at Below the Beltline, 65 percent of Baldwin's contributions in the last campaign finance reporting period came from development interests. For Taliaferro, that figure was 86 percent, compared to just 10 percent for Stephenson and 2 percent for Koopman. The blog A View of the city puts the portion of Taliaferro's campaign cash that came from development interests in the latest period at an even higher 93.8 percent.

The triumph of smart-growth advocates over pro-development candidates is particularly important this year, as Raleigh is about to kick off the process of updating its comprehensive plan.

Comment period extended on Raleigh's groundwater pollution request

The state has extended to Nov. 5 the comment period on Raleigh's request that it be exempted from requirements to clean up extensive groundwater pollution near its wastewater treatment plant, the News & Observer reports. The nitrate contamination that was caused by decades of sloppy sewage application practices is now seeping into the Neuse, which is already one of the nation's most pollution-endangered rivers.

The city has asked the state for a permit variance that would allow it to skirt cleanup requirements, but environmental advocates including the Upper Neuse Riverkeeper are calling on the state to deny the request. To weigh in on the matter, click here. You can also send comments to David Hance, DENR-DWQ Planning Section, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1617; call (919) 733-5083; or e-mail david.hance@ncmail.net.

Tell Raleigh to clean up its Neuse-threatening pollution

As the News & Observer reported this week, Raleigh officials are trying to weasel out of requirements that they clean up nitrogen contamination leaching from the city's sewage sludge fields into the Neuse. It's critical that citizens who care about the health of the river -- which has already been named one of the nation's most endangered -- weigh in against this environmentally irresponsible plan.

Due to decades of careless spraying of sludge on fields near the sewage treatment plant, the city contaminated over 1,000 acres of land as well as groundwater with nitrates -- the single biggest groundwater pollution incident ever recorded in North Carolina. The state finally required Raleigh to stop applying sludge to the land in 2002 after several private drinking wells nearby were found to be contaminated with nitrates, which can cause potentially fatal blue baby syndrome as well as damage to the spleen.

The wells have since been abandoned, and the city now provides drinking water to their owners. But if Raleigh does nothing to address the pollution it caused, more than 120,000 pounds of nitrogen are expected to leach from the site into the Neuse each year over the next 30 to 40 years. That's more nitrogen than is currently dumped in the river by Apex, Benson, Butner, Cary, Clayton, Johnson County, Wake Forest and Zebulon combined. The contamination of rivers with excess nitrogen -- a process known as "eutrophication" -- promotes excess algae growth, suffocates river life, and can even create health problems for downstream communities that rely on the river for drinking water by interfering with treatment processes.

The city is currently seeking a variance for its plant permit that would allow it to avoid cleaning up the pollution and simply let the nitrogen pollution seep into the river. Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks with the Neuse River Foundation is urging concerned citizens to weigh in with the state's Environmental Management Commission and Raleigh city officials and call for the variance request to be denied. The state is accepting comments through Friday, Oct. 5. (PLEASE NOTE: This deadline has been extended to Monday, Nov. 5.) To send a message, click here.

Permaculture lecture at Arboretum Thursday

This Thursday, the J.C. Raulston Arboretum will be hosting a lecture on permaculture by Will Hooker, a professor of horticulture at N.C. State University. According to the Arboretum's announcement:

Permaculture is a sustainable living methodology, with the word itself being a contraction of two words, PERMAnent and CULTURE, or agriCULTURE. At its basis, permaculture encourages people to take greater responsibility for meeting many of their own needs, – food, water, waste recycling, energy, shelter, etc. – thereby reducing their ecological and carbon footprints. (To prepare yourself for this talk, you might want to take the two quizzes at http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp and http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/.) The principles of permaculture will be highlighted, and then Will will discuss the work that he, his wife, Jeana Myers, Ph.D., and their son, Eli, have done at their home in Raleigh, known as the Bitty City Farm.

I've been lucky to have reported several stories about the important work that Will and his family are doing, including their efforts to encourage chicken-keeping in the city and to raise people's consciousness about the link between the food we eat and energy consumption.

The lecture starts at 7:30 p.m. and is free for Friends of the J.C. Raulston Arboretum, N.C. State students with ID, and Department of Horticultural Science faculty and staff. For all others it's $5. For directions, click here.

(Photo from N.C. State University Web site)

Locke Foundation climate 'expert' leaves university post under cloud

Global warming skeptic Patrick Michaels has left the climatology office at the University of Virginia, reports the Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Va. Michaels' work and the man himself have frequently been trotted out by the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation -- a conservative think tank that opposes greenhouse gas regulation -- to support its own position against state action to mitigate or address the effects of climate change.

Not all of Michaels' colleagues were sad to see him go. James N. Galloway, a professor and acid rain researcher at UVa, lamented the effect that Michaels' utility industry funding and contrarian views on global warming had on the office:

"It’s too bad it was so politicized, but I think we can get beyond that," Galloway said.

Michaels often promoted himself as Virginia's official climatologist, a claim that state officials firmly repudiated last year. He was also notoriously cagey about his funding, as I personally witnessed while attending a 2005 meeting of the N.C. Division of Air Quality. Touting his UVa post, Michaels made a lengthy presentation to DAQ arguing against the state taking action on climate change -- but until I asked him directly he failed to disclose that he was actually there that day as a paid consultant for the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a Texas-based group dedicated to protecting the viability of coal-based electricity. (The Locke Foundation has been similarly shifty about disclosing its own funding from fossil fuel interests, as I discovered in my reporting.)

A recent report by the Society of Environmental Journalists revealed that Michaels withdrew as an expert in a high-profile Vermont court case rather than disclose his funding sources. Michaels was serving as a consultant to the automakers who were challenging the state's right to regulate greenhouse gases. Reveals SEJ:

...Michaels told the court in July 2007 [that] some funders gave him money on the condition that their identities remain secret — and he is largely dependent for his livelihood on the money they give him.

Michaels' web publication, World Climate Report, and its skeptical predecessors have been heavily funded by coal and electric utility industries with a large financial stake in preventing regulation of greenhouse emissions. In the 1990s, he published World Climate Review without clearly disclosing in the publication itself that it was funded by the Western Fuels Association — until after journalist Bud Ward brought this to light in the Environment Writer newsletter.

A list of those funding Michaels' consulting firm, New Hope Environmental Services Inc., and the amounts they paid remains under court seal, according to SEJ. Knowledge of the list's existence became public only after the environmental group Greenpeace moved in June to intervene in the case specifically to get that information disclosed. However, the judge in the case threw out Greenpeace's motion since Michaels' decision to step down as a witness meant it was no longer relevant to a fair trial.

On its Web site (which oddly enough is bedecked with a Taoist yin yang symbol), New Hope describes itself as "an advocacy science consulting firm that produces cutting edge research & informed commentary on the nature of climate." New Hope also publishes World Climate Report. In documents filed with the court, Michaels said that his firm's clients expect their funding to be confidential and disclosing that information "will therefore result in the loss of some or all of New Hope's clients" and thus "seriously diminish" his livelihood, reports SEJ.

Michaels' brand of so-called "advocacy science" has not won him great respect among his peers. In fact, this is what John Holdren -- director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government -- told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee in 2003:

Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians... He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science."

Besides running New Hope, Michaels also works with the libertarian Cato Institute, where he is a senior fellow in environmental studies. His fossil fuel funding likely won't be a problem there, since Cato was founded in 1977 by Charles Koch, the billionaire co-owner of Koch Industries -- the largest privately held oil company in the United States.

(Photo: The Cato Institute)