Posts Tagged ‘North Carolina’
A Golden Wing and a Prayer: Restoring Warbler Habitat
By Brian Sewell Appalachia’s favorite bird, the golden-winged warbler, has been selected as one of seven focus species by a new partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that aims to reverse population decline through habitat restoration. The “Working Lands for Wildlife” program will collaborate with private landowners…
Read MoreIs There A Kumbaya Moment Coming for the National Forests?
By Randy Johnson As wildflowers and buds break out this spring in the Southern Appalachians, hope that a greener fate for federal forest lands will bloom as well. On Feb. 9, 2012, the U.S. Forest Service and a handful of public and private collaborators — not all of them very collaborative in the past —…
Read MoreRed, White and Water Campaign Turns Up the Heat on Toxic Coal Ash
On Feb. 15, Appalachian Voices’ Red White and Water team, North Carolina Riverkeepers and other organizations launched a campaign called N.C. Can’t Wait, a petition and education drive to protect communities from toxic coal ash pollution. The campaign was created after monitoring near coal ash ponds at North Carolina’s 14 coal-fired power plants confirmed that…
Read MoreWright Bros, Georgia DOT Fined $1.5 Million for Clean Water Violations
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice will require Wright Brothers Construction Co. and the Georgia Department of Transportation to pay $1.5 million in fines for violations of the Clean Water Act between 2004 and 2007. One of the largest fines ever assesed under the CWA, the complaint states that Wright…
Read MoreSpruce Pine Residents Reject Proposed Re-Zoning
A group of concerned residents in Spruce Pine, N.C. attended a town hall meeting on Feb. 13 to express discontent with a proposed re-zoning of land that would allow the disposal of bulk feldspar and processed mineral waste in their community. In December 2011, Quartz Co., with Feldspar Corporation, purchased more than 100 acres of…
Read MoreSELC Releases Top Ten Endangered Places List, Shows Threats in Southeast
The Southern Environmental Law Center recently released its fourth-annual Top 10 Endangered Places list for 2012, highlighting the ecologically and culturally rich areas throughout the Southeast that are threatened by development, water issues and the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal and hydraulic fracturing. Southeastern states bordering Appalachia, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, are each featured…
Read MoreSeeds of Change Initiative to Improve Access to Local Food
The Boone, N.C.-based non-profit group Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture received a $1.1 million grant from Heifer USA to strengthen the local food system in what is known as the High Country region of North Carolina. The Seeds of Change Initiative is a multi-year program that will build upon the emerging local food movement to…
Read MoreAnother Nordic Revolution
By Kristian Jackson It’s 5 a.m. and outside the truck, headlights reveal driving snow squalls and drifts as high as the pickup’s hood. Our crawl up Roaring Creek Road near the Toe River of North Carolina comes to a sudden halt in a wall of whiteness. We abandon our attempt to dig out the beast…
Read MoreElk Knob Summit Now Accessible
Story and photos by Molly Moore The Elk Knob Summit Trail begins with a casual amble through canopied woods. The 1.8 mile trail is all uphill, and after rising gently for the first quarter mile, carves a series of switchbacks up the mountainside, eventually meeting an old dirt road at the summit. At the top,…
Read MoreIt’s Sad to Say, Fracking’s Here to Stay
A new series of proposed natural gas pipelines will give many states better access to natural gas reserves of the Marcellus Shale, a formation of sedimentary rock that covers much of the Appalachian Basin. The pipelines will connect to larger interstate lines to reach more customers in the northeastern United States and possibly Canada. The…
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