Court order suspends Mountain Valley Pipeline construction in W.Va.

RICHMOND, VA — Today, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of a crucial permit that the fracked-gas Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) needs to build across waterways in West Virginia. Under section 404 of the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the pipeline’s stream crossings that allows…

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Citizens boycott N.C. coal ash meeting

Greensboro, N.C. — Members of a statewide coalition who have been advocating for years for proper cleanup and disposal of massive coal ash ponds around the state today announced they are boycotting a public meeting in Greensboro scheduled for tonight by the Department of Environmental Quality, and another scheduled in Roxboro tomorrow night. The citizens,…

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(Un)Well Water

Plastic bottle with rust-colored tap water

Melissa and Chauncy Easterling first discovered that something was wrong with the well water that fed their Jolo, W.Va., home in late 2016. Neither they nor their local health department could pinpoint the cause. “It had a real strong odor to it, and then it started looking kind of red, like it was rusty,” Melissa…

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1,000 Days on Bottled Water

Jan. 11 marked the 1,000th day that hundreds of North Carolinians living near Duke Energy’s coal ash basins have lived on bottled water. Affected residents spoke at press conferences in Raleigh and Charlotte that day along with lawmakers and representatives from environmental groups, including Appalachian Voices, the publisher of this newspaper. According to Caroline Armijo…

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