Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin told a Senate committee Wednesday that news reports about the EPA weakening PFAS were inaccurate and that the standards could instead get tougher.
Morning stretch
Daddy longlegs, scientifically speaking, a member of the Leiobunum genus, stretches its legs recently on the leaf of a sweetbay magnolia, or Magnolia virginiana, a native species on the North Carolina coast. Often called harvestmen — there are at least 6,600 suborders of the species — and mistakenly identified as spiders, the insect is an arachnid that has been found everywhere on Earth except Antarctica. Photo: Mark Hibbs
Boardwalk beneath the bridge
An angler recently tries his luck from beneath the Scuppernong River Bridge on the the Scuppernong River Boardwalk at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge visitor center in Columbia, in Tyrrell County. Money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was appropriated to replace the boardwalk, a project that was announced to take place in fiscal 2026. Congress directly appropriated $455 million to the refuge over five years for programs related to the previous administration’s America the Beautiful initiative announced in 2021. The nonprofit National Wildlife Refuge Association has said that continuing resolutions, such as the emergency funding bill signed into law last week, throw refuges into chaos and uncertainty and can prevent new project starts. Photo: Mark Hibbs
World Wetlands Day: Commemorate our coastal way of life
Editorial: Sunday, Feb. 2, is World Wetlands Day, and here in North Carolina these increasingly imperiled water bodies are integral to our quality of life and economy, making their protection vital.
Tiny trains, bigger models, too, roll into Beaufort
A tiny Z-scale model train operated by Mike Basher of Basher and Sons Hobbies rounds the bend during an appearance earlier this month at the 30th annual John Costlow Train Show at the North Carolina Maritime Museum Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center in Beaufort. The three-day show included model train layouts of various scales, including working antiques. Photo: Mark Hibbs
Flying colors over Radio Island
A rainbow reaches skyward from the Newport River as viewed from the marsh at Radio Island following Sunday showers. The island was formed by the placement of dredge spoils from an early channel-deepening project at the Morehead City port in the 1930s and takes its name from Carteret Broadcasting Co.’s WMBL, which began broadcasting in 1947 at 740 kHz. Photo: Mark Hibbs
Spooky storefront apparition
Webs around a vent in the tiled storefront wall of the old, now vacant, M. Mann’s & Sons building in Newport create a ghostly appearance peering out slightly menacingly at passersby from the longtime home of the former C.M. Hill Hardware, where Chatham, East Chatham and Market streets all converge with the North Carolina Railroad Co. line and East and West Railroad boulevards. Photo: Mark Hibbs
‘Dirty snowball’ swings by Beaufort, Earth
The faint tail of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS pointing away from the setting sun is visible Sunday evening over Taylors Creek in Beaufort. NASA says the “dirty snowball’s” appearance is “a once-in-80,000-years sight.” The comet believed to be from the Oort Cloud at the edge of our Solar System was expected to swing close by at about 44 million miles from Earth — its closest pass — on Saturday. Discovered in 2023, it is named for both China’s Tsuchinshan, or Purple Mountain, Observatory and an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, telescope in South Africa. Photo: Mark Hibbs
Beaufort to extend dock operator’s lease, reset selection
The town commission came together Thursday on the issue of the waterfront docks that had divided it earlier this week.
Beaufort commissioners put dock management deal on hold
In the face of public outcry over its secretive handling of selecting a new concessioner to operate the Beaufort docks, a split town commission on Monday put the kibosh on current negotiations.
Wild foal in distress removed from Rachel Carson Reserve
N.C. Coastal Reserve Central Sites Manager Paula Gillikin told Coastal Review Tuesday that the young filly had improved overnight after being transported Monday to N.C State College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh.
Beaufort residents blast dock operator selection process
Beaufort residents are worried that town officials are secretly entering a long-term deal with a predetermined new operator of the town docks, which officials here deny and say they’re doing right by bringing in needed investment.
Agile pollinator gets busy
An agile, busy and well-laden pollinator nearly blends into the yellow of a sunflower recently in a barely maintained part of a garden near Morehead City. Photo: Mark Hibbs
Judge Boyle rejects preliminary injunction in wetlands case
District Court Judge Terrence Boyle last week denied Robert White’s motion for a preliminary injunction in the Pasquotank County man’s challenge to Clean Water Act enforcement against him.
UNCW Blue Economy Index bests its benchmarks in May
The university’s monthly economic measure of sustainable global uses of ocean resources is published on Bloomberg under the ticker: BLUEECO.
Wildlife groups seek to intervene in Pasquotank man’s case
The National Wildlife Federation and the North Carolina Wildlife Federation say Robert White’s dispute with the EPA and the Corps of Engineers could result in further narrowing of wetland protections with devastating water quality and economic effects.
