A discussion about a proposal to transfer the Division of Marine Fisheries from the Department of Environmental Quality to the state agriculture department looms large on the list of priorities for a newly formed alliance created to support North Carolina’s commercial fishing industry.

During the North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition’s second meeting Sept. 16 at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City, Dare County Board of Commissioners Chair Bob Woodard explained that the proposal was floated after asking commercial fishermen about their concerns.

Among those issues were catch limits, water quality, educating the rest of the state on coastal issues, predation management, and the idea that Woodard called “a big one.” 

“It’s a biggie, is moving the director of Marine Fisheries to the Department of Agriculture,” Woodard said.

The Division of Marine Fisheries provides staff support to the state Marine Fisheries Commission, which is a nine-member board appointed by the governor that manages fisheries in coastal and joint waters.

Woodard initiated the alliance in a July 3 letter to other coastal counties after a state Senate committee amended a House bill that would “prohibit the use of trawl nets to take shrimp in coastal fishing waters or the Atlantic Ocean within one-half mile of the shoreline.”

House Bill 442 was first introduced in March with the stated intention of opening fishing for summer flounder and red snapper, but Senate added the trawl ban language before approving the measure. Despite a handful of “noes” from a few coastal Republican senators and a well-attended protest organized by commercial fishing interests, the amended bill was approved June 19 in a nearly unanimous vote and sent back to the House to consider. House leaders announced on June 25 that the House would not take up the bill.

The coalition held its first meeting Aug. 5, also in Morehead City, and plans are in motion for the next meeting to be Nov. 5 at the same location.

“I think we’re making some really, really positive headway with respect to this coalition,” Woodard said as he called the meeting to order.

Woodard also explained that the Food and Drug Administration has warned that the public should avoid eating imported shrimp potentially contaminated with radioactive material that may have been sold at Walmart in 13 states.

“This is exactly what we’re talking about, folks. Folks sitting around this table, we want to eat local shrimp, and we want to eat it out of clean waters. Americans are being warned not to eat or sell or serve certain Great Value, raw, frozen shrimp sold at Walmart after toxic levels of radioactive materials were detected in just one sample,” said Woodward, noting that the FDA states in its press release that the suspect shrimp had been imported from Indonesia.

“This is this is what we’re dealing with,” Woodard reiterated, adding that nothing is more important than protecting the livelihood of commercial fishermen and local seafood.

As part of that focus, the coalition members has since the first meeting been talking to those in the commercial fishing industry about their concerns. The coalition was tasked with breaking down the list of 10 issues into four priorities.

The priorities to which they agreed to and ranked in order of importance are education, fisheries limits and water quality, legislative items, and predation management.

Regarding the top priority, education, the goal is to inform the rest of the state, local governments, the legislature and consumers about the commercial fishing industry.

Currituck County Commissioner Janet Rose pointed out that consumers are statewide but don’t have a seat at the table. “I think we really need to play into the consumers. I think that’s important.”

For priority No. 2, water quality decline and limits and rules for crabbing, shrimp and flounder, Pasquotank County Commission Chairman Lloyd Griffin said the “biggest opponent right now is the five highways that come to eastern North Carolina.”

“We’re fighting stormwater runoff. We’re fighting the closures because of the stormwater runoff. We have more people that want to live on the coast because of the quality of life. So our roads are our issue,” Griffin said. “You really want to be conscious of is what is happening with our closures because those closures do have an impact.”

The suggestion to move the Division of Marine Fisheries to the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Marine Fisheries Commission data sharing and transparency, and testing for restaurants to back up local seafood claims, all fall under the third priority: legislative items.

Carteret County Commissioner Chris Chadwick spoke up in support of the idea of the division being under the Department of Agriculture.

“Shrimpermen, fishermen and floundermen and all that, they are food producers. The only difference — they don’t own the land. They’re out there in the public water. But I think it would be a much more friendly atmosphere over there. Maybe less political. Hopefully less political,” Chadwick said.

Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, was in attendance, and she told the coalition she understands fish issues and the environmental constraints.

As a representative, Harrison said “it’s incumbent on us to educate our colleagues and these folks back here have done a really excellent job of that,” adding that it has been interesting to counter the bad facts that have been floating around the legislature.

Marine Fisheries’ ‘early history’

During the meeting, two scientists who have retired from the North Carolina Department of Marine Fisheries were invited to speak about their time as public servants.

Cornell Purvis, who acted as director for Marine Fisheries from 1978 to 1992, said that “in the last 40 years, Marine Fisheries has been the red-headed stepchild of state government, but it didn’t start out that way. It started out with something that needs to be celebrated. I’m here today to lift the truth and to celebrate the early history of Marine Fisheries.”

He said that, going back 50 years, it “was all old school,” while under the leadership of the division’s third director, the late Ed McCoy. Purvis called him “the brainchild behind the focus on the science and the focus of connection with the fishermen.”

The director taught his staff that they were public servants who served the fishermen in the state. “He told us experience is the best teacher. It’s always the best teacher. These fishermen already know it. We have to learn what they already know and put it in scientific terms.”

Jess Hawkins, previously the chief of fisheries management for the division, worked in state government for 30 years, with much of that time in fisheries regulation. His role with the division was to coordinate rulemaking for the Marine Fisheries Commission.

So, how did the state get to a point where a bill proposing a flounder season was transformed into banning shrimp trawling in estuarine and a coastal waters, he said. “How does that happen in our state?”

Hawkins said the trawl amendment “did not spontaneously develop. It was a chronic process of what I believe is failed governance, and education is a key component of that.”

He added that his comments were intended to help, not disparage, before reciting a brief history of the last few decades of fisheries management.

The Fisheries Reform Act of 1997, which was passed with bipartisan support, “set the foundation for fisheries management in North Carolina and it was an epiphany for our state,” Hawkins said.

The act was meant to transform how the state manages its fish, and set the structure for the Marine Fisheries Commission, established the science-based management system, and required fisheries management plans for all commercially and recreationally important fisheries. The act also provided an avenue for robust public engagement through advisory committees.

When Hawkins retired in 2006, he was managing 25 advisory committees, and now there are seven, prompting his concerns with the public input or stakeholder process.

“My observation is — and following fisheries policy in our state since I’ve retired — is the last 15 years or so, the stakeholder input process of the Fishery Reform Act has been corrupted,” Hawkins said.

The process to build a fisheries management plan begins in a committee, but “right now your fishery management plan committee only meets once,” which used to meet consistently, Hawkins said, the same as the standing and regional committees.

The North Carolina General Assembly requires the Marine Fisheries Commission chair to establish a committee that helps develop the management plan. “The executive branch has interpreted that, that they only need to meet once. During which time, they only share ideas, then staff “assimilate the ideas and go off and work on the plan,” Hawkins said. The committee never gets to review the draft plan before it goes before the commission. “So, that process has been corrupted.”

The habitat and water quality advisory committee used to meet monthly, but in the years since Hawkins retired, he said that the committee has never met. And the finfish committee should have been able to review the flounder fishery management plan, but during some years, it never had the opportunity.

Hawkins also pointed to what he called a lack of dialogue between the public and the fisheries commission, particularly limiting, he said, is the three-minute time limit per person during the public comment portions of commission meetings.

“The silence about seafood consumers in our state when we manage our resources is deafening. There’s very little regard to that, very little discussion of that,” Hawkins said.

There is advocacy for consuming domestic seafood, and it is known that the country has a well-managed seafood system management system that inspects the product caught in the United States, but “We only inspect 1-2% of our foreign seafood, yet we import 85%. We import 90% of our shrimp and yet we have a bill that’s introduced to even stop the shrimp harvest based on no scientific reason of shrimp populations being harmed.”

Hawkins gave the coalition a list of his proposed legislative changes that he said he had also sent to legislators over the years. None have been approved.

“North Carolina cannot afford to continue to rely on the leadership that changes with the gubernatorial office every four years to manage our seafoods. It can’t do that. There needs to be changes,” he said.

Aligning North Carolina’s wetlands definition with that of the federal government’s would put the state’s waterways at risk, erase nature’s pollution filtration systems from the land, and increase flooding, speakers at a public hearing said.

More than a dozen people commented during the Thursday night hearing in Raleigh on the revised wetlands definition the North Carolina General Assembly enacted into law two years ago.

In accordance with the 2023 Farm Act, the state’s definition of wetlands must correspond with the federal government’s, which narrows the description of a wetland to having a continuous surface connection to Waters of the United States, or those protected under the Clean Water Act. The federal definition was changed to be consistent with a May 2023 Supreme Court ruling.

In North Carolina, that alignment equates to the loss of protections for an estimated 2.5 million acres of wetlands, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

That agency has been implementing the definition since its approval in June 2023, but the state-appointed Environmental Management Commission, which is responsible for adopting rules that protect, preserve and enhance air and water resources, must go through the rulemaking process to amend the state’s existing wetlands definition.

The law legislators enacted two years ago explicitly directs that the Rules Review Commission cannot challenge the amendment.

Those who spoke at Thursday’s public hearing, a mandated step in the rulemaking process, urged the Environmental Management Commission to work with legislators to rescind the amendment. No one who spoke supported the definition revision.

“I think it’s a shame that the EMC does not have any discretion over what this rule looks like,” said Brooks Rainey, a lobbyist for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Dictating the text of a rule to a rulemaking body takes away the whole point of having a rulemaking body. The North Carolina General Assembly are not experts on wetlands. The Home Builders Association is not an expert on wetlands. The Chamber of Commerce is not an expert on wetlands. But there are many experts on wetlands at DEQ. When rulemaking works as intended, the experts on the subject matter of the rule are involved in crafting the rule. Otherwise, we have ceded environmental rulemaking to political whims and lobby groups.”

Rainey went on to say that the majority party at the General Assembly make “the majority appointments” on the Environmental Management Commission and that the current commission “has greater sway” with this legislature than any in recent memory.

“I urge this EMC to use that influence and ask the General Assembly to stop sending over rules that have been pre-drafted. Take the politics out of rulemaking. Leave it to the experts. It is insulting to this commission, it is insulting to the agency, and it is insulting to the public who are effectively excluded from having any meaningful input at all,” she said.

That lack of input has frustrated residents, environmental advocates and scientists, who argue that ordering a one-size-fits-all definition will be detrimental to a state where wetlands, particularly on the coastal plain, are critical to reducing flooding, cleaning drinking water and supporting fisheries.

“Tying in wetlands protections to federal definitions that change with every administration leaves our communities vulnerable,” said Kerri Allen, a coastal advocate with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review. “Why should we hand off our responsibility to protect North Carolina’s natural resources to Washington. Wetlands in North Carolina, like pocosins, Carolina Bays and cypress swamps, deserve to be protected under rules written for our state’s needs, not buried under shifting federal priorities.”

Wetlands provide a host of crucial benefits, said Dr. Adam Gold, coasts and watersheds science manager with the Environmental Defense Fund.

They act as natural flood buffers, provide habitat for recreationally and commercially important wildlife, and filter pollution from waterways.

“Just one acre of wetlands can store up to a million and a half gallons of floodwater,” Gold said.

He cautioned that the federal government may further narrow the definition of wetlands. Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Lee Zeldin announced plans to revise the definition of Waters of the United States, also known as WOTUS.

“As someone who has worked in the intersection of environmental policy and coastal resilience for over two decades, I’ve seen firsthand how wetland loss leads to increased flooding, degraded water quality and disappearing fisheries habitat,” said Coastal Carolina Riverwatch Executive Director Lisa Rider. “These issues are already being impacted and many rural communities and working waterfront communities are already seeing the impact from what’s going on. Stripping protections further will only accelerate harm to ecosystems and the people here in coastal North Carolina.”

Chris Herndon, director of the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club, said rolling back wetlands protections will waste millions of taxpayer dollars in flood recovery and contribute to the loss of the state’s natural resources.

“The revised definition freely gives the decision of which wetlands to protect to the federal government. As a result, our state wetlands protections will be determined by federal officials based on federal priorities without any special consideration of the particular importance of wetlands in our state. North Carolinians should decide which North Carolina wetlands should be protected to the benefit of our local communities and local economies,” he said.

Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Julie Youngman said that, though the commission has been mandated to pass the rule, there is no deadline in when the rule must be established.

And, since the state’s leading environmental agency is complying with the law, there is “no harm being done to the will of the legislature by slowing it down and working with the legislature to try to fix the mistake that’s been made,” she said.

“It just defies logic that we are putting our fate in the hands of a federal administration that doesn’t seem to care about the same values that we care about here in North Carolina,” Youngman said. “There is not deadline in the statute. Take your time, work with the legislature, see if you can’t come up with a commonsense way to keep the wetland protections that we have in place, in place.”

DEQ will accept public comments through today via email with the subject line “Wetland Definition Amendment” to Sue.Homewood@deq.nc.gov and by mail to Sue Homewood, Division of Water Resources, 1617 Main Service Center, Raleigh NC 27699-1617.

The EMC is anticipated to hear recommendations on the revised rule during its Sept. 11 meeting. The 2023 Farm Act mandates that the rule cannot become effective until after legislative review, which is anticipated to take place during the General Assembly’s 2026 session.

The Environmental Protection Agency has final approval authority over the rule.

A group of state lawmakers vow they will fight for North Carolina shrimpers to continue trawling in inland and nearby offshore waters.

Several legislators on Tuesday spoke out against a last-minute amendment injected into a House bill originally aimed at expanding recreational access to southern flounder and red snapper. They called the revision an “injustice,” “bad,” “wrong,” and one that would shutter the state’s shrimping industry.

“I have spent a lot of the last few days being very angry, and I admit that,” said Rep. Celeste Cairns, R-Carteret, during the Tuesday morning press conference in Raleigh. “It’s better to be angry than to be sad because I will end up in tears. I have been in tears several times during this last week.”

A week has passed since two Senate committees pushed forward amended House Bill 442, one that has since its introduction to the House in March been “hijacked,” according to the bill’s sponsor.

“We’re used to the Senate acting this way, but not to this degree,” Rep. Frank Iler, R-Brunswick, said. “As much as I wanted a flounder season, I urge everyone to vote to oppose this bill every chance they get.”

Sen. David Craven Jr., R-Anson, introduced the amendment, arguing that it would align North Carolina’s trawling laws with those in Virginia and South Carolina and reduce the amount of bycatch, or unwanted species, captured in nets.

Advocacy groups, including the Coastal Conservation Association – North Carolina, and the North Carolina Wildlife Federation, have long argued that shrimp trawling harms other fisheries, including juvenile fish, and degrades essential habitats.

But lawmakers, who were joined by commercial shrimpers on Tuesday, pushed back on those claims, saying that the state’s fisheries management plan for shrimp already protects sensitive habitat and juvenile fish. Commercial fishing is heavily regulated in North Carolina, where trawlers are required to have equipment on their boats that prevent and reduce bycatch.

“This is not an environmental issue,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford. “This is an allocation issue. In fact, if we were focused on the environment and the sustainability of fish, we would be talking about water quality. We’d be talking about coastal development. We’d be talking about protecting our wetlands, restoring our buffers,” and about warming sea temperatures.

House Bill 442 was last week sent back to the House, where it and proposed legislation to supplement shrimpers’ income, should the trawling ban become law, now await a vote.

Just hours after the press conference, the Senate voted 43-2 in favor of House Bill 441, which would establish a program that would pay out annual installments over three years to qualifying shrimpers.

The bill includes a provision to temporarily increase license and registration fees for recreational fishers, fishing, and some commercial fishers to cover the cost of the program.

The bill directs the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries to establish and administer the program, one that would allow shrimpers to use trip-ticket forms submitted to the state between Jan. 1, 2023, through June 30, 2025. Each month, dealers submit these forms to the division, which uses the information reported on the tickets as a means to help manage fisheries resources.

Iler also sponsored House Bill 441, which, when introduced earlier this year, called for adopting the loggerhead sea turtle as the state’s official saltwater reptile.

“Without getting into the merits of either bill, I’m here because I am very upset about what happened to these two bills,” Sen. Ted Davis Jr., R-New Hanover, said Tuesday morning.

Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, called the advancement of House Bill 442 a “disgusting process.”

“This amendment wasn’t discussed with our caucus,” he said. “This amendment was a calculated, precision move by a couple of leadership in the North Carolina Senate. When I came to committee prepared to talk about this I was completely shut down. I was completely shut down by my own party and by my own leadership. Last week, I was ashamed to be a member of the North Carolina General Assembly. This is a couple of people in the Senate that are pushing an agenda, an agenda pushed by money, influence, whatever you want to call it. We can’t stand for it and if we in the North Carolina Senate don’t take a stand against this type of activity then we’re not better than they are.”

Last week, an angry Hanig asked fellow senators why they would not wait for the results from an ongoing lawsuit the Coastal Conservation Association – North Carolina filed in 2020 to ban shrimp trawling and for the results of a study on the state’s fisheries that the General Assembly commissioned three years ago.

Hanig said Tuesday that the study was expected to be presented to the legislature in the coming days.

“They know what’s in that study and they know the condition of our fisheries and they know the false narrative they have been pushing for decades,” he said.

Rep. Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort, also questioned why the call to ban trawling could not have waited until the report is released.

“Did they get a heads up and find out that maybe they’re wrong and that’s why they’re trying to rush it across before the report gets here,” he said. “There’s something dirty going on here people.”

Kidwell said that, in his district, shrimping is not a career, but a way of life.

“Are we going to shut down the people who go to work every day making an honest living because some branch of the government finally decides, in some slimy backroom deal, that they don’t want to do this anymore,” he said. “Well, by God, Down East, we didn’t ask them what they want to do. We want to fish. We want to have the fruits of our labors. We’re not going to stand and take this.”

Not much has changed in the saga surrounding shellfish farming in coastal waters of Onslow and Pender counties.

That was made clear during a public hearing Tuesday night in the little town of Holly Ridge in Onslow County, where Topsail Island-area residents and aquaculture farmers took turns speaking about the prospect of more shellfish leases in the area.

Perhaps the one consensus among those who oppose additional leases and those who hope to raise shellfish in them is that they are where they are because new leases are not allowed in waters of neighboring coastal counties to their north and south.

Shellfish moratoriums in waters from Cedar Island south to Brunswick County have essentially funneled growers to waters around Topsail Island, prompting what has become an unceasing push to get the state to pump the brakes on new leases in Onslow and Pender counties.

Within the span of one week, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries held two public hearings – one in Pender, the other in Onslow – on lease applications for shellfish farms that would collectively take up more than 30 acres.

That’s more than double the total acreage of shellfish leases in nearby New Hanover County, Topsail Beach resident Tate Tucker said during the Tuesday night hearing, where he reiterated comments he had made at a public hearing in Pender County the previous week.

“Like I said last week, say this whole Eastern Seaboard of oysters is a boat. We’re the hole in the boat, right? And they’re filling it just as fast as they can with leases, as much as they can. I don’t think we can keep going like this if we don’t have an organized plan. If we don’t fill that hole, the boat’s going to sink,” Tucker said.

The Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission, or TISPC, which is composed of elected officials from each of the island’s three towns — Topsail Beach, Surf City and North Topsail Beach — has since last year called for a temporary moratorium on new shellfish leases. County officials in Onslow and Pender have made the same request.

“As a commission, we have become increasingly concerned about conflicts between shellfish leases and other uses of our natural resource waters that include commercial and recreational fishing, boating, kayaking and other coastal land and water uses, not to mention the potential impacts on property values and esthetics,” TISPC Chair William Snyder said.

On April 10, Rep. Carson Smith, R-Pender, introduced legislation that would require a statewide study on shellfish leasing and the current lease moratoriums.

Under House Bill 841, the North Carolina General Assembly-created North Carolina Policy Collaboratory would evaluate everything from existing leases and the history and reason for current permanent and temporary moratoriums to economic impacts of shellfish aquaculture expansion on coastal economies and tourism, and the different potential environmental impacts of bottom leases and water column leases.

A final report of the study would be due to legislators by May 1, 2026.

Chris Matteo, acting president of the North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association and East Coast Shellfish Growers Association vice president, said Tuesday that the legislation “thankfully” does not call for a moratorium in Onslow and Pender counties.

He also said the measure is unlikely to pass.

“There’s been plenty of impact studies done over the course of time and, quite frankly, this area may be relatively new to intensive aquaculture, but the rest of the East Coast and West Coast of this country, it’s been in play for a very long time and the positive impacts are irrefutable,” Matteo said.

As he had in previous public hearings, Matteo suggested that residents and local leaders ask state elected officials to lift moratoriums on shellfish leases in other coastal counties.

He rebutted comments made by others who spoke at the hearing that shellfish farms negatively affect property values.

Nelson Bullock, who started Gator Bay Oyster Co. with his wife, mirrored sentiments of other shellfish lease applicants who argue shellfish farming is beneficial to the environment.

The Bullocks have applied for a 3.82-acre shellfish bottom and water column lease in Onslow County’s Ellis Cove.

“I’ve been involved in oyster farming for over 14 years now and have witnessed firsthand all the positive impacts of shellfish aquaculture on both the environment and our communities,” Bullock said. “Oysters naturally filter and clean the water. They create habitat and they also help stabilize the shoreline. Shellfish farming is one of the most sustainable forms of aquaculture offering significant ecological and economic benefits.”

Bullock said he was committed “to being a good neighbor in the water.”

John Eynon, owner of Big Cypress Mariculture, said he understands concerns raised by some local fishermen, who argue leases impede access to fishing spots around the island.

“I’m more than happy to talk with people and try to figure out how I can mitigate whatever those impacts might be, whether it’s by using certain gear types, positioning these gear in certain places, orienting in a certain way,” Eynon said.

He has applied for a 2.73-acre bottom and water column lease in Sneads Creek, a location he said he picked because it is “tucked away.”

“It’s not a navigational hazard,” he said. “It’s not impacting anyone’s views, which I know have been issues with other lease proposals.”

TISPC Vice Chair Larry Strother, who also chairs North Topsail Beach’s Beach, Inlet and Sound Advisory Committee, reiterated that the concern raised by the island towns is that more studies need to be done before additional leases are permitted.

“There are some leases that are going to affect the recreational activity, the fishing and everything else that takes place around the island, which is what we provide when we represent the recreation part of our beach,” he said. “We just want to make sure that our recreational activities and our fishing that’s been going on for all these years is going to be able to continue and cohabitate with the leases. We’re not opposed to shellfish leasing. We are opposed to not having it studied.”

Marvin Nelson routinely takes the state commuter ferry across the Neuse River with whatever scrap metal he’s gathered up to cash in at the recycling center closest to his Arapahoe home.

The 72-year-old hops the Cherry Branch-Minnesott ferry, a roughly 15-minute ride one-way, once or twice a day to get to Foss Recycling in Havelock.

For Nelson, scrapping is a source of income, wages he says will take a hit if he can no longer take the ferry for free.

That’s a prospect he faces after the North Carolina Senate last week approved its proposed $66 million budget, one that includes tacking on tolls for all North Carolina Department of Transportation ferry routes and raising rates at those where tolls already exist.

“That has got people around here all shook up,” Nelson said.

And it has drawn the immediate rebuke of local government officials representing the areas in which these ferries are operated.

“We here consider (the ferry) incorporated into the taxes that we have already paid every single year,” said Pamlico County Commissioner Ken Heath. “That’s the way it’s been since the early ’70s is that our tax money has gone to support all the highways in North Carolina, including our highway that stretches across the river, which is exactly what the ferry is. It’s our highway. We see that as a shared cost across the state.”

But some lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Vickie Sawyer of Mooresville, argue that the revenue the additional tolls would generate is needed to bolster state transportation department funds.

“In an era when we are fighting for every dollar we can for all types of transportation, collecting revenue from tourists using our ferries is a logical step,” Sawyer, co-chair of the Senate appropriations committee for transportation, told the Raleigh News & Observer last week.

And while well over half of Ocracoke-Hatteras ferry riders are tourists, locals depend on ferry service to access things like medical specialists and other services not available on Ocracoke, island resident Randal Mathews said.

The Hyde County commissioner was riding the Ocracoke-Hatteras ferry, returning from a dental appointment, when he was reached by telephone last Wednesday.

“It’s typical of what people of Ocracoke have to do,” he said. “We have to travel. I ride (this ferry) all the time. We can’t pay $40 round-trip for every trip to Hatteras.”

In a text he sent Coastal Review the day following the telephone interview, Mathews reiterated that ferry tolls “will create hardship for all residents.”

“I’m afraid the vendor that removes our solid waste will not serve us after a toll is added,” he said. “Any politician who supports tolling to Ocracoke is making a terrible mistake and is certainly not interested in economic development in eastern North Carolina.”

Under the Senate proposal, vehicles less than 20 feet long would be charged $20. The toll for larger vehicles would be $40 and passengers would be charged $1.

NCDOT would charge vehicles that provide commercial goods and services an annual fee of $150, which would cover priority boarding. Commuters would be charged the same $150 annual fee for a commuter boarding pass. “Only one annual pass per vehicle shall be issued per year,” the budget states.

That would apply to all four car ferries that are currently free, including the Cherry Branch-Minnesott and Aurora-Bayview ferries, whose users are largely commuters — workers at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and employees of the Nutrien phosphate mine in Aurora.

“We have one ferry that goes from Pamlico to Craven (counties) and it’s used by a lot of people who work at Cherry Point, which is obviously a major employer of our county and so, without question, we are not in favor of tolls on the ferry,” Craven County Commissioner Chair Denny Bucher said. “Our DOT highways, the people don’t pay to ride on the highways, except for one spot in the Raleigh area, but they don’t pay to drive on highways and I don’t think they should have to pay to cross a river that happens to be between them and their employment.”

Vehicles 20 feet and under would be charged $5 to ride the Cherry Branch-Minnesott ferry. The price would double for vehicles greater than 20 feet.

The toll for the Aurora-Bayview ferry across the Pamlico River would be slightly less, with vehicles 20 feet or less paying $3, and those over 20 feet paying $6. Passenger riders would be charged $1.

Riders of the now-free-of-charge Currituck-Knotts Island ferry across the Currituck Sound would be charged $3 for vehicles 20 feet or shorter and double that for longer vehicles. Passengers would be a $1 toll.

Fees would double for riders of the Ocracoke Express, the passenger-only ferry, to $15 per person, and for riders of the Cedar Island-Ocracoke and Swan Quarter-Ocracoke ferries across the Pamlico Sound to $30 for vehicles 20 feet and under and $60 for those over 20 feet. Passengers would be charged $2.

Those who pay a vehicle toll would not be required to pay separate passenger tolls for occupants of that vehicle.

The Senate also proposes increasing tolls on the ferry that runs between Fort Fisher and Southport across the Cape Fear River to $10 for vehicles 20 or less, $20 for longer vehicles, and $2 for passengers.

History repeating

Heath said that, though he was led to believe the issue of ferry tolls would not be forthcoming this year, he is not surprised.

Tolling all ferry systems has been an on-again, off-again discussion stretching back to 2011. Since then, including the latest round of ferry toll talks in 2023, local outcry has halted further implementation of toll fees.

“Our population is nowhere near that of Goldsboro-west, and those areas can attract industry due to the large population,” Heath said. “We’re very sparse here so you’re penalizing us and what little bit of economic positives come out of the ferry. There’s a slight attraction for people to come ride, but it’s minor. For our area, tolls will kill that. It’s a negative for us all the way around. Everybody is pulling together and digging in to fight this till it’s taken off.”

Rep. Keith Kidwell, the Republican representing District 79, which includes Pamlico, Hyde, Beaufort and Dare counties, said in an email that he will fight ferry tolls.

“I will again work against ferry tolls,” he said. “Unless of course they want to toll all bridges that cross water in NC.”

Rep. John Torbett, a Republican from Gaston County, also spoke in opposition of the proposed tolls.

“Dear Eastern and all NC friends. Once again the Senate Transportation leaders intend to toll all ferries,” he recently posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “This will cost North Carolinians who have to use the ferries to go to school, work, doctor, pretty much anywhere. The revenue/tax/user fee is not enough to cover much of anything, and it is not worth it for North Carolinians. Standard revenue sources are enough to cover cost.”

Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico and also a representative of Carteret, Chowan, Dare, Hyde, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Washington counties, co-sponsored the budget bill. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, voted against the budget. He did not respond to a request for comment.

“An important link’

A 2020 analysis by North Carolina State University’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education found that North Carolina’s ferry system facilitates more than $735 million in gross business sales and generates more than $32 million in tax revenue.

The ferry system also provides to passengers vehicle cost savings of $18.1 million, $13.9 million in travel time benefits, and $8.3 million in safety benefits, according to the report.

“Furthermore, based on responses collected by the research team, the N.C. Ferry system is an important link connecting residents to work, medical, school, shopping and other destinations on the coast. Ultimately, the N.C. Ferry System is a source of job creation, local revenue and tax creation that benefits the coast and the state. It provides economic and quality-of-life benefits for its ferry passengers accessing communities along the state’s extensive coastline.”

Ferry tolls would “take a lot out of my profit,” Nelson said. Driving his old pickup truck on the all-road alternative route would cost him more gas and time.

“Good gracious in the morning, it would take me half-an-hour to go around to Havelock,” he said.

Correction: This story originally reported that Cooper had vetoed the bill.

Gov. Roy Cooper late Monday afternoon declined to sign a bill that includes granting a state regulatory agency’s request to delay new mandatory catch-reporting rules for recreational anglers and commercial fishermen.

The decision was over unrelated provisions that Cooper described as an “unconstitutional power grab.”

A paragraph tucked into Senate Bill 607, the 2024 version of the legislature’s annual regulatory reform measure, pushes the start of the coastal fisheries harvest-reporting system back one year, making the effective date Dec. 1, 2025.

The bill, which is now a law, also includes terminal groin language for Bald Head Island.

Shortly before 7 p.m. Monday, Cooper’s office announced in a release that the governor declined to sign the bill and veto Senate Bill 445, the latter of which pertains to court documents and proceedings.

Cooper’s statement noted that the regulatory reform bill includes “some important changes that should become law, however I am not signing this bill because there is a provision where the General Assembly is seeking to interfere with the charter and bylaws of the North Carolina Railroad, a private corporation. This isn’t about improving transportation for the people of North Carolina, it’s just another unconstitutional power grab by Republicans. Article VIII of the North Carolina Constitution protects private businesses from this type of legislative interference in their internal governance.”

Seeking more time

North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries officials had asked lawmakers for more time to roll out the phased enforcement of the rules, which will require recreational coastal anglers to report harvests of flounder, red drum, speckled trout, striped bass and weakfish.

“Delaying the effective date of the mandatory harvest reporting rules by one year allows the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) the time to better inform stakeholders and conduct outreach and awareness around the new requirements,” Christy Simmons, Division of Coastal Management public information officer, said in an email.

The temporary rules, which must be approved by the state Rules Review Commission, were adopted June 6 by the Marine Fisheries Commission and the Wildlife Resources Commission.

Those commissions had to comply with a law the General Assembly enacted last year that detailed which species recreational anglers will be required to report and an enforcement timeline.

The law also requires commercial fishers to list on their trip tickets all catch, including finfish, shellfish and crustaceans, that they do not sell to a dealer. Dealers submit those forms each month to the state, which uses the information reported on the tickets as a means to help manage fisheries resources.

The new reporting mandate was suggested by a relatively new nonprofit called the North Carolina Marine & Estuary Foundation with the support of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, which represents commercial fishing interests, and the state chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association that represents recreational anglers.

Foundation Executive Director Chad Thomas has said the foundation supports the division’s request to push back the effective date of the law. He has said the law is meant to bring together two state agencies that have a history of conflict over their shared management of joint fishing waters, fill gaps left by federal reporting surveys, and make North Carolina a pioneer in coastal fish data management.

Under the law, the rules will be enforced in phases over three years.

The bill includes language that pushes the date of when the rules will become effective to Dec. 1, 2025, after which time a fisher caught not complying will receive a verbal warning.

Full enforcement of the law takes effect Dec. 1, 2027. Offenders of the law will be punished with a $35 fine per violation. Repeat offenders will face the threat of license and permit suspensions.

The new reporting mandate will not replace the Marine Recreational Information Program, or MRIP, which is a multi-governmental program that uses recreational fishing surveys to estimate total recreational catch.

Upward of 1 million recreational anglers fish state waters any given year, according to fisheries officials.

The mandate has been met with fierce criticism from opponents who argue the rules are unenforceable, unnecessary bureaucracy and government overreach, and question the accuracy and reliability of report collection.

Concerns also have been raised that the law does not include catches and releases of the five species be reported.

Anglers will be given the option to report their harvest by scanning a QR code or by going directly to the division’s website. Printed report cards will be placed in bait and tackle shops and other areas for anglers who do not have smartphones or are in areas that do not have cell phone service.

Anglers will be required to provide their fishing license number or first and last name, ZIP code, the types and numbers of species harvested, length of each fish, the area in which those fish were harvested and the gear used to harvest them.

Details of the reporting process may be found on the division website.

It’s unlikely anglers will be required to report flounder harvests this year because the Marine Fisheries Commission does not plan to open its recreational flounder season for 2024.

Related: No recreational flounder season likely this year; here’s why

Wildlife Resources Commission has proposed closing this year’s flounder season for inland waters. The public comment period on the commission’s proposed temporary rule for the 2024 season closed Friday.

The commission’s next scheduled meeting is July 25.

Bald Head Island could be the first beach town in the state to have two terminal groins now that the North Carolina General Assembly has amended the law that governs the number of such structures allowed on the state’s coastal shores.

Village officials were quick earlier this week to say that Senate Bill 607 gives them the option to pursue a study on whether a terminal groin would be a viable method of controlling chronic erosion at the east end of the island’s south beach.

Whether the village will move forward with such a study remains to be seen as the bill, which was ratified Friday, awaits Gov. Roy Cooper’s decision to sign, veto or let the bill become law.

Bald Head Island Village Mayor Peter Quinn on Monday sent an email to island property owners explaining why village officials had requested the change in the law, what the change means for the village and next steps.

“Such projects are very expensive and take years,” Quinn wrote. “The Village would not undertake such a study without any basis for a helpful solution. Any structure would be subject to extensive design, environmental study, public input, and state and federal permitting.”

A terminal groin has not been designed, planned or proposed, he wrote, and a multi-year investigation into whether such a structure would keep erosion at bay “will not be rushed.”

A terminal groin, as defined by bill, is one or more structures constructed at the terminus of an island or on the side of an inlet, or where the ocean shoreline converges with Frying Pan Shoals.

“Work to find a viable, financially responsible long-term answer needs to be environmentally sound,” Quinn stated. “Our community has, and hopefully always will, embrace the role of a steward whose actions are in harmony with its natural surroundings. We depend on this mutual idea and agents like the Conservancy to keep us on course.”

He is referring to the Bald Head Island Conservancy, an environmental and educational nonprofit that has publicly opposed the change to the law.

Last month, Bald Head Island Conservancy Executive Director Chris Shank was invited to make a presentation to the village council in which he argued whether a hardened structure would control the movement of sand on the east end of south beach, an area where sand is shifted by storms, which are unpredictable in frequency and strength.

Shank said in an email Monday afternoon that the conservancy was “very disappointed” legislators had passed the law, which also gives the village the option to explore replacing a series of fabric, sand-filled tubes on the west end of south beach with rock structures.

“I don’t believe the Village of BHI leadership or the NC legislators appreciate the monumental shift in approach to managing and protecting NC’s spectacular barrier islands that this legislation could bring,” he wrote. “Our barrier islands have always been one of our state’s most special resources, including our dynamic cape system whose constantly changing sands bring awe and wonder to those who experience them. Further, I doubt that North Carolina citizens want to armor their beaches to protect a limited number of private properties in the short-term in exchange for potentially much longer-term negative impacts to the rest of our beaches. I wish the Conservancy along with our research partners in the coastal physics and engineering fields had been offered the opportunity to discuss the potential consequences of this legislation with those who crafted and voted upon it. Then, at least, this baseline shifting decision would have been given the respect that it deserved for the citizens of Bald Head Island and throughout North Carolina.”

Bald Head Island was the first North Carolina beach community to build a terminal groin after the General Assembly repealed a decades’ old law prohibiting hardened shoreline erosion control structures on North Carolina’s coast.

The 2011 law authorized the Coastal Resources Commission to permit the construction of no more than four terminal groins under a pilot program. Legislators would later add that two additional terminal groins may be permitted. Senate Bill 607, if approved by the governor, will up the allowable number of terminal groins that may be permitted to seven.

Bald Head Island and Ocean Isle Beach are the only towns that have built terminal groins.

Village voters in 2014 overwhelmingly passed an $18 million bond to secure funding to build a 1,300-foot-long terminal groin at the western end of south beach, an area where the widening and deepening of the entrance to the Wilmington Harbor channel exacerbated sand loss.

“Changes in the island’s morphology at Frying Pan Shoals over the past few years have seen dramatic erosion and loss of beach habitat and property on the east end of South Beach,” Quinn stated in his letter to property owners.

The village spends anywhere from $1 million to $2 million about every five years to replace the cloth sand tube groin filed at south beach, he said. That groin field has been there since 1995.

“Replacing the cloth tubes with rock structures would save substantial public funds,” Quinn wrote. “These are not new or disappearing conditions.”

Village Manager Chris McCall described the tubes as, on average, stretching about 300 feet long.

Those tubes have proven to slow the rate of sand flow, he said. The law specifies that the field of rock structures may be groins, including T-head or lollipop groins, or breakwaters. The rock structures cannot be larger than the existing cloth tubes or greater in number.

These structures would have to be approved by the Division of Coastal Management or by variance from the Coastal Resources Commission.

Quinn said the village will dedicate a page on its website to keep property owners updated on its analysis of potential erosion control methods on the beach and when the public can provide input.

Note: Coastal Review will not publish Thursday in observance of Independence Day, a federal holiday.

A contentious provision that would all but eliminate protections for archaeologically significant resources was stripped from an energy and environmental bill at the eleventh-hour last week, just days after an altercation at a site where Native American human remains were found during construction.

Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, asked the Senate late Wednesday evening to approve the amendment for House Bill 385, “Various energy/environmental changes,” that removed a section dealing “with all the archaeological situations that we have in North Carolina that have kind of sprung up on us recently.” Sanderson also represents Carteret, Chowan, Dare, Hyde, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Washington counties.

The bill first stirred up controversy when a provision was introduced June 6 during a Senate committee meeting that targeted the Coastal Area Management Act, which turned 50 this year. Among the changes were to restrict the Division of Coastal Management’s authority when issuing CAMA permits, including the division’s ability to consult other state agencies, such as the Office of State Archaeology.

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, in a June 10 response after the provision became public, explained that the language was “associated with a subdivision in Carteret County that is currently under construction where extensive Native American human burials and an undisturbed Woodland period (1000 BC – AD 1600) village site have been found.”

The bill’s language was edited after the June 6 meeting. The proposed CAMA overhaul was removed June 19, and then the attempt to simplify the Office of State Archeology’s involvement in development was tweaked during committee meetings June 25 and 26.

Sanderson continued that striking the section would allow more time to work on the language and bring in more stakeholders, to ensure that “this is an adequate bill and a very good bill going forward. We’ll do that in the long session,” he said, referring to the North Carolina General Assembly’s odd-year session that begins in January.

The Senate voted 29-18 to send House Bill 385 back to committee in the lower chamber. The measure still included controversial points, including a proposed terminal groin for Bald Head Island, and it appears stalled for now.

“We appreciate that the Senate paused legislative changes related to the Office of State Archaeology. We will continue to work with legislators as we seek to protect our state’s invaluable archaeological resources,” Cultural Resources Communications Director Schorr Johnson said Thursday.

Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina Public Relations Officer Rahnàwakęw Donnie McDowell told Coastal Review that while Tuscarora Nation considers the removal of the archaeological provisions was “a giant win,” he said that knowing that the issue will return again next session, “continues to drive our concern that developers and their legal allies will use their money and clout to grow their support for completely removing archaeological protections from all sites across the state.”

McDowell expressed his concern that “HB 385 has gained so much attention no one is talking about our tribal reaffirmation bill, HB 970.”

Tuscarora leaders are concerned that the attention to the archaeological provision has undermined the bill that would grant state recognition to the Tuscarora of Eastern North Carolina, add two members of the Tuscarora to the State Commission of Indian Affairs, and make Tuscarora people eligible for federal benefits and services.

House Bill 970 has been stalled in the House appropriations committee since early May.

Sanderson didn’t mention a specific archaeological situation last week during the Senate meeting, but the move to strike the provision came just days after a confrontation at the Bridge View development.

Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina, the Occaneechi Saponi and other extended Indigenous relatives, allies and supporters met in Cedar Point, “to peaceably honor the ancestors’ remains unearthed by construction and surveys,” Tuscarora leaders said in a June 24 statement.

Residents of the nearby development proclaimed that the 17 Rivers North Carolina American Indian Movement and Tuscarora participants “should get off the land across the road from the development, which is currently undeveloped,” the statement continues. “Tuscarora Nation members, witnessing this outrageous experience, report that a resident of the Cedar Point development physically assaulted a Native woman and her children.”

The Carteret County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement June 25 saying that when deputies arrived on scene, they discovered that an altercation had occurred and one resident had been stabbed in the arm with a small pocket knife. One suspect had been identified and warrants were obtained. The sheriff’s office said that this is an ongoing investigation and details would be released when appropriate.

Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck, a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation and co-founder of 7 Directions of Service, an Indigenous-led environmental justice and community, explained during a press conference June 26 that she was in Cedar Point for the prayer.

“I am personally traumatized as one of the participants who escaped and naively waited for the others only to be told by legal, political, and spiritual leaders I trust that I could not rely on law enforcement protection in that county and to get my victims to safety. Because we were afraid for our lives, we drove three hours until we arrived safely at a place we trusted and a physician could see and address their physical damages,” said Cavalier-Keck.

Bridge View residents issued a statement June 27 that “As a community, we respect the ongoing archaeological efforts and the preservation of history. We ask that our safety, privacy and property investment, as well as the laws regarding trespassing on private property, receive equal respect from stakeholders and citizens and that these priorities are taken into account in future words and actions because they are at the forefront of our minds,” WRAL reported.

“We are discouraged to see inaccuracies being reported about our neighbors and the beautiful place that we call home. Bridge View residents are largely learning about archaeological finds within our subdivision alongside the general public through the media. We have little to no prior knowledge of what has been unearthed and where, or the future of development within our gates,” the statement continues. “Those questions are best directed to the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology and the residential developer, not the Bridge View residents who have been the subjects of unsolicited attention and aggression and placed in the middle of a debate beyond our control.”

Storms largely drive sand movement along the Bald Head Island beachfront and sand is being lapped away at the east end, where village officials are considering building a terminal groin to keep erosion at bay.

The unpredictability in the frequency and strength of those storms were among several points of concern raised by the Bald Head Island Conservancy last week over the prospect of additional hardened erosion control structures on the Brunswick County island’s shores.

“So, we’re going to try and control something, which we don’t even know how to predict the future of, and we’re going to try and put something there that says we know what it’s going to do?” Chris Shank, executive director of the Bald Head Island Conservancy, recently asked the village council. “It’s not an easy system to understand. To think, if we put something in the way, can you block sand in that area for a little while? You probably can for a little while. How long will it last? We don’t know that.”

Shank was invited to make a presentation to the village council during its meeting Friday, wrapping up a week when legislation was introduced that would allow the village the option to add a second terminal groin to its shoreline and replace a series of fabric sand tubes with a field of rock structures.

Related: Bald Head Island seeks to change hardened shorelines law

The proposed revision to a statute that lays out the rules for the construction, funding and number of terminal groins permitted on the North Carolina coast bumps the total of allowable hardened erosion control structures from six to seven.

Language added to the law went last week before the Senate judiciary committee, which is expected to take it up for further discussion this week. That language defines a terminal groin as one or more structures constructed at the terminus of an island or on the side of an inlet, or where the ocean shoreline converges with Frying Pan Shoals.

This would give the village the option of building what it describes as a field of rock structures that would replace fabric sand tubes installed along the west end of south beach and a terminal groin at the east end of south beach. The sand tubes have to be replaced every few years.

A state-permitted sandbag revetment installed by a private country club known as The Shoals Club protects it from the encroaching ocean at the east end of the south-facing beach.

Shank played a video of a female sea turtle lumbering under the cover of night along the beach to the sandbag wall. With no place to dig a nest, she eventually turned around and headed back to sea, he said.

“We don’t want something like that to be a long-term measure, especially not in this area,” Shank said, adding that the sandbags are analogy for how rock structures might affect nesting sea turtles.

“We’re sharing the island with our wildlife and, look, I’m not unrealistic about the fact that we have massive erosion in that area. I get that. But we have to be smart about the future.”

Bald Head Island’s beach is federally designated critical sea turtle habitat.

The soft tube groin field rests on the opposite end of the south beach from the 1,300-foot-long terminal groin the village had constructed nearly 10 years ago. The groin, a wall-like structure built perpendicular to the ocean shoreline, is designed to stop the movement of sand.

Bald Head Island was the first to build a terminal groin after the North Carolina General Assembly repealed a 30-year ban on such hardened erosion control structures on the state’s ocean shores.

Bald Head Island Mayor Peter Quinn made clear last week that village officials have not determined whether they want to go the route of having additional hardened structures on the island’s beachfront.

“It needs to be studied before anything is acted on, and this is a step toward making sure that it’s even a possibility before we do anything,” he said. “We’re working with the conservancy. This isn’t something we’re trying to steamroll or anything.”

Shank cautioned council members that, should they decide against building groins at the east end of south beach and the bill amendment passes in Raleigh, the door is opened for a future council to do so.

“I know that there’s a process involved, but it’s complicated,” he said. “By having this legislation passed you have created a pathway for somebody else to walk through and that is a major concern,” he said. “Once that pathway’s open, then what?”

The conservancy is a nonprofit organization that sponsors and facilitates coastal scientific research and offers recreational and educational activities to the public.

Shortly after Shank’s presentation, village council members approved a contract with Marinex Construction of North Carolina Inc. to place more than 1 million cubic yards of sand onto shore at the terminal groin fillet and the east end of south beach. That project is expected to begin later this year.

The village is sending out another round of bids for a project to replace the soft groin tubes on the east end.

State fisheries officials are asking lawmakers for another year to roll out a new harvest reporting requirement for coastal recreational anglers and commercial fishermen.

“This will allow us more time to get the word out to the fishing public about the new law and to help them understand the importance of compliance,” North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries Public Information Officer Patricia Smith said in an email earlier this week.

The reporting requirement is set to go into effect Dec. 1, after which time a fisher caught not complying with the law will receive a verbal warning.

Related: Anglers say reporting law puts burden on them, unenforceable

As it stands, full enforcement of the law, which will carry a $35 fine for each violation and the threat of license and permit suspensions for repeat offenders, is set to kick in Dec. 1, 2026. Chad Thomas, executive director of the North Carolina Marine & Estuary Foundation, the relatively new nonprofit that initiated a plan to get the harvest reporting requirement into law, said that the group supports the division’s request.

He said the idea behind the law was to bring together the two state agencies that have a history of conflict over their shared management of joint fishing waters, fill in gaps left by federal reporting surveys, and thrust North Carolina into the spotlight as a pioneer in coastal fish data management.

Under the law, coastal recreational anglers will be required to report harvests of five species: flounder, red drum, spotted seatrout (speckled trout), striped bass and weakfish (gray trout). Thomas said those are the most high-profile recreational fish on the coast.

The division and state Wildlife Resources Commission are accepting public comments on a set of proposed temporary rules the agencies presented during a hearing last week, one in which anglers questioned why the law was created and argued it puts an unfair burden on recreational fishers.

Commercial fishers will for the first time have to include on trip-ticket forms catch they do not sell to a dealer. Dealers submit trip-tickets each month to the state, which uses the information reported on the tickets as a means to help manage fisheries resources.

Thomas, a retired fisheries scientist who worked at the state wildlife agency for 30 years and is a member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, pointed out that the legislation the North Carolina General Assembly passed last year does not dictate what the division should do with the data that will be collected under the new reporting requirement.

“But the information that would be gained is extremely valuable,” he said.

The federal survey known as the Marine Recreational Information Program, or MRIP, fails to capture a solid statistical account of certain fisheries in some states, Thomas said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is looking at ways to improve its fishing effort survey. Last August, NOAA Fisheries released the results of a pilot study that suggested reporting in some fisheries and in some states was inflated by as much as 40%.

Data collected through a state reporting requirement will provide information that, over time, will allow fisheries officials to determine the percentage being reported for a species and allow them to follow trends in those species, Thomas said.

“So, if you’re seeing your red drum populations are going up, trending up by way of harvest, and then the federal data is showing something different than that, scientists have an opportunity to ground check both of those data sets,” he said. “If your data is trending up, that’s a good thing. If it starts to drop down, then that can recognize that perhaps another management action needs to happen. It’s a way to backcheck the data the division is already using without putting any undo expectations on the division to use.”

He likened the reporting system to that required of hunters, who must report seasonal kills of wild game including deer and bear to the state wildlife office.

“That’s the only way they can survey to see how many of those animals are harvested every year,” Thomas said. “Without that information, how else do they sample? That’s the idea here behind just the five recreational fish. Those five support a billion-dollar fishery on our coast.”

Smith with the division said in her email that the division does not have an economic impact estimate for the five species that have to be reported.

“Once we move to the permanent rulemaking process, a fiscal analysis will be required,” she said.

Neither the division nor Wildlife Resources requested the new reporting program, which comes with a one-time $5 million allocation from the General Assembly.

Some anglers who spoke during last week’s public hearing argued the new reporting law will simply not be enforceable.

The division’s Marine Patrol and the commission’s law enforcement division have a combined force of a little more than 100 enforcement personnel charged with overseeing an area that includes more than 300 miles of ocean shoreline, nearly two dozen inlets and thousands or estuarine coastlines.

House Bill 949, introduced in the House May 1, aims to inject $600,000 in recurring funds and a one-time $10,000 allocation to the Division of Marine Fisheries for five full-time Marine Patrol officer positions.

That’s not enough, Thomas said, but it’s a start.

“Will (officers) be able to capture everything? Absolutely not,” he said.

Still, he argued, most recreational license holders are going to “do what’s right” and adhere to the rules. And, he said, enforcement officers can ramp up patrols during seasons, which, like that of flounder season, have a relatively small window.

Thomas also addressed concerns that the new reporting requirement will not include fish anglers catch and release.

“Harvest is the only thing that you could enforce because how many I caught and how long I went out there is nothing that I can provide proof of if I’m stopped and checked,” he said. “I think down the line the division, if they find the data to be necessary, then they can add those fields.”

Thomas said additional funds will be needed to keep the reporting program going.

“That’s part of what our group wants to do down the road with the state,” he said. “We want to see this program be successful. North Carolina’s trip ticket information is some of the best in the country. Why not have something like that on the recreational side?”

A study ordered by the legislature has scientists taking a deep dive into North Carolina’s fisheries management to help the future of state-regulated coastal marine species.

The North Carolina General Assembly in the 2021-22 state budget tasked researchers with a “Study of the Coastal and Marine Fisheries of the State” to come up with recommendations on ways the state might improve how it manages 13 regulated species.

To do this, researchers are examining a multitude of information gathered over the past few decades and study trends in everything from water temperatures to commercial harvest patterns.

The study, led by a team of nine researchers who fall under the umbrella of the North Carolina Collaboratory, is expected to wrap sometime next year. The legislature created the policy research entity in 2016. The Collaboratory is to share its recommendations to state lawmakers no later than June 30, 2025.

That deadline was bumped from June 30 of this year, which marks the 27th anniversary of the Fisheries Reform Act of 1997 and the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA.

Estuarine ecologist Joel Fodrie, a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, is one of the nine principal investigators who began working on the study in 2022.

“It took the better part of a year I feel like for the (principal investigators) to be able to wrap our minds and some of our time around the vast amount of data that we could bring to bear on, but also drawing data from other states,” Fodrie told Coastal Review in a telephone interview last week. “We spent the better part of that year really focusing on building that library so that we could engage in a meaningful way and not be drawn in too many directions.”

The investigators have enlisted the help of post-doctoral and graduate students and technicians from their respective universities, which include UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, UNC Wilmington and East Carolina University.

The team is studying bay scallop, blue crab, eastern oyster, estuarine striped bass, hard clam, kingfishes, red drum, river herring, sheepshead, shrimp, southern flounder, spotted seatrout and striped mullet.

Fodrie discussed in a webinar last week just how extensive the study is, explaining that researchers will weigh how North Carolina’s management of these species compare to other state and federal management programs of the same species.

“Are those states performing at a higher level in the conservation and management of those,” species, he said. “We view this as the way that we will contextualize and define the status of our resources at the moment.”

The North Carolina Fishery Management Plan is reviewed and updated annually for species under state, federal and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission management, where the state is directly involved in the management plan. Yearly updates are presented to the Marine Fisheries Commission.

The study is taking a novel, broad view of fisheries by looking at collections of data including things like river flow, rainfall, atmospheric temperature, water temperature and nutrient loading, and things like North Carolina’s coastal population boom over the past 40 years.

“We’re trying to manage the system as coastal populations in North Carolina are growing,” Fodrie said. “We’re trying to tease apart the effects of fishing versus habitat loss versus perturbations like storm frequency or intensity.”

Researchers are also factoring in the changing climate, looking at things like how warming water temperatures might affect where some species gather.

Commercial and recreational fishing trends are also being taken into account.

During the webinar, Fodrie shared a graph that showed the ratio of permitted small commercial vessels to large commercial vessels to illustrate the complexity of the data the researchers are examining.

“As you move down this graph, there’s relatively more large vessels. As you move up the graph, there’s relatively more small vessels and this changes over a 10-year scale for reasons that I don’t fully understand,” he said. “And how might this affect different aspects of the fisheries that we care about?”

The research team is to periodically update North Carolina Collaboratory Executive Director Jeff Warren of the group’s progress. Warren coordinates the center’s research and reports to the General Assembly.

Fodrie explained that the study is an independent analysis of “how things are going” on a broad scale and what may be potential drivers, either environmental or human, of management.

“However, having said that, it would be ridiculous not to want to seek out and receive knowledgeable stakeholder feedback,” he said.

Fodrie said that members of the public who have questions or would like to provide feedback may contact him or any one of the other principal investigators.

They include Janet Nye and Nate Hall with UNC-IMS, Elizabeth Havice with UNC Chapel Hill, Jim Morley and Eric Wade with the at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks campus, Rachel Gittman with ECU, Fred Scharf with University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Jeff Buckel with N.C. State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, or CMAST.

Salary increases for state employees included in the recently adopted budget are expected to help narrow the gap of staff vacancies within the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

As of the first of this month, 256 out of 1,797 department positions were empty, holding the vacancy rate at just over 14%, according to DEQ Deputy Secretary for Public Affairs Sharon Martin.

Though that’s about a 5% decrease in the number of vacancies the department had around this same time a year ago, the department continues struggling to fill certain jobs where the pay is substantially more in the private sector.

The 2023 Appropriations Act that became law Oct. 3 includes state employee raises of 7% over two years and a laundry list of fee increases tacked on to permits and applications handled by DEQ’s various divisions.

Related: Budget strips certain powers from local governments

The legislative salary increase that is 4% the first year and 3% the second, fee hikes and money from the Labor Market Adjustment Fund of which more than $730,000 is included annually to recruit and retain critical staff positions “are helpful in beginning to address DEQ’s below market salaries,” Martin said in an email.

“However, we are still faced with the challenges of a highly competitive market, especially for engineers and environmental specialists,” she said. “DEQ continues to look for opportunities to address salary concerns and fill vacancies.”

DEQ’s vacancy rate is at 22% for engineers and environmental specialists.

Martin pointed out that the budget also includes 25 additional full-time positions, including one dozen jobs aimed at addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. PFAS are chemical compounds used in a variety of consumer products because of their resistance to heat, water, oil and grease.

There are well over 10,000 PFAS. Researchers are just scratching the surface on understanding how these chemicals, which are being released into the environment through the air, soil and drinking water sources, affect human health.

DEQ is monitoring PFAS in the Cape Fear River and other drinking water sources in the state, and the agency is working with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to test fish for PFAS to issue fish consumption advisories based on those test results.

The department also oversees the North Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities Program, or NC RCCP, which received a $10 million budget allocation. 

NC RCCP aims to boost resilience efforts in the state’s 20 coastal counties and encourages those who live and work along the coast to participate in finding solutions and prioritizing projects designed to help their communities bounce back from flooding and storms. The program is a product of the state’s 2020 Climate Risk Assessment & Resilience Plan, which was the result of Executive Order 80 signed by Gov. Roy Cooper in October 2018.

Also included in the budget is $2 billion in investments for water and wastewater infrastructure throughout the state.

Fee increases range anywhere from around $200 to $400, and more in some cases.

Martin said more than 15 years have passed since the last fee increases had been implemented for many programs within the department.

The budget became law without Cooper’s signature. The governor, who is wrapping up his final term in office, called the budget “bad,” saying that, among other things, some provisions within it violate the constitution.

A provision of the law stipulates that DEQ cannot refuse to accept or issue an application for a permit, authorization, or certification if the applicant has not first received those from any other state or federal agencies “except to the extent required by federal or State law.”

The provision also restricts local governments’ authority by mandating that they cannot deny a draft erosion and sedimentation control plan if an applicant has yet to receive other environmental permits, “aside from a permit required for stormwater discharges from construction sites.”

Local governments must grant conditional approval on a draft plan “upon the applicant’s compliance with federal and State water quality laws, regulations, and rules.

Legislators also repealed a previous law that eliminated a fast-track permitting option for stormwater permits.

The fast-tracking process will exempt applicants who meet certain requirements from going through a technical review.

“DEQ will allocate the resources necessary to address required actions under the budget – including rulemaking,” Martin said. “On express permitting, the rulemaking requirement will allow for a public process as we codify the procedures governing existing express permitting.”

Other provisions in the Act prohibit the department, the state’s Utilities Commission and Environmental Management Commission, and the governor from requiring electric public utilities to participate in programs that offset carbon dioxide emissions.

DEQ and other state agencies, including the Department of Transportation, cannot adopt or enforce emissions control standards on new motor vehicles.

Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget proposal would boost efforts to address contaminated drinking water and relieve the staffing shortage squeeze within the state’s environmental regulatory agency.

The biennial budget proposal, the Democratic governor’s final of his last term, appropriates a little more than $4 million to tackling emerging compounds known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in North Carolinian’s drinking water sources.

That funding would be enough for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, to create a dedicated team within the agency to address PFAS statewide, according to Sharon Martin, DEQ’s deputy secretary for public affairs.

Agency staff have been “devoting an increasing amount of time” on top of their existing duties to address issues related to emerging contaminants for nearly six years following the revelation the lower Cape Fear River contained high levels of various PFAS.

Contaminants were discharged into the river, the drinking water source for tens of thousands of North Carolinians, for decades by Chemours Co., a DuPont spinoff, which operates a plant in Bladen County.

“Addressing PFAS statewide is a DEQ priority and we are taking a whole of department approach to protect communities, protect drinking water and clean up existing contamination,” Martin said in an email.

The issue is not limited to the Cape Fear River.

Last year, DEQ over the course of three months collected samples at 50 municipal and county water systems that contain two types of PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, above federal minimum health advisories. The agency is hashing out plans to sample hundreds of smaller water systems to gauge PFAS levels statewide.

The agency is working with public water systems to ramp up for proposed federal regulations that would require public water providers to monitor for six PFAS, including PFOA and PFOS.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month announced a plan to set limits on those and a combination of four other compounds. 

Water systems found to have one or more of the chemicals above the proposed limits would have to reduce the levels of PFAS and report sampling results to customers.

In North Carolina, efforts to test for and address PFAS statewide has only compounded a staffing shortage within DEQ.

The department’s current average employee vacancy rate is 20%, Martin said. The overall state employee vacancy rate is 23.4%, according to a report in the News & Observer.

Those shortages have held steady for months, leaving employees in a holding pattern of taking on more work while typically making less than their professional counterparts in the private sector.

Cooper is calling for 5% across-the-board pay increase for state employees in the first year and another 3% in the second year.

The proposed budget also includes one-time bonuses, added vacation time and converts longevity pay into retention pay.

Martin noted that Cooper’s proposal to inject more than $5 million over two years to cover receipt-supported, or time-limited, state employee positions would “be especially helpful for DEQ.”

“The state budget typically does not provide appropriations to support salaries of receipt-supported positions,” she said.

Forty-one percent of DEQ staff are receipt-supported.

“At DEQ’s current funding levels, many budgeted salaries are not competitive in the current job market,” Martin said. “The increases proposed by Governor Cooper’s budget will allow DEQ to address salary concerns, better retain and recruit employees, and better serve the people of our state.”

The department is requesting 54 new full-time equivalent positions to be funded through a combination of budget appropriations and fee increases.

“DEQ’s priority for the fee increases is not to create new [full-time equivalent], but rather to raise position salaries with that additional revenue so that we can (be) more competitive to recruit and retain staff,” Martin said.

Cooper’s budget also invests in resilience programs aimed at planning for and reducing flood and storm impacts.

Millions are marked for clean water, water infrastructure and shellfish habitat work along the coast in the state budget that Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law last week.

In addition to signing the 2022-23 spending plan that includes funding for flood resilience, oyster sanctuary, marine debris removal and drinking water and wastewater projects, Cooper signed dozens of bills in the last few weeks, including one that tweaks various environmental rules.

In a statement released July 11, Cooper said he signed a budget that includes “critical investments in education, economic development, transportation and the state workforce.”

Cooper noted that while the budget did not include Medicaid expansion, “the leadership in both the House and Senate now support it and both chambers have passed it. Negotiations are occurring now and we are closer than ever to agreement on Medicaid Expansion, therefore a veto of this budget would be counterproductive.”

In a joint statement, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger noted that the “responsible spending plan” had been passed by strong bipartisan margins in both chambers. The legislative leaders said they were “committed to working together to improve healthcare access and expand Medicaid, while providing the necessary safeguards to preserve the state’s fiscal strength. Active negotiations are occurring now toward that end.”

Biogas

In one of the more controversial environmental provisions in the budget, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services was appropriated from the general fund $1.5 million nonrecurring for the North Carolina Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation to provide cost-share assistance to swine farmers who want to install anaerobic digesters to produce biogas.

Align Renewable Natural Gas, a $500 million joint venture between Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods, has been developing a project in Sampson and Duplin counties to collect methane from the covered waste lagoons on a network of nearby hog farms and convert it to natural gas to be used to produce electricity.

Kemp Burdette, riverkeeper with Cape Fear River Watch, called the taxpayer funding of biogas disappointing, an environmental threat that compounds that of the lagoon and sprayfield system of swine waste management already in use in North Carolina.

“We are generally opposed to biogas, especially as it’s proposed in North Carolina right now — directed biogas,” he explained. Adding, science is pretty clear that just adding a second lagoon to these facilities, leaving an uncovered lagoon, which you then spray waste out of onto the landscape — exactly as things are done now — is going to just continue to harm water quality, and it’s going to continue to harm the communities around these facilities.

“To see the General Assembly basically decide that they’re going to give taxpayer funds to the biogas scheme that continues to threaten the environment and continues to threaten communities in North Carolina is pretty disappointing,” he said.

While the approved budget did have the $1.5 million cost-share program, it did not include the governor’s proposed $18 million swine floodplain buyout program, another frustrating point for environmental advocates.

The budget Cooper proposed in May included $18 million in nonrecurring funds that would have gone to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to purchase permanent conservation easements on properties currently used for swine production that are within the 100-year floodplain.

Sound Rivers, the nonprofit organization that guards the health of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico River Basins, also spoke out against the biogas provision. Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Jill Howell told Coastal Review the organization had been excited to see $18 million allocated for the voluntary swine buyout program in the governor’s proposed budget released back in May.

“It was disappointing to see that (buyout) program not funded at all in the final budget; this was a missed opportunity to provide funding to a voluntary program that removed the most vulnerable lagoons out of the way of future storms, prevented lagoon flooding, and pollution of our waterways while compensating CAFO operators,” she said, referring to concentrated animal feeding operations.

Inundation mapping by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Emergency Programs Division asserts that 32 of the 43 swine CAFOs closed through the voluntary buyout program between 1999 and 2007 would have likely flooded during Hurricane Matthew.

“Providing state funding for installation of a technology that fails to address existing environmental harms from the lagoon and sprayfield system, while also creating new problems associated with pipelines and biogas processing facilities is a huge problem,” she said.

Burdette was also disappointed that the buyout funds were not part of the budget.

“That’s taxpayer funds that could have been used to actually do something good, something to improve the environment and something to improve quality of life and communities around those facilities,” but that was taken out and instead, that something was put in that’s going to actually harm the environment and harm communities. “So kind of a double whammy there.”

There is still a large number of facilities in the floodplain that need to be removed or we’re going to see a repeat of what happened during hurricanes Matthew and Florence, he said.

Swine waste sprayfield systems used in North Carolina collect waste that is then stored untreated in open-air cesspools, and then the waste is sprayed onto the landscape.

“Biogas is going to do absolutely nothing to change that system. There are still going to be open-air cesspools full of untreated waste that are then sprayed onto the landscape,” he said. “The difference is that the industry is now going to cover an additional lagoon that is added. They’re going to take the methane off of that, they’re going to sell it and make more money while doing absolutely nothing to improve waste treatment.”

By covering the lagoons and not allowing off-gassing, nutrients in that waste are concentrating, Burdette said. “So we not only have this situation where you still are going to be spraying hog waste on to fields that then runs off into waterways, you’re actually now going to be spraying concentrated swine waste onto the landscape, which runs off into the nearby waterways.”

He said that from a water quality perspective, this is even worse, and from the greenhouse gas emissions perspectives, the industry claims that this is going to be some kind of dramatic reduction in methane.

“If they were not using that system — if these pigs were on open pasture if they were using waste treatment technology that (the industry) themselves, acknowledge works and promised to use 25 years ago — if they were doing that, then this this methane wouldn’t be an issue. What all they’re doing is making more money off of their waste stream while doing absolutely nothing to improve the environment or communities nearby,” he said.

Oyster sanctuaries, living shorelines among coastal projects

The budget includes $1 million nonrecurring through the state Department of Environmental Quality to the North Carolina Coastal Federation for oyster sanctuaries, contingent on the nonprofit securing $1 million in federal matching funds.

Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller explained that this is money that will be used to leverage and match future federal grants to help complete the Sen. Jean Preston Oyster Sanctuary System in Pamlico Sound.

“The funds will be used to support any added needed capacity required by the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries to handle a potently large but temporary surge in federal funding for building oyster reefs in the sound,” he said. “These projects involve design, permitting, purchasing and deployment of rock, and monitoring performance. Private contractors are hired to provide the rock and deploy it, while the Division is responsible for regulatory compliance, construction oversight and monitoring.”

The legislature authorized the sanctuary, named in honor of the late state Sen. Jean Preston, a Republican from Emerald Isle, in 2015 “to enhance shellfish habitat within the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds and their tributaries to benefit fisheries, water quality, and the economy.”

The Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, has also been provided a $6.5 million nonrecurring directed grant through the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources for living shoreline work at Hammocks Beach State Park, Black Duck Island on the Oregon Inlet, Fort Macon State Park and North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. The funds were appropriated to the State Emergency Response and Disaster Relief Fund, that were then allocated to the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Miller explained that this money will support the design, permitting, construction and monitoring of the four living shoreline projects at sites including lands managed by the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation, Wildlife Resources Commission and private, educational nonprofits.

“The total amount of shorelines involved cover many thousands of linear feet. The federation will work with these agencies to hire contractors to carry out these projects,” he said.

Miller applauded the legislature for investing in nature-based strategies to deal with extreme weather and shoreline erosion.

“Living shorelines have proven to be extremely resilient to storms and are much more environmentally compatible than building bulkhead and other hard structures that cause loss of salt marshes. North Carolina is becoming a national leader with its investments in living shorelines for both public and private properties all over our coast,” he added.

Drinking water, wastewater funding

The budget includes money from the Clean Water and Drinking Water Reserve and State Fiscal Recovery Fund for a handful of coastal communities and public entities to for water and wastewater infrastructure projects, including $3.6 million for Elizabeth City, $1 million of which must be used for a new pump station on the Elizabeth City State University campus.

Also Jacksonville gets $3.25 million for water and wastewater infrastructure; the Lower Cape Fear Water and Sewer Authority, which serves Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover and Pender counties, gets $23.5 million; and $10 million is going to the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority for the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Disaster response, storm mitigation

Carteret County is marked to receive $12 million through the state Emergency Response and Disaster Relief Fund, as a directed grant for marine debris removal and storm resiliency.

The county also may use up to $1.5 million remaining from grants awarded from the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund in grant years 2018 and 2019 to reimburse the county for expenditures related to a multiyear study on beach nourishment.

Shallow-draft inlet funding

The budget also changed the local cost-share requirements for grants from the state Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund. The fund is to provide the state’s share of the costs associated with dredging projects designed to keep shallow-draft navigation channels safely navigable. As a result, economic tier designations are no longer a factor in the cost-share requirements for dredging projects. Now, at least one nonstate dollar is required as match for every $3 from the fund, regardless of location.

Environmental rule changes

The House Bill 219 that Cooper signed July 7 features mainly technical changes to state environmental laws and related directives.

The bill includes setting a deadline for dozens of towns, counties and public utilities to submit completed infrastructure project requests to the state or lose federal funding they were authorized to receive in the 2021-22 state budget.

Money from the 2021 federal American Rescue Plan was allocated last year to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and directed to certain local governments and public utilities, many of which are on the coast, for water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure projects, but the budget approved in November 2021 included no deadline for the funding requests.

The new law sets June 3, 2023, as the deadline for directed infrastructure grant recipients to submit the completed requests. Otherwise, the money reverts to the state. Awards must be obligated by recipients no later than Dec. 31, 2024, and used no later than Dec. 31, 2026, or the money may revert to the federal government.

The allocations include $5 million for Bath, $2.8 million to Southport, $1.07 million for Topsail Beach, $100,000 to Winton, $30 million to Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, $200,000 to Elizabeth City, $20 million to Jacksonville, $4 million to Surf City, $6 million to Wallace, and New Bern has been allocated funds for two projects, $230,000 and $75,000.

Cammie Bellamy, assistant public information officer with Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, explained to Coastal Review that the authority submitted its request for the $30 million for capital projects in February of this year and the project was approved.

“We are currently designing the infrastructure,” Bellamy said.

The authority board voted to use the $30 million for the Northern Regional Pump Stations and Force Mains project.

“This project will increase sewer conveyance capacity in fast-growing areas of northern New Hanover County, including Greenview Ranches, Sidbury Road, and Holly Shelter Road,” Bellamy said.

Phase A of the project will increase capacity at CFPUA’s wastewater Pump Station 155 from 0.42 million gallons per day, or MGD, to 2.1 million gallons per day and construct 6 miles of sewer force main. Phase B includes construction of a new 5.4 MGD pump station on North Kerr Avenue and 3 miles of sewer force main. CFPUA is funding an additional $2.8 million for a total project cost of $32.8 million.

Also regarding water quality, the law gives DEQ authority to limit wastewater discharge into waters with naturally occurring low dissolved oxygen levels, and the department now has more flexibility to use State Capital and Infrastructure Funds to remove stream debris.

The budget approved in November allowed the money to be used for targeted river basin debris-removal projects. The new law adds “other flood mitigation strategies prioritized through the Flood Resiliency Blueprint.” Also, stream debris removal projects that had been exempt from requirements for stormwater or water quality permits are no longer exempt.

Expedited permitting review

NCDEQ officials are to study approaches to expedite permit issuance under the express permit and certification review program established in 2008 and the fast-track permitting for the stormwater management systems program effective Jan. 1, 2017.

Officials are then to report its findings, including any recommendations for legislative action to improve permitting efficiencies under the programs, to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources no later than Dec. 31.

The express permit and certification review program applies to permits, approvals, or certifications for the erosion and sedimentation control program, the coastal management program and the water quality programs, including water quality certifications and stormwater management.

Public notice changes

House Bill 219 also makes changes for public notice requirements for hearings for Coastal Area Management Act land use plans and mine permit modifications.

The CAMA public notice requirements for land use plan hearings must now follow public notice rules in place for local governments.

Previously, CAMA public hearing notices had to be published at least once no less than 30 days before a hearing. Local government hearing notices must be published no less than 10 days before a hearing date and no more than 25 days.

Now CAMA notice requirements for land use plan or amendment hearings must follow the same schedule and, instead of a county newspaper, the notices may be published in a general circulation paper for the area. Additionally, local governments can post the proposed plan or amendment at a designated county or local government office, instead of in the county courthouse as previously required.

For changes to mine permits, applicants are now only required to notify landowners within 1,000 feet of land the permit holder is asking to add to a permit. Previously, the permit holder was required to notify all landowners within 1,000 feet of existing boundaries. Also, an applicant, permittee or other affected person may contest a decision by NCDEQ to deny, suspend, modify or revoke a permit by filing a contested case within 30 days of the decision.

Last year was a banner year for farmed oyster production in North Carolina, with a 111% increase compared to the previous year.

The state’s shellfish industry had $27 million in economic impact and supported 532 jobs in 2019, according to the latest available economic totals, and various groups are working together to double the number of jobs by the end of the decade.

Legislation introduced last week would fund numerous projects to protect coastal water quality to the tune of $8.5 million. Of that, $1 million is to match a federal grant for oyster sanctuary development, which is seen as key to growing oyster populations, improving water quality and supporting the shellfish industry.

On Thursday, Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, filed House Bill 1151, which would provide money for living shorelines, oyster sanctuaries, marine debris cleanup and other water quality projects and for promoting the North Carolina Oyster Trail, a collaborative effort to promote oyster-based tourism experiences aimed at culinary travelers. The measure passed a first reading Tuesday and was referred to the House appropriations committee.

Hanig introduced the measure after a meeting Tuesday of the Marine Resources and Aquaculture Committee, which he chairs. The meeting included presentations by various groups seeking to advance the oyster farming industry and wild oyster restoration efforts, including seafood purveyors and the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, North Carolina Sea Grant and the North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association.

“This bill provides policy guidance and more financial resources to enhance water quality and the resiliency of our coastal communities while increasing the productivity of our coast’s fishery habitats,” said Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller.

Demand for NC oysters outpacing supply

Ryan Speckman and Lin Peterson launched Locals Seafood out of the back of a truck in Raleigh in 2010, specializing in North Carolina seafood. They told the House committee that back then, the product was all wild oysters.

Now, Speckman said, they’re probably the largest distributor of different varieties of North Carolina farmed oysters. The seafood company trucks in oysters from all along the state’s coastline to distribute to restaurants, markets and stores in the Triangle. The company also operates two oyster bars, one in downtown Raleigh and the other in downtown Durham. 

Speckman said the oyster industry is “definitely an area that we can see more growth, and there’s a lot more potential.”

Peterson added that even though the company is built on connecting North Carolina consumers with North Carolina products, demand is greater than supply and the company must bring in oysters from out of state.

But, there’s evidence that the state’s oyster industry is growing to meet the demand.

Jane Harrison, North Carolina Sea Grant coastal economics specialist, told the committee that the goal of a $100 million shellfish industry in North Carolina that supports 1,000 jobs by 2030 was possible, “looking at our trajectory over the last few years.”

The goals had been set as part of the 2019 North Carolina Strategic Plan for Shellfish Mariculture that the legislature had mandated two years earlier.

Harrison said that 2019 was the first year that farmed oysters contributed more than wild oysters in total economic value. Although there were over the past decade declining production values for wild oysters and clams, market growth for farmed oysters is “really bringing the value to our shellfish industry these days,” she told the committee.

Evidence of that growth can be seen in the number of shellfish farming leases. From 2020 to 2021, Harrison said there was a 10% increase in the number of leases. She added that North Carolina is seeing mostly water column leases, which allow floating cages, and bottom leases where oysters are grown below the surface. “We see higher productivity, really a better investment,” with water column leases, she said.

During the period, there was a 22% increase in water column lease acreage.

“Why does that matter? Again, because these (water column leases) are more productive. So because we have more productive farms coming online, we’re going to hopefully have much higher production numbers, shellfish landings and economic value,” Harrison said.

Although hurricanes and the coronavirus pandemic had slowed interest somewhat, the trend is improving again.

“We are seeing a pickup just from last year,” Harrison said, “a 16% increase in the number of applications to establish these kinds of farms.”

Along with the growth in oyster farming, Harrison said the decline in wild oyster harvests could be reversed.

“We can bring those back if we improve water quality, if we invest in oyster sanctuaries, in the habitat that supports them. The farmed oysters are making up some of the some of the losses,” she said.

Closed to shellfishing

The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries has an interactive map on its website that shows where waters are temporarily or permanently closed to shellfishing because of pollution. Other waters are off-limits to shellfishing because of moratoriums on shellfish leasing. 

Sanctuaries not only create oyster habitat, they also lead to improved water quality.

Erin Fleckenstein, coastal specialist with the North Carolina Coastal Federation and a presenter during the committee meeting, told members that much progress had been made in the year since the most recent update on the North Carolina Oyster Blueprint, a plan for restoring and protecting oyster habitat. More than 50 stakeholders across the state worked on the blueprint.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in the last year since that blueprint has come out,” Fleckenstein told the committee, adding that the successes have been because of the state’s investment in the oyster industry and improving water quality.

A program to build oyster sanctuaries is on track to reach the Oyster Blueprint goal of building an additional 100 acres of oyster sanctuary in Pamlico Sound by 2025. Fleckenstein said the sanctuary program had a 25-year track record of success and “we’re poised really well to reach that goal of 500 acres of oyster sanctuary by 2025.”

There are currently 15 oyster sanctuaries in Pamlico Sound as part of the Sen. Jean Preston Oyster Sanctuary Network that together cover about 260 acres. Oyster sanctuaries make up only about 6% of all oyster reefs in Pamlico Sound but contribute nearly 40% of the sound’s oyster population.

Harvesting is prohibited in oyster sanctuaries. They are protected to encourage growth of large, healthy oyster populations. Each year, the oysters produce millions of eggs that are carried by currents and tides to surrounding areas.

Jason Peters, who oversees the sanctuary, artificial reef and cultch planting programs for the North Carolina Division Marine Fisheries, told the committee that oyster sanctuaries are half of a two-prong approach to restoring the oyster population. The other prong is the open-harvest cultch-planting program, which supports the wild-harvest industry. The division builds the open-harvest reefs, and when the oysters reach the right size they can be harvested.

Pamlico Sound is the primary focus of the sanctuary program, Peters said.

Each oyster sanctuary site covers about 80 acres. Work began last year on Cedar Island sanctuary, the current project, which is permitted to be about 75 acres and expected to be complete in 2024.

“Oyster sanctuaries do in fact strengthen and support the oyster population in Pamlico Sound,” Peters said. The sanctuary sites produce lots of oyster larvae, which is dispersed into the water column and then settles on reef sites.

While the sites represent a small fraction of the total oyster habitat in Pamlico Sound, sanctuaries in the sound are producing about 25% of the larvae that are supplied to the ecosystem.

Peters emphasized the sanctuary network’s role in supporting the entire Pamlico Sound oyster population.

“Those larvae spread all throughout the Pamlico Sound and support reefs that are open to harvest. They subsidize commercially harvested reefs with critically important larvae,” he said. “And among other benefits, they are spectacular water filters, filtering dramatic amount of water with a small area so quite a benefit. and they last a long time and then.”

Not only are the oyster sanctuaries providing habitat for fish and oysters, but they’re also creating economic opportunities in coastal communities, said Fleckenstein, who cited Stephens Towing Co. as an example. The company has long worked with the federation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in building reefs in Pamlico Sound.

Will Hollowell, the company’s operations manager, told the committee that the company was equipped to build reefs at the right pace and at the right price. With one barge, more than 1,000 tons of rock or other materials can be placed in a day. And the work also employs others, such as the truck drivers who are moving rock from North Carolina quarries to the barge operators who are coastal residents. 

Along with reefs, demand for living shorelines has continued to grow, Fleckenstein told the committee. She said living shorelines also provide oyster habitat and they gird shorelines from erosion and protect and improve water quality, which is key to supporting the shellfish industry.

“We don’t want to risk the great reputation of North Carolina oysters by having people getting sick (from) eating oysters that are grown in poor water quality,” she said.

Fleckenstein told Coastal Review that Hanig had requested annual updates to the committee on the progress. She said the legislature’s desire to understand the progress being made in North Carolina’s oyster work was encouraging.

Less encouraging, as members of the committee noted, were moratoriums that prevent development of oyster farming operations in certain waters.

One moratorium in Brunswick County dates back to 1967 and another for a portion of Core Sound to 1993. The General Assembly in 2019 enacted shellfish moratoriums in waters from the Wrightsville Beach drawbridge through Masonboro Inlet to the mouth of Snows Cut in New Hanover County and in Bogue Sound in Carteret County that were to expire in 2021 but were extended last year until 2026.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, suggested that the committee consider ways to address the moratoriums. Hanig agreed, saying it was imperative.

“This industry impacts traditionally low-wealth counties, and we do everything we can to build them up,” Hanig said.

Chris Matteo, head of North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association, a trade association representing about 70 growers in the state, and owner of Carteret County-based Chadwick Oysters, explained how much the shellfish industry means economically. North Carolina oysters are being sold out of state and that money is coming back into the state’s economy, he said.

“The impact on the state’s rural economic development is also meaningful and expanding every year. A lot of us grow oysters in areas that are not a great place to make a living, and it’s really impacting the local economies in a positive way,” said Matteo.

He told the committee that investments made in the shellfish industry “are really beginning to pay off.” The fact that the industry continues to grow after storms and during the pandemic, he said, “is really a testament to your support and to the tenacity of the group that grows shellfish in the state.”  

Major new policies on resilience and flood mitigation and a return to high levels of conservation and water quality funding have been hailed as the major win in this year’s state budget, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t large swaths of concern amid the more than 1,200 pages of fund allocations and policy provisions.

The two-year budget is the first full biennial budget to become law since 2017. The resilience and flooding provisions will be put into action with allocations totaling close to $1 billion, much of that legislation received the strong backing of the state’s environmental organizations.

Cassie Gavin, senior director of governmental affairs with the North Carolina Sierra Club, said the initiatives showed strong commitments on resiliency and conservation, but there were provisions scattered through the document that wouldn’t have passed scrutiny otherwise.

“There were some big highlights,” she said, “and then definitely, we had some special provisions that shouldn’t belong in the budget at all.”

‘Snag and drag’

One section that’s drawn criticism would pump $38 million into a program for stream debris removal that allows contractors to operate outside water-protection and fire-control rules.

“We’re very concerned about snag and drag and all the exemptions in the provision,” Brooks Rainey Pearson, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, recently told Coastal Review.

The program would direct the money from a state capital and infrastructure fund to the Department of Environmental Quality.

DEQ would then develop a plan and schedule for stream debris removal within five “targeted watersheds” — the Neuse River basin, Cape Fear River basin, Lumber River basin, Tar-Pamlico River basin and White Oak River basin.

DEQ is to contract with private companies to do the work, but budget language authorizing the program restricts the department’s authority over the projects and exempts contractors from requirements for stormwater or water quality permits as well as all state game laws and forestry statues on open burning. It also directs DEQ to waive any rights of certification under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act for projects funded by the program.

Rainey Pearson said the combination of exemptions means contractors will be able to drag debris up on the banks and burn it with little oversight.

Grady McCallie, policy director for the North Carolina Conservation Network, said the provision as written would greatly reduce the amount of input state regulators would have in reviewing projects, even if they’re required to have a federal permit.

“If you have to get Army Corps of Engineers-permitted for doing stuff in waters of the United States, you still have to get that permit. This doesn’t change that, but it does eliminate the state’s ability to condition and comment on that permit to protect water quality,” McCallie said. That takes the state out of its role in water quality protection and reduces the input of people with on-the-ground familiarity with the watershed. “It’s not a good idea to get rid of that.”

The legislature did delay funding any stream debris removal projects under the program until at least the first draft of a statewide flooding blueprint is completed. That could give the legislature time to go back and tweak the oversight exemptions as well as analyze the impacts, McCallie said.

“It would be really dumb just to spend this money and end up increasing flooding, by speeding up the movement of water downstream on to other communities,” he said. “There’s every chance that you can do that if you do without studying what you’re doing and without environmental review. You could think that you’re taking water off one community but what you’re really doing is just speeding it down to the next and flooding them.”

Career jobs to become political appointments

Another provision that’s getting attention from environmental groups would shift five positions in the Office of Administrative Hearings from career positions to political appointees.

Although those positions haven’t been named, Rainey Pearson said the worry is how the shift could impact administrative hearings going forward. 

“That’s often the first stop for environmental cases,” she said.

McCallie said the administrative judges oversee challenges to environmental permits known as contested cases.

“What we don’t know is whether these five positions would be administrative law judges. There’s been nothing in writing to say that one way or another, but we’re concerned about the politicization of that office,” he said. “They need to be impartial, and having career civil servants doing that makes them more familiar with the laws that they are reviewing. That makes a lot of sense.”

The provision would give the chief administrative law judge authority to designate the five from existing positions. The chief judge is appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Last summer, new Chief Justice Paul Newby appointed Donald van der Vaart, who served as DEQ secretary under Gov. Pat McCrory, to the position.

Local government wins, losses

Gavin said that as the negotiations were winding up, there was an all-out effort to dial back many of the environmental provisions aimed at restricting local governments.

Earlier versions of the budget included limitations on local governments to implement tree-protection ordinances and water-quality requirements.

Those provisions were stripped in the final round of talks on the bill, Gavin said. So was another provision aimed at reducing wetland protections.

One long-sought set of changes benefitting the billboard industry did make it into the final bill. Gavin said those changes further reduce authority over billboards by both local governments and the Department of Transportation and could clear the way for more digital signs as well.

“It’s all the little things that the outdoor advertising industry has previously sought before but not gotten,” she said. “It’s essentially a previous bill that was vetoed by the governor in past years and it’s stuck in there to get through the legislature even though it wouldn’t normally.”     

There are a lot of firsts and significant investments in the newly minted state budget, and among the biggest of those that check both boxes is a broad array of new efforts to increase resiliency and decrease flooding — along with the kind of money that could make it happen.

Remarkable as that might be, it comes as no surprise.

Although there was ample skepticism that a full, two-year budget plan could be worked out, given the contentious relationship between the legislative and executive branches, there was little doubt that the resiliency and flooding plans and the kind of funding necessary for them would come out of this year’s session.

All three budget plans proposed by the state House, Senate and Gov. Roy Cooper included a major push to bolster resiliency and address flooding.

Among the initiatives are $20 million to develop a statewide Flood Resiliency Blueprint to guide strategy at the local and state level; $15 million for a new transportation infrastructure resiliency fund and $15 million for a new disaster relief fund for transportation-related flood mitigation; $8.5 million for an innovative flood mitigation pilot project in the Stoney Creek watershed near Goldsboro; $5 million for Southport waterfront stabilization; $1.15 million in local coastal planning and management grants; and $300,000 to hire coastal resiliency planners.

Also in the package is about $70 million for local flood mitigation projects and disaster recovery, and another $40 million for coastal storm damage, with up to $20 million earmarked for the Brunswick County town of Oak Island shoreline stabilization and $2 million allocated to the North Carolina Coastal Federation for living shorelines, oyster reefs and marsh-restoration grants.

In all, the budget appropriates roughly half of $800 million in the state’s disaster and resilience reserve toward local and statewide flood mitigation and resiliency, as well as new personnel to assist local governments in planning and developing shovel-ready projects.

Although there’s a focus on areas of the coastal plain repeatedly hit by both hurricanes and the more frequent heavy downpours that have marked this era of climate change, any question about whether flooding was mostly an eastern concern was answered again this year in August when deadly floods from Tropical Storm Fred underlined the vulnerability of the state’s mountain and foothill communities. The budget allocates about $124.4 million to them for disaster relief.

In statements released Friday, shortly after Cooper signed the budget, Rep. John Bell, R-Wayne, and Sen. Jim Perry, R-Lenoir, who led the flooding and resiliency efforts in the House and Senate, respectively, said early on in the session that the intent was to break away from dealing with disasters one at a time and move toward a more forward-thinking approach.

“North Carolina has now been hit by two 1,000-year floods within the past five years,” Bell said last week. “This budget provides an historic and unprecedented investment to help these local communities recover and prepare for future disasters. This is the largest proactive, statewide package that North Carolina has ever made to address flooding. It will help put an end to the costly cycle of spending after disasters.”

Perry said the changes would make a long-term difference in flood-prone areas.

“We can’t stop flooding, but we should work to reduce its severity,” he said. “This budget takes a huge step forward to reduce flooding and prepare us for the next big storm.”

Rep. Charlie Miller, R-Brunswick, said the legislation would assist coastal areas that are struggling to deal with repeated flooding.

“As a Southport native, I’ve seen countless storms decimate the area and can recognize the importance of having a proactive plan in place, not waiting until we’re faced with the recovery process to identify that we needed to be more prepared,” Miller said.

Follow-through required

Will McDow, director of the Climate Resilient Coasts and Watersheds project for Environmental Defense Fund, said the state is taking a critically important step that will require substantial coordination across multiple state and federal agencies. 

“This really needs to be an all-of-government approach to make sure that things are coordinated and being done in a way that is additive to the state and not creating confusion or duplicating efforts,” McDow said Monday in an interview with Coastal Review. “Because this can’t be a one-time investment. This is going to take multiple years of investing. Eastern North Carolina has been the current focus, but Hurricane Fred shows us that western North Carolina is also in the bull’s-eye of these climate-induced floods.”

McDow, who was part of a budget negotiating team representing environmental groups, said the budget sets up an interagency group to coordinate and monitor the effectiveness of the programs.

Much of the responsibility for implementing the programs falls to the North Carolina Office of Resiliency and Recovery, which was set up in 2018 under the Department of Public Safety mainly to manage federal disaster relief following Hurricane Florence.

NCORR, now also administering numerous programs including disaster relief from other recent hurricanes and tropical storms, became a permanent state agency under the new budget and picked up three new positions dedicated to resilience planning and implementation.

The Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Mitigation Services is charged with development of the Flood Resiliency Blueprint, which according to the budget “shall form the backbone of a State flood planning process that increases community resiliency to flooding, shall be a resource for riverine and stream management to reduce flooding, and should support the establishment and furtherance of local government stormwater maintenance programs.”

McDow translates that to mean the development of a “decision-support tool” that will allow local governments to weigh their options in building resiliency.

“To me, it’s just a central piece. It’s not the largest funding piece, but it’s possibly the most important connector to all of this work,” he said.

McDow said the blueprint will build on extensive mapping and modeling that the state has already done to give communities a better understanding of what’s needed to reduce flooding and the most effective ways to go about them. “It’s going to help communities really know at a tangible level, what they need to do.”

Some of the projects funded in the budget will study whether natural solutions upstream, such as engineering agricultural fields to flood, rebuilding wetlands and reforesting are more effective and less costly than building up levees or raising roads downstream.

Other aspects are also aimed at assisting local decision making with funding for local planning and additional staff and support for the Division of Coastal Management’s Resilient Coastal Communities Program, which seeks to help communities to assess their risk and vulnerability, engage the public and identify and prioritize projects.

After years of on-and-off negotiations, a set of sweeping energy policy changes sailed through the North Carolina General Assembly this week after a deal by legislative leaders and Gov. Roy Cooper cleared the way for its passage.

On Thursday, House Bill 951, Energy Solutions for North Carolina, was approved by a vote of 90-20 in the House after passing the Senate 42-7 a day earlier.

Cooper was expected to sign the bill as soon as this weekend.

The legislation would require Duke Energy and other major electricity producers to reach carbon-reduction goals of 70% by 2030, and a zero-carbon goal by 2050.

The goals are in line with Cooper’s 2018 Executive Order 80, which called for the state to commit to aggressively lowering its carbon dioxide emissions.

General Assembly leaders were cool to the idea at the time and both chambers have generally avoided taking up carbon-reduction goals directly.

An earlier version of the new energy legislation did not include the targets but relied on an extensive framework of rules and standards for a mix of energy sources that would have the effect of reducing emissions. That version of the bill, which passed the House in mid-July, ran 49 pages. At the time, its sponsors admitted it was imperfect and promised it would be very different once it returned from the Senate.

As predicted, it is.

Trimmed down to 10 pages, most of the proscriptive language on the mix of energy sources has been cut and the bill puts the responsibility for creating the rules and standards for the strategy, including the phaseout of Duke’s fleet of coal fired units, with the North Carolina Utilities Commission.

The commission is a seven-member board whose members are appointed by the governor but who must be confirmed by the Senate.

The new legislation, put together and negotiated in a behind the scenes stakeholder process over the course of the session, started on its quick course to passage last week following the announcement of an agreement.

On Friday afternoon, in a rare moment of unanimity in messaging Cooper, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, put out identical statements heralding the deal.

The bill quickly moved through the Senate Tuesday and Wednesday without amendment, although Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabbarus, a key negotiator, acknowledged that he would seek changes in response to criticisms through a technical corrections bill later in the session. 

The House took up the legislation Thursday as a concurrence vote on the Senate version, which does not require a committee hearing, and passed it shortly after noon as the last item of the week.

During floor debate, Rep. Dean Arp, R-Union, an original House sponsor, said the Senate simplified the legislation by removing carve-outs and mandates for use of specific energy sources and putting policy choices like the mix of sources and the schedule for phaseout of coal-fired units in the hands of the Utilities Commission. He stressed that the commission was charged with doing so in a way that prioritizes using a “least-cost” method to protect consumers and an array of sources that guarantee reliability.

Opposition to the bill focused on the potential impact of sections of the bill that could allow multiyear rate hikes, instead of the current system which requires utility companies to take rate hikes to the commission on an annual basis.

Opponents said the bill allows too much wiggle room for Duke Energy to get around goals and raise prices.

House members who voted against it said it was being rushed through and that Newton’s promise of tweaks to the plan weren’t enough to satisfy concerns.

“I do like what we have in part one, about the carbon reduction,” Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, said Thursday. “I think we are in a climate crisis. I think science has proven it, and we should have these goals to reduce the carbon, and to go down 70% by 2030. I think is admirable, but I think it’s aspirational.”

Morey said she was worried that the goals would never be met without more teeth in the bill because the bill allows the commission to reset the goals every two years. She also questioned whether it would be able to keep rate hikes from hurting low-income customers.

Environmental and consumer advocates have also expressed a divided view of the bill.

A statement from the Southern Environmental Law Center said the bill did not go far enough to make sure reductions would actually be achieved. 

“While the Southern Environmental Law Center strongly supports the goals to reduce heat-trapping carbon pollution in House Bill 951 and appreciates the efforts to negotiate a bipartisan energy bill, we are concerned that the current bill will not achieve those reductions and fails to spread the clean energy transition to include low-income customers,” according to the statement.

House and Senate members who shared similar concerns but opted to vote in favor of the bill, said it was important to move forward in climate policy.

Rep. Graig Meyer, D-Orange, said he wanted to support the spirit of compromise among legislators who came together to advance the goals in the bill. He said he was disappointed the legislature deferred to the Utilities Commission to work out the details, but said that there is a consensus to put a process in place to reduce carbon emissions is significant.

“I think that’s why I’ll end up voting for the bill, because it sets a goal that I think is so critically important,” Meyer said, “and I appreciate those members of the Republican Party who haven’t been very vocal in support of major climate change legislation for being willing to vote and be on board for this bill.”

In all, a dozen Democrats voted against the bill. They were joined by eight Republicans, including Rep. Larry Pittman of Cabbarus County, who gave a lengthy speech in support of carbon dioxide, called anthropogenic climate change “a farce and a fraud” and called on members of his caucus to vote against the bill.

“All this hysteria about the production of CO2 and the supposed need to reduce it is nothing more than a not-so-well-hidden agenda of government control of the people and our lives,” Pittman said.

It is not.

Despite objections from both sides of the aisle, the bill has enjoyed strong support.

Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, and co-director of the Southern Blue Ridge advocacy organization Mountain True, said it marks a tangible change in attitudes on climate change.

“This is a first step to protecting future generations of North Carolinians,” Mayfield said in a statement after the Senate vote. “With this legislation, we can say that combating climate change is a bipartisan issue.” 

Andrew Hutson, Audubon North Carolina executive director and National Audubon Society vice president, also called it a turning point. 

“We know the stakes of climate change for birds and people, especially communities on the front lines who are already facing the impacts of extreme weather and air pollution. This bill will clean up our power sector and deliver carbon reductions at a time that we can’t afford more delays,” Hutson said.

State House and Senate leaders signed off on a new budget plan last week, kicking off the next phase in negotiations with Gov. Roy Cooper and the potential for an agreement that could end years of budget standoffs.

House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, announced that House and Senate conferees reached a deal Wednesday morning. They said they had previewed portions of the plan with Cooper’s staff and hope to avoid another protracted budget fight.

This year’s budget process is running months behind schedule, but the downside to that is overshadowed by the prospects of a deal that would avoid the kind of bitter veto and override battles of the last three years.

State government has not operated under a formal two-year budget since 2018, the last year both chamber of the legislature were controlled by Republican supermajorities.

In 2019 and 2020, a budget standoff between Cooper and the legislature led to a series of minibudgets to fund agencies and proposals where the two sides agreed. Other parts of the government have operated under an automatic budget law that funds departments and agencies at the prior year levels until a new budget is passed.

The reduced spending, a massive influx of federal COVID-19 and disaster relief, and a larger than expected jump in revenues have given lawmakers plenty to work with on a spending package.

The legislature’s Fiscal Research Division’s end-of-tax-year analysis this summer estimated that the state would collect $6.5 billion more than originally estimated.

But the rosy revenue scenario hasn’t made drafting a budget an easier task.  

This year, disagreements early on between the House and Senate, including on a target spending level, slowed the budget rollout.

The Senate passed its plan on June 28 with a 32-17 vote. The House put its plan to a vote on Aug. 12 and passed it 72-41. While both margins are enough to override a governor’s veto, in practice, Democrats have closed ranks in the past to back Cooper.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said Friday she expects the plan to go to the governor this week and expects the process to take roughly two weeks.

“I would guess we should have something to vote on by the middle of October or so,” she said.

Cooper press secretary Jordan Monaghan confirmed that top level talks have started.

“The Governor and legislative leaders and staff are beginning budget negotiations and that will continue into next week,” Monaghan said Friday in an email response to Coastal Review.

Consensus on coastal concerns

Much of this year’s budget discussions have taken place behind the scenes, in particular the latest round of talks in the House and Senate conference committee that crafted the final legislative product.

Because of that, what’s been worked out in areas where the two chambers diverged won’t be known until the final product is unveiled, but what’s been in agreement all along, especially things also in Cooper’s plan, are likely to be in the end product.

Although details vary between the proposals, the list includes numerous coastal and environmental policy and funding provisions.

Topping the priorities are flood mitigation and resiliency projects, personnel for emerging contaminant research and tracking at the Department of Environmental Quality, and the large increases in conservation, water quality and parks funding.

The House is proposing $80 million in the current fiscal year for the Land and Water Fund and $70 million for the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, or PARTF. The Senate budget puts $73 million toward the Land and Water Fund and $53 million into PARTF.

Support for both conservation funds bottomed out in 2013 and have been on a slow, steady climb since. The proposed funding levels would restore both to levels prior to the Great Recession that began in December 2007. 

The House, Senate and governor’s plans all include additional funds for shellfish programs including leasing, additional personnel for the Division of Marine Fisheries, and the long-sought replacement of the aging West Bay, the vessel the division uses for cultch planting.

Special provisions in both House and Senate budgets include continued studies on per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, along with a new, mandatory statewide online registry of all firefighting foam containing PFAS and related substances.

Both chambers’ budgets also include provisions setting up a voluntary commercial fishing license buyback program to reduce underutilized licenses and both include a continued shellfish leasing moratorium in sections of New Hanover and Carteret counties. The Senate’s version extends the moratorium indefinitely. The House would end it in 2026.

If even half of the funding and policy changes in the pursuit of resiliency, flood mitigation and land conservation make it through the budget process, it would be far and away the biggest effort in the state’s history to meet the challenge of a changing climate.

This year, there is broad consensus across party lines and between the legislature and the executive branch to make bold moves in these areas, spending as much as $1 billion in state money and putting plans in place to draw billions more in federal support.

But the consensus on flooding and resiliency could prove to be more exception than rule as lawmakers grapple with other strategies and policies that in one way or another address the impacts and causes of climate change.

Although with each year and with each new set of disasters, the risk of doing nothing becomes clearer, the job of putting together policies in an atmosphere in which even the phrase “climate change” is still viewed by many with suspicion remains one of the heavier lifts on Jones Street.

Mark Fleming, president and CEO of the Conservatives for Clean Energy, said polling indicates that while attitudes are shifting about clean energy, “climate change” is still a loaded term for some.

“I would say we are getting there as a state, we really are,” he said. “The problem is if you try to inject the phrase ‘climate change,’ everyone goes to their corners because of the politics of that phrase. It’s not even the policy as much as the phrase. But if you’re talking about sustainability, if you’re talking about lowering emissions, conservatives are there on that.”

There’s no doubt attitudes are changing in the legislature as well, Fleming said. “Ten years ago, this was all viewed as a partisan issue. Today it’s really not.”

A decade ago, clean energy was only backed by a couple of Republican members, Fleming said, compared to 10 to 15 members today, a number that’s likely to grow with each new class of legislators.

“We’ve come a long way,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done on these issues, but we see a growing number of conservatives that are championing these issues. I think you’ll continue to see that and a lot of it is generational.”

Fleming said this year’s resilience and flooding legislation is a good sign that bipartisan consensus is possible. He still expects to see policy battles on how to approach solutions going forward, but the legislature appears more and more willing to take action.

“The need to do something is the driving thing,” he said. “I think we’ll see more and more consensus on that, bipartisan consensus.”

Rep. John Ager, D-Buncombe, said that consensus can’t happen soon enough. Ager, a farmer and small farm proponent, has been trying to pass a bill that would encourage no-till techniques, better use of cover crops and other practices that improve carbon sequestration in soils. It’s the kind of bill that’s passed in other states but he can’t get traction among his GOP colleagues in Raleigh.

“It’s been frustrating,” he said. “We had to be careful to use the right words because it felt like if they heard the wrong words they’d just turn their minds off and I don’t know what the right words are to turn them back on.”

Sen. Natalie Murdock, D-Durham, said she has reason hope that the legislature is moving in the right direction despite language barriers.

“I think a lot of people don’t want to call it climate change, they don’t want to talk about global warming, but they may focus more on ‘we need more renewables’ or ‘we need more diversity in our energy portfolio.’ They may call it something different, but I definitely think that we can achieve that goal even if they don’t have my belief that climate change is real,” she said. “I focus on what we agree on and kind of work from there.”

Murdock said ultimately the legislature’s hand will be forced by circumstances. The recent report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and natural disasters have made it clear that the state has to get serious about taking action.

“I think we’ll be forced to,” Murdock said. “I don’t think you can deny the science.”

Heated hearings

Although legislative leaders and Gov. Roy Cooper have found common ground on flooding and resilience, sharp differences remain around greenhouse gas reductions.

Cooper’s call early in his first term for the state to set carbon-reduction targets and to sign on to the Paris Agreement received a cool reception in the North Carolina General Assembly.

This session, opposition to the governor’s carbon-reduction goals heated up during confirmation hearings in the Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee for Cooper’s two choices to lead the Department of Environmental Quality, former secretary Dionne Delli-Gatti, who the Senate rejected, and DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser, who was confirmed last month.

At both sets of hearings, Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabbarus, and former president of Duke Energy North Carolina, took aim at Cooper’s carbon reduction strategy, making the case that reductions by North Carolina would be costly and ultimately futile given increases in emission in places like China and India.

“Would you agree with me that if North Carolina is the only one that reduces carbon, and everybody else around the world is increasing carbon, North Carolina’s contribution to improving the climate is actually zero?” Newton asked Biser Aug. 17 during her confirmation hearing.

Biser, a former legislative liaison, agreed, but said the state won’t be going it alone. 

“If we were the only ones doing it, I think we would get lost in that bucket,” she replied. “Fortunately, we’re joined by a lot of other folks. It’s not everyone, as you point out, but I think this is top of mind for a lot of leaders worldwide.”

Legislators have also recently criticized a move by the Environmental Management Commission in July to accept a petition calling for the commission to begin a process for drafting carbon-reduction rules.

Last week, the House added an amendment to a comprehensive energy reform bill that would prevent the administration from joining a regional greenhouse gas compact without explicit legislative approval.

In a response to Coastal Review on Monday, Cooper spokesperson Jordan Monaghan said the governor would continue to push for emission reductions and that the state would reap the benefits of a clean-energy strategy.

“Climate change poses an existential threat and we must do our part to reduce carbon emissions, but just as important is the economic boost and high paying jobs that North Carolina gets if we lead the way on the inevitable move to renewable energy,” Monaghan said.

Although it’s not spelled out entirely, a major reduction in the state’s overall carbon output is built into major energy legislation now in the hands of the Senate.

The legislation, House Bill 951, Modernize Energy Generation, would accelerate the decommissioning of Duke Energy’s fleet of coal-fired units, streamline solar rules and revamp the state’s energy infrastructure. Hammered out in closed-door negotiations earlier this session, the 47-page bill passed the House 57-49 in mid-July but only after sponsors acknowledged its imperfections and assured their colleagues it would likely undergo substantial changes during the back and forth between the two chambers.

Rep. John Szoka, a Cumberland County Republican and one of the bill’s three main sponsors, said it’s unclear what direction the legislation will take.

He said Senate leaders and the governor have an interest in moving the bill forward. “I don’t know what they’re going to do, they could throw the whole thing away and start from scratch, they could take pieces of it,” he said. The most beneficial thing about House Bill 951 wasn’t the end product. It was the discussions that were raised.”

He said policymakers are trying to strike a balance between increasing renewable energy production, achieving carbon reductions and keeping costs down. 

“It’s one of those things where everyone has to give up something,” he said.

Monaghan said Cooper wants to see ideas on renewable energy, ratepayer protection and clean-energy jobs from Executive Order 80, the governor’s 2018 clean energy initiative, incorporated into the bill.

Szoka said that while he’s not sure where the Senate is going on the legislation, he expects that it will likely include fewer mandates and rely more heavily on the state Utilities Commission than the House version.

“I think there’s a path ahead,” he said, “but it’s a process and energy issues are incredibly complex.”

Murdock, who serves on the Senate’s Agriculture Energy and Environment Committee, said she doesn’t support the House version of the energy bill and expects the Senate to make considerable changes, like putting the Utilities Commission back in the driver’s seat on some of the decisions.

The result for the legislation may not be exactly the kind of sweeping change initially promised, she said, but there’s a real chance at progress.

“I know that it still has a long way to go,” she said. “But I think that we’re moving in the right direction. I couldn’t support the initial version of it, but the fact that we’re having serious talks about more coal plant retirements is definitely a step in the right direction.”

Like Fleming, Szoka, who has been in the legislature since 2012, says despite the disagreements over details, attitudes are changing in both chambers and policy is likely to follow.

He said it’s true that the legislature has been generally slower to accept carbon reduction than Congress and other states, but he recalled a similar skepticism about renewable energy.

“When I first got here the view was that it wouldn’t exist without tax credits. Now, it’s a generally more acceptable form of energy by people in both parties,” he said. “Sometimes ideas evolve over time and it takes a period of time to get to where an idea really gets some legs under it.”

This story has been updated.

House and Senate negotiators are working on a budget deal after the House approved its version 72-41 following 10 hours of floor debate last week. The House plan would spend $25.7 billion this year and $26.7 billion next year.

Although the amount on the bottom line remains the same for both chambers, a House and Senate conference committee will start working through differences large and small between the chambers.

Like the Senate, the House plan includes significant appropriations and policy provisions for flooding mitigation and resilience programs, part of a major new surge in state initiatives in natural resources, parks and conservation. That includes a major boost for the state’s Land and Water Fund and the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund and a substantial flow of funds into new, flood-prevention strategies.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said the budget was the best for the environment that she’s seen in her 15 years in the legislature. She said the commitment to the Land and Water Fund and the parks trust fund would make a real difference.

“During the pandemic we all know where people wanted to be, and it was in their parks, it was outside,” she said. “This is money for our folks, this is money for our constituents, to make sure that those parks and those grants to our local governments are there for them.”

House Majority Leader John Bell, R-Wayne, said the House plan’s roughly $1 billion aimed at flood mitigation and disaster recovery represents an important shift toward more pre-disaster strategies.

“This bipartisan plan provides historic and unprecedented investment in tools to help the local communities recover from previous damage and prepare for future disasters,” Bell said during a budget announcement last week. “For every dollar spent on predisaster mitigation today, taxpayers save four to seven in disaster recovery funding on the back end.”

Bell said the plan would spend more than $465 million on planning and statewide and local mitigation projects as well as set aside another $330 million for future projects.

Most of the flood-mitigation and resilience provisions in the budget stem from House Bill 500, which was introduced in June.

While several sections of the legislation correspond to priorities outlined by the Senate in its budget, there’s still an array of differences between the two chambers, mainly in how the flood programs will ultimately be administered.

Those differences, including the role of the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, or NCORR, could be settled through the budget or standalone legislation.

That includes NCORR itself, which was set up under the Department of Public Safety in the wake of Hurricane Florence to manage federal aid and develop resiliency programs. It was originally authorized for three years. Language in both budgets would establish it as a permanent agency.

Although the final package is still a work in progress, the flood and resiliency projects that made the list in both chambers’ budgets are likely to make it into the conference committee report.

They include $10 million for local and regional resiliency planning assistance, $20 million for a statewide flood resiliency blueprint, $40 million for Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund and dozens of local projects.

Coastal area projects on the list include $2 million to the North Carolina Coastal Federation for living shorelines, oyster reef and marsh restoration; $1 million to Hyde County for Lake Mattamuskeet Restoration Drainage project; $2 million to Carolina Beach to complete the dredging of Lake Park; $20 million to Oak Island for beach nourishment; $5 million to Southport for waterfront stabilization; and $250,000 to Carteret County for Marshallberg flood mitigation, ditch restoration and harbor discharge project.

Wetlands provision out

Although most of the House plan remained intact through last week’s debates, one proposed change in wetland protections was removed from the final bill.

The provision would have removed state protections for isolated wetlands. New federal Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rules dropped protections for isolated wetlands in 2020.

Environmental advocates said the provision could have left more than 1 million acres statewide without any protections, with the bulk of the wetlands concentrated in eastern North Carolina.  

Other controversial environmental provisions remain in the bill. One would prevent local governments from adopting tree ordinances and tree protections on their own, requiring them to be only adopted through an act of the legislature.

Another provision would prohibit local stormwater and riparian buffer rules that are more stringent than state or federal requirements.

A third provision would eliminate all local regulation of billboards. 

Scott Mooneyham, communications director for the North Carolina League of Municipalities, said the large number of provisions has left the budget “top heavy” with non-budget items. He said provisions such as the tree ordinance haven’t been reviewed by committees and need a full hearing.

“These ideas, which will affect a lot of people’s lives, ought to rise and fall of their own accord, rather than being put into a 670-page budget document,” Mooneyham said Monday in an email response to Coastal Review. “The nature of state budget negotiations is that public input from this point forward will be limited, and a final agreement will be subject to an up or down vote without the ability to make changes.”

Deal or no deal

Both chambers are far behind schedule on the budget, but could wrap up work in the next two weeks on the final legislative package.

After that, the outlook is far from certain. House Democrats last week pointed out that although they had scant participation in drafting the budget, they expected to have a seat at the table during final negotiations between the governor and the legislature.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Roy Cooper, who have been effectively engaged in a budget standoff since 2019, have expressed hope that a final deal can be reached in this year’s negotiation.

During a press conference Wednesday, House Minority Leader Robert Reives, D-Chatham, said this year appears to be different and an agreement is much more possible.

“We have differences of opinion, obviously, about policy and about how best to send us home,” he said. “But I do believe that everybody involved in this process understands the word compromise and is fine with the word compromise, and we are all ready to see what we can do to come to some type of compromise, to figure out to make sure that we’ve got the budget.”

North Carolina’s new fiscal year started on July 1 and state agencies have been operating under an automatic budget law that funds operations under the prior budget’s levels.

House budget committees rolled out their spending and policy plans Thursday, including large increases in funding for conservation, flood prevention and stormwater infrastructure.

But details in the plan, including an abundance of earmarks for local projects and a controversial provision to drop protections for hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands, have drawn questions — even as the bill is on track for a final vote as early as next week.

Conservation, flood prevention

The House budget includes large increases for the state’s Land and Water Fund, Parks and Recreation Trust Fund and other conservation efforts, and appropriates close to $2 billion toward flood prevention, resiliency and stormwater and wastewater infrastructure.

Much of that would come from a $1.58 billion transfer from the State Fiscal Recovery Fund to the Department of Environmental Quality for four department-run programs.

The newly created Viable Utility Reserve would receive $500 million for grants to financially distressed water and sewer utilities. The state Drinking Water/Wastewater Reserve would receive $900,000 to use for infrastructure grants. Another $80 million would go to local systems for assistance with inventories, merger studies and training. And $100 million in grants would be available for local stormwater infrastructure projects.

Legislators already have carved out a considerable number of earmarks, with more than 100 county and municipal grants specified in the bill.

Conservation funds in the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources would see the same scale of increases envisioned in the proposed Senate budget, although some differences remain between the two chambers.

The House is proposing $80 million in the current fiscal year for the Land and Water and $70 million for the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund.

A state disaster relief fund would provide $20 million for Land and Water Fund grants for floodplains and wetland areas, and $10 million from the parks fund would be dedicated to grants for local governments for persons with disabilities. 

A new, separate fund for trails throughout the state is also in the plan. The Complete the Trails Fund would start up with a $29 million appropriation to distribute $25 million for trail construction, planning and design projects.

Worries over wetlands

The jump in resiliency and conservation spending in this year’s session has drawn praise from environmental advocates, but several budget provisions are raising concerns, especially a wetland provision in one section that appears to conflict with flood prevention strategies elsewhere in the budget.

The provision would strip away existing state protections for isolated wetlands, which until recently were protected under federal rules.

Under the new Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule, those wetlands are no longer under federal protection. That protection required permits for development or other impacts to go through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The wetlands are still under state protection, but there was no regulatory system for them until a recent set of temporary rules were put in place by the state’s Environmental Management Commission, or EMC. The commission is working on permanent rules.

The budget provision would strip that protection for any isolated wetland not classified as a bog or a basin.

During a hearing Thursday on the budget plan by the House Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources appropriations committee, Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, questioned the intent of the provision and whether it was meant to preempt the new EMC rules.

Joy Hicks, senior director for governmental affairs and policy at DEQ, told the committee that the department wanted to review the change. She said the EMC rules are needed to provide a permitting system for some types of wetlands.  

“When the new Waters of the U.S. came out, it left what we are considering orphaned pieces of wetland that the Clean Water Act no longer covers under the federal rule,” Hicks said. State rules say that all wetlands are protected but there’s no permitting mechanism for those wetlands.

“This would go in and exempt those from having to be permitted.” Hicks said, adding that the provision represents a change in policy that so far hasn’t been vetted by a legislative committee.

Mary Maclean Asbill, attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the attempt to remove protections on wetlands goes against resilience and flood mitigation strategies elsewhere in the budget that call for increases in wetlands and restoration projects to reduce downstream flooding.

“This would be terrible for North Carolina’s wetlands and for North Carolina communities. State leaders should be doing all that they can to protect North Carolina citizens and communities from extreme flooding, yet this does the opposite,” Asbill said Thursday afternoon.

The law center has estimated that there are about 900,000 acres in the Cape Fear and Neuse river basins that are potentially no longer protected by federal rules as a result of the 2020 change.

Harrison also objected to provisions in the budget that would preempt local ordinances on stormwater, wetlands and riparian buffers. Under the new provisions, those ordinances can only be used to meet state or federal laws, preventing local governments from adopting stronger standards.

While there was a lot of “good stuff” in the budget, Harrison said she opted not to vote for it. Instead, she plans to seek amendments to the relevant sections either during next week’s full appropriations committee hearing or when the bill gets to the House floor.

“I appreciate that extra funding for resiliency and conservation, but I’m super troubled by the provisions in there relating to wetlands and stormwater and buffers,” Harrison said.

The subcommittee approved its section of the budget on a voice vote.

Running behind

The House budget is more than six weeks behind schedule. The Senate, which started the budget process, was also behind schedule this year, approving its plan on June 25, five days before the end of the state’s fiscal year.

Since the beginning of the new fiscal year, state agencies have been operating under automatic funding legislation, which maintains prior-year spending levels.

As budget plans begin to gel in Raleigh, it’s growing more likely that North Carolina’s Land and Water Fund, a longtime driver of clean water and conservation projects in the state, could receive funding this cycle at levels not seen in more than a decade.

The fund, which was formed under the 2013 merger of the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Natural Heritage Fund, issued just over $21 million in grants in its last cycle from a list of applications totaling four times that amount. One of several areas of state government not funded through one of last year’s mini budgets, the Land and Water Fund appropriation has remained where it was in 2018. This year’s Senate budget calls for upping that amount considerably to $73.2 million in this fiscal year and $53.2 million next year.

On Monday, Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that oversees natural resource funding, confirmed that the House leadership is on board with the increase.

In a response to Coastal Review, McElraft said the House is looking at an increase that would be the “same size or bigger.”

The last appropriation in that range was the 2007-08 funding cycle, just as what became the Great Recession started to eat away at state revenues.

The fund’s appropriation drifted lower until then-Gov. Pat McCrory’s 2013-14 budget proposal all but zeroed it out. The General Assembly maintained it, although at greatly reduced levels, with much of the funding earmarked for buffers around military installations. Appropriations began a slow increase after that, but still not at the levels envisioned at the inception of Clean Water Management Trust Fund in 1996 when then-Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight set an annual target of $100 million.

Will Summer, interim executive director of the Land and Water Fund, said the additional appropriation will help catch up with some of the demand on the fund.

“For many years, the demand for our grant program has outpaced our available funds many times over. Last year, we had $82.6 million in requests, but we were only able to fund $20.1 million,” Summer said in an email reply to Coastal Review. “The result of this disparity is the loss of opportunities to protect and restore critically important places, including areas that provide public access for outdoor recreation, hunting, and fishing. These opportunities help create economic sustainability and ensure better resiliency in the face of natural disaster.”

In September, the fund’s board of trustees will review $62.7 million in requests, but Summer said it is hard to judge what the real demand is for grants since local governments have likely held back on requests during the recent low funding cycles.

“After several consecutive years facing such competitive grant cycles, many of our applicants have adjusted their efforts accordingly and submitted fewer and smaller applications despite increasing need,” Summer said. “I anticipate that if a budget passes this year that prioritizes conservation, our next grant cycle, which opens in December, will show even more demand.”

Bill Holman, state director of The Conservation Fund, said the jump in the state appropriation and the potential for higher levels going forward could make a difference for larger land acquisitions.

“It really makes possible larger conservation projects and more projects that are landscape scale,” he said.

The increase, he said, is sorely needed to help keep up with rapidly increasing land prices.

Holman said there are large-scale land acquisition projects that dovetail with the strategy of using natural lands to improve resilience with several projects under study in the lower Cape Fear and Waccamaw watersheds that would restore floodplains and reduce downstream flooding.

Summer said it’s unclear exactly how communities will respond to a funding increase, especially give the challenges of the past year, but he anticipates that the past year has underlined the importance of parks and open space.

“I expect that many communities will implement and continue plans to increase their parks and greenways,” Summer said. “I also hope to see more projects that focus on protecting and restoring floodplain and wetland areas that can help make our communities more resilient to extreme weather events.”

Learn more

• 2021 North Carolina Land and Water Fund Grant Applications

This report has been updated to clarify the boundaries of the shellfish moratorium in New Hanover County.

House budget committees rev back up this week starting with an overview of spending proposed in the newly minted budget sent from the other side of the Legislative Building.

After a lengthy debate Thursday, the state Senate passed its version of the two-year biennial budget last week in a 32-18 vote.

The budget spends roughly $25.7 billion in the fiscal year starting June 30 and $26.7 billion the following year. After a protracted negotiation with House leaders on the overall total, the Senate’s bill is more than a month behind the typical schedule.

House leaders expect to wrap up work on their budget plan later in July.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, who chairs the House Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources appropriations subcommittee said Friday she expects committee work to be completed within a couple of weeks after the legislature returns from its July Fourth break.

McElraft said the plan should be voted on by the end of the month. After that, the two chambers will have to reach a compromise on their differences before sending a final version to Gov. Roy Cooper, who has already raised concerns about elements likely to be in a final version. 

North Carolina hasn’t had a full budget enacted and signed since 2018. Cooper vetoed the last two-year budget in 2019 and state agencies and operations have been funded through a series of targeted, mini-budgets and an automatic continuing budget law that maintains funding at the previous year’s levels.

Another veto fight is expected, at least according Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, who all but said as much in a news conference last week.

“Well, we’ll see where things are as far as the governor is concerned. This is a little facetious, but I’m sure that the governor is not going to veto this budget, because this is not going to be the final budget,” Berger said Monday of the Senate plan. “We will see what happens once we see what the House does and then we’ll have further conversations with both the House and the executive branch.”

Fisheries in focus

Next year marks the 25^th anniversary of the state’s landmark Fisheries Reform Act of 1997 and the 50^th anniversary of the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, and the legislature is using the milestones to launch a comprehensive review of its coastal and marine fisheries.

The Senate budget plan provides $1 million to the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory to produce an analysis of trends in state fisheries over the last few decades and to develop policy recommendations to better manage the overall health and viability of the fisheries and their habitats. Fisheries listed for the studies include bay scallop, blue crab, eastern oyster, estuarine striped bass, hard clam, kingfish, red drum, river herring, sheepshead, shrimp, southern flounder, spotted seatrout and striped mullet.

The study is due by Dec. 31, 2022.

The Senate budget also adds two new positions for management and technical work to handle the expansion of the shellfish lease program and allocates additional costs for the northern shellfish lab. Shellfish growers would also see a new loan program through the North Carolina Rural Center aimed at providing working capital and equipment for small, new or existing shellfish operations.

The Senate plan extends indefinitely a moratorium on shellfish leases in New Hanover and Carteret counties enacted in 2019. In New Hanover County, the moratorium would be for waters from the Wrightsville Beach drawbridge through Masonboro Inlet to the mouth of Snows Cut, and in Bogue Sound in Carteret County from the U.S. 70 high-rise bridge in Morehead City to the Emerald Isle bridge.

The moratorium was scheduled to expire on July 1. It was established in the legislation  setting up the state’s new water column and bottom leasing program. There’s a strong interest in shellfish leasing in the areas, but they are also among the spots on the coast with potential for conflicts with fishing, recreation and tourism uses.

Also in the Senate budget is $1 million for a voluntary commercial fishing license buyback program aimed at “retiring” underutilized licenses. The plan requires the Division of Marine Fisheries to set up a three-year buyback program starting with a report on its plans due in April 2022.

The licenses would be retired and not revert to the pool of available licenses. Any holder who sells their license would not be eligible for a commercial fishing license for three years after the sale.

Ferry fund established

The state’s ferry service would get its own dedicated capital fund, one of several new funds set up in the Senate budget.

Currently, the cost of new vessels and maintaining the ferry fleet comes out of the state Highway Fund, the state’s main transportation funding vehicle.

The new Ferry Capital Special Fund would be separate from the Highway Fund and tolls collected within the system would flow directly into it as would receipts from work at the state shipyard at Manns Harbor.

The fund is mainly for acquisition and maintenance costs for the ferry fleet as well as tugs, barges and dredges. Under the Senate plan about $9.6 million in vessel replacement funds and $14 million in accumulated fare revenue and state support will be transferred to the new fund. The state would also continue an additional $2.5 million appropriation annually for vessels and maintenance.

The budget also spends more than $4 million to complete two vessels, with $718,090 to finish the M/V Salvo, a river class ferry to replace the M/V Chicamocomico, and $3,450,807 budgeted for the completion of the M/V Avon, a river class ferry that will replace the M/V Kinnakeet on the Hatteras-Ocracoke route in 2022.

RALEIGH — An array of provisions aimed at stepping up state monitoring of emerging contaminants have been rolled into the Senate budget plan released this week.

They include the creation of a new group within the Department of Environmental Quality charged with investigating emerging contaminants, more funding for the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory for its PFAS Testing Network of researchers and tighter requirements for reporting on the use of firefighting foam that contains per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances. 

The provisions, along with the rest of the mammoth budget bill, moved closer to passage Tuesday after the measure was approved on a voice vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Senate Finance Committee was scheduled to take up the bill Wednesday morning with floor votes in the Senate expected over the next two days.

The budget process, delayed by snags in negotiations between House and Senate leaders over the total amount of spending, is about a month behind schedule.

The House is expected to move fairly quickly on its version and a final version could be headed to the governor’s office mid-July. Gov. Roy Cooper, who released his own version of the budget in April, has already raised objections to several aspects of the Senate plan.

While there is likely to be a vigorous back and forth over the final version of the budget, the PFAS studies and firefighting foam regulations are among the consensus items in the plans.

Collaboratory studies, firefighting foam

The Senate’s budget includes sections of the 2021 Water Safety Act, a bill introduced earlier in the session by Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, with several PFAS related provisions.

Provisions from the Water Safety Act in the Senate budget proposal include $15 million to continue a testing and monitoring for PFAS and other emerging contaminants by a network of researchers under the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory. Of that, $10 million is earmarked for deployment of three pilot filtration projects. One project would go to a public water system that draws from the Cape Fear River, one would go to a public system that discharges into the river and the third would go to a system that draws water from either the Pee Dee or Castle Hayne aquifer.  

Another provision directs the collaboratory to continue work developing a statewide registry and inventory tracking the use of aqueous firefighting foam, known as AFFF, that contains PFAS compounds and tightens the reporting requirement for firefighting operations.

The legislature wants to see the initial registry and online reporting portal for use of the foam in place by July 1, 2022.

Lee’s AFFF provisions track much of House Bill 355, which passed the House 112-0 in the first week of May. But the Senate stops short of the full House plan, which would ban the use of foam with PFAS for most training and testing and tighten requirements for containment and disposal of the compounds.

The testing and training ban would be the first legislated restrictions of PFAS in the state. The ban is likely to become one of many differences the two chambers will have to work out in the final budget discussion.

Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, one of several groups advocating for action on PFAS, said Lee should consider amending the bill to include the ban that’s in the House bill.

Donovan said there are safer aqueous firefighting foam alternatives and noted that the federal government banned the use of foams containing PFAS by the military for training purposes in 2020 and for all uses by 2024.

The Senate also allocates $975,000 for 10 new positions at the Department of Environmental Quality to make up a new investigative Emerging Compounds Unit under the Division of Water Resources and another $200,000 for two new positions to continue the emerging contaminants statewide mapping program.

Lee said the new unit at the Division of Water Resources would be a “quick-response unit” to coordinate work on emerging compounds.

Donovan said the funds for DEQ fall short of what’s needed.

“The senate budget is a small step forward regarding PFAS funding for DEQ,” Donovan, said in an email response to Coastal Review Tuesday. “However, NC has some of the worst PFAS pollution in the nation and this budget simply doesn’t cut it.”

RALEIGH — A temporary impasse in the North Carolina General Assembly over the overall spending total for a fresh state budget ended last week, but don’t expect to see a final product anytime soon.

House and Senate negotiators settled on a $25.7 billion budget ceiling for the 2021-22 fiscal year, which starts on July 1, and $26.7 billion for 2022. The budget targets represent a 3.45% increase in spending the first year and 3.65% in the second year.

The total does not include debt service for capital projects, which will come out of a new State Capital and Infrastructure Fund.

In a joint statement, Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said they intend to direct $4.2 billion in spending through the new fund “to support critical needs across the state, including several transformational projects.”

Although the exact numbers by department have yet to be spelled out, Berger and Moore said the budget agreement also includes significant tax reductions and the replenishment of the state’s “rainy-day” fund.

“As we work out the details of the budget, we intend to fulfill our commitment to balance the budget while saving for future needs and cutting taxes for the vast majority of residents,” they said in the statement released Tuesday.

The two sides have been at odds over total spending, so much so that House budget committees began meeting to move forward with its own version and not wait for the Senate, which was supposed to release its plan first this year.

The House effort barely got rolling before the announcement of the agreement.

Senate leaders plan to roll out their budget in about a week with a final round of votes likely to come ahead of the legislature’s weeklong break in early July.

The House then takes up its version. A rough timetable set out by legislative leaders last week, predicts a final legislative deal coming in August.

Less certain is what happens after that.

In a press conference Thursday, Gov. Roy Cooper, who released his budget proposal in April, said he expects to see his priorities reflected in a final deal. Although the legislature’s agreement did not include Medicaid expansion, a major sticking point in 2019, Cooper said he would continue to push for it in negotiations.

Cooper also called for a much more ambitious bond program than what’s envisioned for the new capital and infrastructure fund.

The last comprehensive two-year budget to become law was passed in 2017 over Cooper’s veto, as was the 2018 budget. But later that second year, Democrats gained enough seats in both chambers to sustain a Cooper veto and in 2019 talks between the legislature and the governor ended in a stalemate.

Since then, state government has been funded through the combination of an automatic spending law that maintains current spending levels and a series of consensus “mini-budgets” for various departments and programs.

This year, with no spending plan likely to be in place by the end of the fiscal year, the automatic spending law will kick in July 1.

Ferry bill sails through

While the budget churns forward, legislators are working their way through a stack of legislation moved in last month’s crossover marathon.

Just before adjourning for the week, the Senate in a 47-0 vote gave its final approval for legislation authorizing the Department of Transportation to lease and operate the Hatteras-Ocracoke passenger ferry.

The bill, which had passed the House the day before in a vote of 106-2, allocates $700,000 from the State Highway Fund for a lease through Aug. 15 and includes an opt-out provision if the state can put a new state-owned boat into operation sooner.

On Friday, the Ocracoke Observer reported that construction of the new state-owned boat, a 92-foot catamaran, had been completed and was undergoing trials.

The boat was originally due to be completed in 2018, but inspections of hull welds raised concerns and work was halted, leading to a protracted legal battle between the state and its contractor, US Workboats, formerly based in Hubert, in Onslow County.

A new contractor, boat repair specialists Waterline Systems, also based in Hubert, took over the $4 million project in 2020.

The boat is being tested in the water at the company’s shipyard in Hubert, NCDOT spokesman Tim Haas said Friday.

“It’s part of the process the builder goes through before it gets turned over to the Ferry Division, so I can’t put a date on when that will be completed. It will be named the Ocracoke Express,” Haas said.

As far as the leased ferry goes, Haas said nothing can happen until the bill becomes law. “Then we will work on completing the contract with the owner of the boat (SeaStreak Marine). After that, the boat will transit down here from New Jersey, then we have to perform required route verification and a ‘new to zone’ inspection before it can begin service.”

Haas said the Ferry Division has been making preparations all spring for passenger ferry service, so once the contract is signed and the testing completed, it should not take long before service would begin. “But again, none of that can start until the bill gets signed.”

Act II for Farm Act

The House will move forward on its review of Senate Bill 605, the Farm Act of 2021, and could vote on the bill as early as early as next week, despite objections to a provision putting all hog farm biogas operations under one general permit.

The Senate approved the bill on May 11 along party lines 29-21 and the provision is expected to lead to a similar conclusion in the House.

After passage in the Senate, environmental groups vowed to fight the biogas provision. In a statement after the vote, the North Carolina Sierra Club said the biogas plan would further entrench lagoon and spray field systems for hog waste.

Last week, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, said he supported the bill as is and would likely urge a vote on the bill during the committee’s next meeting. Dixon dismissed criticism of the biogas plan, saying it’s better than the system currently in place.

Trail bill on track

The House overwhelmingly approved a plan adding the East Coast Greenway to the state parks system’s trails. The greenway which runs through Atlantic Coast is a primarily inland route but includes “supplemental” routes along the coast as well as a section south of Wilmington through Brunswick County. Coastal trails included are South Tar River Greenway, Greenville; Jacksonville Rail-Trail, Jacksonville; Greenfield Lake Path, Wilmington; The Wilmington Riverwalk; Cross-City Greenway, Wilmington; Dismal Swamp Canal Trail; South Mills; Carolina Beach Island Greenway; Surf City Bridge Multi-Use Path; Fort Fisher Trail, Kure Beach; Southport to Fort Fisher Ferry; Emerald Path, Emerald Isle; and the South Tar River Greenway in Greenville.

RALEIGH — A broad array of provisions aimed at flood prevention and resilience continues to move forward in this year’s session of the North Carolina General Assembly.

Last week, a House committee approved the latest version of a long-term effort to address the growing risk of widespread flooding. Although driven by catastrophes like Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence, the scope of the legislation recognizes vulnerabilities to flooding throughout the state.

“This bipartisan measure reflects input from leaders across the entire state of North Carolina that have taken the brunt of a number of these storms,” House Majority Leader John Bell, R-Wayne, said Wednesday while introducing the latest iteration of the House efforts, House Bill 500, the Disaster Mitigation and Relief Act of 2021, to the House Environment Committee. “It’s my opinion that it’s time to address these challenges and be proactive in a comprehensive way. That’s why we’re focused on real solutions that we can protect homes livelihoods, communities and infrastructure.”

It’s evident, he said, that the state needs a comprehensive strategy to address flooding and resiliency.

The House legislation follows a set of provisions introduced in the Senate earlier in the session and a set of strategies proposed by Gov. Roy Cooper in his budget proposal in March.

At the heart of all three plans is an attempt to use what’s been learned through recent disasters along with advances in science and technology to get ahead of future disasters. 

Bell said the more than $290 million in new spending in the bill represents one of the largest investments to deal with flooding in the state’s history, but it’s intended to break a cycle of flooding and recovery that’s cost more than $3.5 billion spent in recent years.

Committee chair Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said that when the House first started looking at resiliency there wasn’t enough money to do what was needed. She said that now the state has enough in its rainy day funds to move forward.

“We finally have some money to put into resiliency, and to prevent these kinds of things from happening, instead of looking at fixing homes after it’s flooded,” McElraft said.

Bell co-chaired the House Select Committee on Disaster Relief, which was established in 2017 to track the recovery from Hurricane Matthew, then the costliest natural disaster in state history.

The select committee reviewed the long history of proposals for how to deal with riverine flooding, particularly along choke points in the Neuse River basin. Their work was interrupted and dramatically altered by Hurricane Florence in 2018, which dwarfed Matthew in rainfall, reexposed the extensive flooding vulnerabilities in eastern North Carolina and revealed new infrastructure and transportation faults.

As much as the major disasters in eastern North Carolina were an impetus for a flood mitigation and resilience strategy, the growing frequency of intense rain events and flooding in other parts of the state have given the effort an extra boost in the legislature.

Will McDow, who helped lead negotiations on the bill for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the bill, and ultimately, the flooding legislation that is likely to come out of the session and be signed by the governor, is a strong recognition across government that there’s a need and an opportunity to rev up resiliency efforts.

“This is something that both chambers and the governor recognize is a critical issue,” he said. “And so, you know when you get that level of consistency in recognition, it creates opportunities.”

Environmental Defense Fund and other environmental groups have supported both House and Senate bills partly because they both lean into the idea of leveraging natural lands.

“We appreciate the sponsors’ commitment to natural solutions as one tool in the toolbox to prepare our state for to make our state more prepared for floods,” Will Robinson, director of government relations for the Nature Conservancy in North Carolina, told House members last week.

‘Works in progress’

The bills in the works now are evolving and to become law will require a lot of negotiation and perhaps some luck, especially given the recent breakdown in budget discussions in Raleigh.

Bell called House Bill 500 “a working document” that will change as it moves through the process. Some or all of it could be folded into the budget or, if the legislature adopts another “mini-budget” system in lieu of an actual budget, be rolled into one or more standalone bills.

Here’s a breakdown of main provisions of the bill:

• Permanently establishes the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency and adds up to 19 new positions with responsibilities for statewide flood mitigation and resiliency.
• Allocates $20 million for a statewide flood resilience blueprint.
• Allocates $32 million for Neuse River buyouts, levee and railroad projects.
• Allocates $36.5 million for Lumber River buyouts, dam repairs, levee and railroad projects.
• Earmarks $5 million for Southport waterfront stabilization and $14 million for Boiling Springs Lake dam repairs.
• Establishes the state Disaster Relief and Mitigation Fund and Transportation Infrastructure Resiliency Fund with an initial $40 million appropriation for grants.
• Adds $30 million to the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund for living shorelines, oyster reefs and marsh restoration.
• Funds planning grants and four new positions at the Division of Coastal Management for the Resilient Coastal Communities program.
• Adds $20 million to the state’s Land and Water Fund for restoration of floodplains and wetlands to increase their capacity to store water and reduce flooding.
• Allocates $30 million to the Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Mitigation Services to create a pilot program to address chronic flooding along Stoney Creek in Wayne County and other flood mitigation projects.

House Bill 500 is expected to be taken up next by the House Appropriations Committee, but so far no hearings have been scheduled.

Environmental groups are pushing for changes in biogas provisions that are part of this year’s farm bill, saying the legislation takes away important oversight of the new technology.

The Farm Act of 2021, Senate Bill 605, would put the projects under a combined general permit, rather than require each project to go through the permitting process.

Advocates of the move say it’s necessary in order to speed up the process for the facilities, which can take more than a year to complete.

The biogas operations would pump methane captured from hog lagoons to a central collection point where it can be converted to renewable natural gas, or RNG, and then burned for fuel to generate electricity.

Last year, a partnership between Smithfield Foods, Duke Energy and biogas developer OptimaBio opened an RNG facility using wastewater from Smithfield’s Tar Heel plant.

Smithfield and Dominion Energy recently announced plans for a network of swine farms connected via pipelines to a major new RNG production facility in Duplin County.

Environmental groups have opposed the plan, saying that the infrastructure and digesters pose a risk to air and water quality and moving the facilities under a general permit would eliminate oversight and public input.

Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources chairman Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, said last week that he wants to see state environmental regulators move faster on the biogas projects.

In a series of questions during confirmation hearings for Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Dionne Delli-Gatti, Jackson cited the 18 months it took for the Tar Heel facility and said it was unfair to force companies to wait so long for projects to be approved.

Delli-Gatti said that one complication in that case involved a new kind of facility and new type of application and permit process. DEQ has been in conversations about the process with industry representatives since, she said.

“One of the things I am pleased to hear, we’ve met with the industry since then, and they have indicated they felt that the permits, and the requirements of the permits are fair,” she said.

The Farm Act of 2021 is scheduled to be heard in Jackson’s committee on Tuesday. The meeting agenda, materials and livestream will be available online.

Delli-Gatti confirmation hearings

Senators spent about two hours questioning Delli-Gatti, whom Gov. Roy Cooper nominated for the DEQ secretary position in February after President Joe Biden picked her predecessor, Michael Regan, to be the top administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Like Regan, she’s been on the job for months ahead of the formal Senate confirmation process. She and Regan are the only DEQ secretaries to go through the confirmation process. The legislature initiated the confirmation requirement for a governor’s cabinet-level appointees under legislation passed in December 2016, ahead of the partisan shift in the governorship from Republican Pat McCrory to Cooper, a Democrat.

Senators used part of Delli-Gatti’s hearing to take aim at Cooper’s climate change proposals, along with questions on decommissioning solar facilities, and the future of natural gas and electric automobiles.

Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, focused on carbon-reduction goals in Cooper’s Clean Energy Plan and the state’s renewable energy portfolio standards. He said they seemed pointless and costly given that India and China are continuing to build coal plants that will far offset the state’s reductions.

“What is the value to North Carolinians for charging them billions of dollars to reduce carbon emissions?” Newton asked. He pressed Delli-Gatti on whether any of the state’s carbon-reduction plans would reduce sea level rise or storms in North Carolina.

Delli-Gatti stressed that the governor’s plans are focused on building resiliency to the effects of sea level rise and more powerful storms. She defended the carbon-reduction goals, saying the hope is that through greater cooperation on reductions, some of the trends experienced here can be reversed.

Jackson said he expects to schedule a follow-up to last week’s confirmation hearing, but it had yet to be scheduled as of Monday. Under the 2016 statute, the Senate must confirm Delli-Gatti’s appointment during this session for her to remain in the job.

Bill adds teeth to native plant requirements

Last Tuesday, Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, announced to members of the Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources committee that he was no tree hugger.

Fans of the Bradford pear and crepe myrtle would heartedly agree.

Rabon took a rhetorical ax to both nonnative trees while advocating for his Native Plant Right to Work Act — Senate Bill 628 — saying there was nothing good to say about the Bradford pear and he never saw a crepe myrtle that didn’t need a chainsaw.

He said it was time for the state to put some teeth into a law that now only “strongly encouraged” the use of native plants by state agencies and in projects that use state funds.

The new legislation would make that a must for local government projects using Powell Bill funds or grants from the State Parks and Recreation Trust Fund and the Land and Water Fund, the new name for the combined Natural Heritage Trust Fund and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. It also prohibits the use of nonnative plants by state agencies and on state property.

The bill passed the committee, but not without criticism from some nursery operations that sell nonnative plants. It now heads to the Senate Rules and Operation Committee.

Rabon, chair of that committee, said he is willing to carve out some exceptions for disease-resistant hybrids or ground-cover species in heavy use by the Department of Transportation, but he said it’s time to get serious about protecting native species and the birds and pollinators that rely on them and stop letting agencies and local governments off the hook when it comes to using native plants.

“Along our highways and our state property we can help the birds and pollinators make a living every day,” Rabon said.

Crossover approaches

The General Assembly session kicks into high gear this week with fast-approaching deadlines for bills to be considered during the 2021 session.

Tuesday is the House filing deadline for all nonbudget-related bills and next Tuesday is the budget bill deadline. Senate deadlines were in early April.

The session’s crossover for both House and Senate deadline is May 13. After that, only bills that have passed at least one chamber are considered viable for the remainder of the session, although on occasion provisions from bills that fail to make the crossover deadline resurface in other legislation.

The lead-up to the filing deadlines is a busy time at the House Clerk’s Office, where 78 bills were filed last week.

North Carolina’s fiscal outlook reflects the hit expected by COVID-19, but overall the General Assembly starts its biennial budget process with a substantial cushion.

In a joint presentation Wednesday to House and Senate budget writers, analysts with the legislature’s Fiscal Research Division estimated that the state heads into fiscal 2021 with more than $4 billion in tax revenue coming in above what was expected. The state also starts with an unappropriated fund balance from last year of about $457 million.

Despite that rosy short-term outlook, Barry Boardman, chief economist for the North Carolina General Assembly, warned legislators Wednesday that uncertainty over the course of the coronavirus pandemic and continued signs of a so-called K-shaped recovery, in which some sectors grow while others lag, present challenges.

Boardman said the diversity of the state’s economy helped keep state revenues up, but the impact of job losses and business closures in the service and hospitality sectors would continue to be felt for some time. He said that it’s one reason the state’s economy will take longer to get back to where it was before the pandemic.

“Those parts of the economy that have lost businesses and lost jobs, or have experienced long-term unemployment, all of those are going to take longer to build back,” Boardman said. “So that’s why in our forecast, we don’t see us returning to a fully recovered economy until at least the middle of next year, and possibly into the early part of 2023.”

With the trajectory of the pandemic hard to predict and its impact on revenue and key budget drivers like public school and community college enrollment difficult to pin down, any spending plan this year is a moving target.

Analyst Jennifer Hoffman said that, by now in a normal budget cycle, the estimates of school enrollment increases and their costs would be available. This year, they’re not because of uncertainty around the pandemic and school reopenings and whether an anticipated early drop in enrollments will persist into the next year. Legislators will also have to decide whether to hold school systems harmless as they did last year if enrollment falls and per-pupil aid drops.

The legislature starts the budget process after two years without a full state budget. Legislative leaders and Gov. Roy Cooper failed to reach agreement after Cooper vetoed a budget passed in June 2019.

Since then, state agencies have been funded through an automatic budget provision passed in 2016 to avoid government shutdowns and a series of mini-budgets and standalone funding bills.

The legislature passed 21 separate funding bills in the 2019 session and 32 bills with appropriations and revenue in 2020.

If passed and signed into law, the 2020-22 budget would be the state’s first comprehensive budget passed since 2017.

Hanig to chair new coastal committee

Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, will chair a new House committee set up to focus specifically on issues around fisheries and marine resources.

Hanig said he worked with House Speaker Tim Moore to pull together a group of legislators with expertise and interest in the often-complicated set of marine issues.

Rep. George Cleveland, R-Onslow, is vice chair of the committee. Other members include Reps. Ashton Wheeler Clemmons, D-Guilford; Ed Goodwin, R-Chowan; Wesley Harris, D-Mecklenburg; Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford; Zack Hawkins, D-Durham; Frank Iler, R-Brunswick; Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort; David Rogers, R-Rutherford; Carson Smith, R-Pender; Brian Turner, D-Buncombe; and Larry Yarborough, R-Person.

Hanig said he expected the committee to hold its first meeting in about two weeks.

Coastal legislators file museum bills

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, has filed H87, a bill to provide $3 million for the Maritime Heritage Foundation of Beaufort to begin advance planning for the proposed North Carolina Maritime Museum at Gallants Channel. The funds would go for a master plan for the 25-acre site, hiring an architect to design the museum and a project manager, as well as infrastructure and waterfront upgrades.

McElraft and Onslow County Republican Reps. George Cleveland and Phil Shepard are also among the sponsors of legislation that would provide $26 million for the Carolina Museum of The Marine and Civic Institute, a proposed 40,000-square-foot facility in Onslow County with exhibits on Marine Corps history, as well as theaters and classrooms. Sens. Michael Larzarra, R-Onslow, and Jim Perry, R-Lenoir, have filed a similar bill in the Senate.

Sen. Norm Sanderson has filed a bill calling for a $600,000 appropriation to fund construction of a new garden house at Tryon Palace.

Another local bill filed this session by northeastern legislators Hanig and Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, would add Southern Shores to the list of municipalities able to use eminent domain to access areas for beach nourishment projects.

The town has scheduled a public hearing to consider the establishment of two Municipal Service Districts as part of its beach erosion, flood and hurricane protection project. A report on the plan, which is estimated to cost between $14-16 million is available at the town website.

Deadlines for filing local bills for this year’s session in the House is March 25 and March 11 in the Senate.

RALEIGH — Legislation filed last week in the North Carolina General Assembly could help clear the way for federal assistance with the extension of jetties at Oregon Inlet and possibly secure funding for a proposed terminal groin at North Topsail Beach, according to state and federal representatives.

In an interview with Coastal Review Friday, Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, said companion bills filed in the state House and Senate are a way to secure more federal help for the long-sought, controversial projects.

“I see this as a first step,” Hanig said, adding that he is still researching and getting feedback on the best route to restart a legislative effort on the inlet and may modify the bill.

The state and Dare County are already in partnership on a new dedicated dredge for the inlet, but it’s likely to take another two years before the vessel, which is being built in Louisiana, begins service.

Even then, Hanig said, dredging is not going to be the complete answer.

Hanig’s bill, and the measure filed in the Senate by Sens. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, and Michael Lazarra, R-Onslow, would exclude terminal groins from the definition of erosion-control structures under the state Coastal Area Management Act.

Hanig, the House Republican deputy whip, said the bill is the result of a request from staff for U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is working on a long-term solution for chronic shoaling that makes crossing the ocean bar at the inlet increasingly treacherous.

“It’s really dangerous,” he said, recalling his own experiences trying get a boat from open ocean into the inlet. “You have to really know what you’re doing and even then it’s difficult. I’ve seen 30-foot boats in the air.”

Hanig, who chairs a new House committee on marine resources and aquaculture, said keeping the inlet open is crucial to boatbuilders, commercial and recreational fishing, and tourism.

In addition to the economic impact, the safety issues in the inlet put fishing businesses in peril.

“To me, it is just beyond unacceptable that people have to put their life in danger to go out there to make a living,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that way. It just shouldn’t be that way.”

Over the years, the state has struggled to find a solution to the navigation troubles at the inlet, but environmental and economic concerns have made that more difficult.

The state also has explicit language in terminal groin laws that prevents state funds from being used.

Hanig said the intent of the legislation is not to get around that ban.

“It isn’t my goal to have the state pay for a jetty,” he said. “My goal is to clear the path for the federal agencies to build the jetty.”

Even though a 2015 compromise allowed another four terminal groins to be built on the coast, high costs for local governments, engineering hurdles and environmental challenges have either stalled or killed most attempts in recent years.

Oregon Inlet also has a further complication, which is part of the reason for the bill.

“The sticking point is that with Oregon Inlet, it’s federal property on the south side and the north side is state property,” he said. “Senator Tillis, his office, is, trying to clear the path for them to step in and be able to help get the jetties put in.”

Hanig said restrictive 2003 legislation was meant to stop terminal groins from proliferating on the coast, but wasn’t intended to apply to Oregon Inlet.

Dare County officials have pushed repeatedly for an extension of the existing Oregon Inlet jetties and last year went on record again in support of revisiting the jetty extension.

In a statement emailed to Coastal Review over the weekend, Republican Congressman Greg Murphy of North Carolina’s 3^rd District, said he supports the state legislation and efforts to improve access to the inlet.

“As much as the eastern North Carolina economy relies on maritime travel, it is imperative for our waters to be navigable. Having personally visited Oregon Inlet to assess its needs,” Murphy said, “I am a strong proponent of the effort in the General Assembly to construct an additional jetty there.”

New River Inlet also in mix

Federal help could also be coming for a proposed terminal groin in North Topsail Beach at New River Inlet, which has repeatedly shoaled over the past several years.

A legislative fact-finding trip to the inlet in 2016 drove that home when one of the vessels carrying members of a House transportation committee nearly ran aground after attempting to get close to the mouth of the river.

At the time, Rep. Phil Shepard, R-Onslow, said he was trying to put together a deal between local and state officials and the Marine Corps to keep the inlet open.

Murphy said Sunday that the three-way effort is ongoing and noted that the Army Corps of Engineers is moving forward on studies while he’s working with local leaders on a funding plan.

“The USACE is currently working on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for public comment on this project. The EIS will be released in the coming months,” he said. “I will continue to work with the leadership of North Topsail Beach in exploring all funding options.”

In a week in which all eyes are on tumult in the nation’s capital, North Carolina’s three branches of government are ramping up for the year ahead.

Gov. Roy Cooper took the oath of office beginning his second term on Saturday.

General Assembly leaders are scheduled to gavel in the new session at noon Wednesday. After a mostly ceremonial first day that includes the swearing-in of members, both chambers are expected to adjourn and spend two weeks preparing for the start of regular business and committee hearings.

Meanwhile, new State Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby has initiated changes in judicial leadership positions.

The governor and legislative leaders pick up this year where they left off, negotiating a state response to the COVID-19 pandemic and attempting to strike a deal on the state budget.

In an ordinary year, legislators assemble in the year following an election to pass a biennial budget before the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

In the highly charged partisan atmosphere in Raleigh over the past three years, that’s proven to be a challenge and a comprehensive state budget hasn’t been adopted since 2018 when the House and Senate overrode a Cooper veto.

Late that year, Democrats took enough seats in both chambers to end Republican supermajorities and 2019’s budget debate devolved into a lengthy, often bitter feud over priorities.

Since then, most of state government has operated through a series of ad hoc spending bills and targeted mini-budgets in areas of general agreement.

In the 2020 state legislative elections, four House seats swung back to the GOP and Democrats picked up one seat in the Senate. Republicans remain shy of the supermajorities needed to override a budget veto.

With that past as prologue for Cooper, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, reaching a 2021 budget deal was already a difficult challenge, and it’s now compounded by so doing during a still raging pandemic amid national political upheaval.

In his inaugural address, Cooper sounded a conciliatory tone and said that if the state can work together then it is poised to “roar ahead” just as it did following the Spanish flu pandemic in the last century.

“Let’s cast aside notions of red counties or blue counties and recognize that these are artificial divisions. Let’s place integrity at the forefront,” Cooper said Saturday. “We are all North Carolinians. These times of triumph and trial have shown us that we are more connected than we ever imagined. And one thing is clear, just as we did one hundred years ago — North Carolina is ready to roar again.”

Hopes for more cooperation between the branches were raised earlier this year when Berger, Moore and Cooper announced a deal to preserve $30 million in funding for rural broadband that was due to expire unspent due to rules related to a federal grant. The state’s budget outlook is also likely to make reaching an agreement easier.

One result of the budget impasse is that the state has accumulated more than $4 billion in unspent reserves. That, combined with an additional $1.1 billion in the rainy day fund and stronger than expected revenue growth gives both the governor and the legislature wider flexibility to develop an agreement.

The state’s financial outlook also brightened after the first of the year, after wins in the two U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia put Democrats in control of the chamber, raising the chances for additional state and local aid.

Leadership changes

In addition to the budget, cabinet-level changes in the administration mean another round of Senate confirmation hearings for Cooper appointees.

The governor has yet to appoint a replacement for Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Michael Regan, who was tapped by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as top administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Also soon to be vacant is the top spot in the state Department of Commerce. Commerce Secretary Tony Copeland is expected to step down at the end of the month. Regan continues with his state duties and has held conference calls and listening sessions on EPA issues during the transition. Confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate have yet to be scheduled.

Cooper’s press secretary, Dory MacMillan said the selection process for the departments’ leadership continues.

“Governor Cooper is committed to seeking out the most qualified people to serve across his cabinet, and an announcement will be made in the coming weeks,” MacMillan said Monday.

In late December, Cooper announced that Reid Wilson, chief deputy secretary of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, would replace DNCR Secretary Susi Hamilton, who announced her departure earlier in the month. Wilson, who has been the department’s point person on climate change initiatives, served as executive director of the Conservation Trust for North Carolina from 2003 to 2017. He was sworn in as DNCR secretary last week.

Under the 2016 law, since Wilson was appointed while the legislature was not in session, he does not necessarily face a confirmation hearing, but his appointment would expire if the legislature doesn’t pass legislation affirming it.

Legislative appointments are also starting to take shape.

Berger announced his committee picks Friday.

Sens. Norman Sanderson, R-Pamlico, Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, and Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, will chair the Agriculture, Energy, and Environment Committee, which handles environmental policy legislation. Sanderson, Edwards and Sen. Todd Johnson, R-Union, will chair the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources.
.

House committee assignments have yet to be announced. Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said Monday that she expects to be reappointed as chair of the House Environment Committee and co-chair of the House committee that oversees agriculture, environment and natural resources.

Completed absentee ballots have started flowing back to the 20 county election offices along the North Carolina coast, and preparations are underway for early voting, which starts in a little less than a month on Oct. 15.

Although the final outcome in each race has yet to be decided and some may not be known for day or even weeks after Election Day, there is one certainty when it comes to the region’s representation in the North Carolina General Assembly: change.

This year, retirements, redistricting and electoral tides at the state and federal levels will align to alter the state’s legislative landscape. The only question is to what degree. At stake is nothing less than control of the General Assembly.

In 2018, a “blue moon” election year in which there were no statewide candidates, Democrats picked up 10 seats in the House and six in the Senate, enough to end six years of Republican supermajorities in both chambers.

A change in a handful of seats in either chamber would change the leadership altogether. In the Senate, the GOP holds a 29-21 majority. The GOP margin in the 120-seat House is an even thinner 65-55.

Since the 2018 election, some of those districts became even more competitive after a court-ordered redraw following a state Supreme Court ruling that found they were created through an unconstitutional partisan process.

Several coastal districts were altered in the redraw, as were congressional districts after a similar ruling in a separate political gerrymandering lawsuit.

The 2020 election is the last in the 10-year cycle that began after the 2010 Census, and the initial redistricting by the legislature, which flipped to GOP control in that year’s election.

Lawsuits over both racial and partisan gerrymandering led to the redrawing of dozens of districts since then, but a complete reordering of district lines happens in 2021, making this year’s outcome pivotal to the legislature’s direction over the next decade.

While the old districts, even those redrawn last year, are by law based on the 2010 Census data, the new districts will better reflect the rapid growth and demographic shifts of the state.

As a result, the next set of coastal districts are likely to vary widely from the current set, particularly in the southern coastal counties, which have grown two or three times as fast as the central and northern coastal counties.

According to 2019 estimates, since 2010 New Hanover County has added more than 30,000 new residents, a jump of almost 16%, and Brunswick County, among the fastest growing counties in the country, has grown by 33%, adding about 35,000 residents. By contrast, Carteret County grew at about 5% and Dare County by 9%.

Meet the candidates

Here’s a breakdown of the General Assembly races:

State Senate

The biggest change in the state Senate’s coastal delegation came early in the election cycle with the announcement last November by Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, that he would not seek a ninth term.

Brown, the Senate’s main budget chair, leaves a legacy of coastal legislation, including creation of a dedicated funding stream for inlet dredging and a new system for state funding for beach renourishment and storm damage mitigation.

The open race for Brown’s Senate District 6, which includes Jones and Onslow counties, is between Democrat Ike Johnson and Republican Michael A. Lazzara.

District 6 isn’t the only open state Senate seat on the coast. The sprawling District 3, which includes Beaufort, Bertie, Martin, Northampton, Vance and Warren counties, became an open-seat race when Sen. Erica Smith, D-Northampton, decided to seek the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. The District 3 race features Democrat Ernestine Byrd Bazemore and Republican Thomas S. Hester Jr.

Four Senate incumbents, three Republicans and one Democrat, are seeking reelection.

Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, faces Dare County Democrat Tess Judge in Senate District 1, which includes Dare, Hyde, Tyrrell, Currituck, Camden, Perquimans, Gates, Hertford, Chowan, Pasquotank, Washington, the most counties represented by a single senator.

Four-term incumbent Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, is being challenged by Democrat Libbie Griffin and Libertarian Tim Harris in Senate District 2, which includes Carteret, Craven and Pamlico counties.

Senate District 8, which includes Bladen, Brunswick, Pender and part of New Hanover counties, is a rematch of the 2018 race. Five-term incumbent Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, is again being challenged by Democrat David Sink and Libertarian Anthony Mascolo.

The other rematch is in Senate District 9, which was 2018’s closest Senate race. In that contest, Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, is being challenged by Republican former Sen. Michael Lee, who was ousted by Peterson in 2018 by 231 votes.

State House

The court-ordered redistricting led to changes in coastal districts in Pender, Brunswick and New Hanover counties. The redraw in New Hanover County put GOP incumbents Reps. Ted Davis and Holly Grange in the same district, but the two avoided a primary since Grange had already opted to run in the GOP’s gubernatorial primary.

Davis is running in new House District 20 in Wilmington against Democrat Adam Ericson.

In the Wilmington-based House District 18, incumbent Democrat Deb Butler is facing Republican Warren Kennedy.

In House District 19, which includes much of coastal Brunswick County and part of New Hanover County, Democrat Marcia Morgan of Carolina Beach, who ran against Davis in 2018, is facing Charlie Miller of Southport.

Running to represent the rest of Brunswick in House District 17 are incumbent GOP Rep. Frank Iler of Shallotte and Democrat Tom Simmons of Boiling Springs.

In the Pender County-based House District 16, incumbent Republican Carson Smith of Hampstead is facing Democrat Debbi Fintak of Surf City.

Longtime Jacksonville incumbents George Cleveland and Phil Shepard both won contested primaries. Cleveland now faces Democrat Marcy Wofford in House District 14 and Shepard squares off against Democrat Carolyn Gomaa in House District 15.

Four-term GOP incumbent Michael Speciale’s retirement leaves an open seat in the New Bern-based House District 3 where Republican Steve Tyson faces Democrat Dorothea Downing White (no campaign website found).

The House District 79 race, which includes part of Craven County along with Beaufort County, features first-term incumbent Republican Rep. Keith Kidwell and Democrat Nick Blount, both of Chocowinity.

Also on the central coast, seven-term incumbent Republican Rep. Pat McElraft faces Democrat Buck Bayliff in District 13, which includes Jones and Carteret counties.

Northern coastal races include a trio of incumbents running for reelection.

Three-term Democratic Rep. Howard Hunter is running against Republican Donald Kirkland, both of Ahoskie, in House District 5, which includes Pasquotank, Gates and Hertford counties.

First-term Republican Rep. Bobby Hanig is running for reelection against Democrat Tommy Fulcher in House District 6, which includes Dare, Currituck, Hyde and Pamlico counties.

First-term GOP Rep. Edward Goodwin is running against Democrat Emily Bunch Nicholson in House District 1, which includes Camden, Tyrrell, Perquimans, Chowan, Bertie and Washington counties.

Copublished with Carolina Public Press

RALEIGH — Gov. Roy Cooper announced Wednesday a spending plan for state government and an outline for using the state’s remaining federal coronavirus funding, but his roughly $1.5 billion proposal was quickly dismissed by General Assembly leaders ahead of next week’s legislative session.

Cooper wants to use roughly $560 million in state funds for a relief package that includes $200 million for local governments, $2,000 bonuses for educators, $86.5 million for disaster recovery and increases in unemployment benefits.

The disaster funds are to provide the state match for federal disaster funding, including $15 million for Hurricane Matthew, $40 million for Hurricane Florence, $3.5 million for Hurricane Dorian, $4 million for Hurricane Isaias and $24 million for recent earthquake damage in Allegheny County.

The governor also wants to raise the maximum weekly payout for state unemployment benefits to $500 and double the benefit period to 24 weeks.

He also included Medicaid expansion under the federal Affordable Care Act in his plan, last year’s main budget sticking point, citing the pandemic and a bleak outlook for further federal aid as further driving home the need for expansion, which has now been enacted in some form by 38 states.

Asked why his push for expansion wouldn’t just lead to another drawn-out budget fight, Cooper bristled.

“First, unlike last year, we’re in the middle of a pandemic,” he said, before launching into a defense of the plan.

Cooper said the failure to come up with a new plan in Washington makes Medicaid expansion even more important.

“I wish that Congress and the president hadn’t left Washington,” he said. “I wish they had stayed there until they came to some agreement on unemployment compensation, on helping states and local governments, on providing more money for health care and testing and personal protective equipment, but they didn’t.”

North Carolina, he said, is now in a position where it is fighting for every federal dollar.

Even before Wednesday’s announcement in Raleigh, legislative leaders had rejected the governor’s plan.

In a joint statement ahead of the governor’s press conference Senate budget writers, including Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, accused the governor of misrepresenting the state’s balance sheet and said they were pressing ahead with their own plan.

In an interview Wednesday with Spectrum News, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said the legislature was also developing its own plans to spend the remaining federal COVID-19 relief funds.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said the legislature’s spending plan is already in the works, but it’s unclear yet what the final package will look like.

“My understanding is that we will have some COVID-related bills and some spending bills for the CARES federal money,” McElraft said Thursday in a text message to Coastal Review Online, referring to the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

In early May, legislators agreed on a spending plan for $1.6 billion of the roughly $4 billion the state received from the CARES Act, passed by Congress in late March. About $481 million of the funds went directly to the state’s three largest counties, Wake, Guilford and Mecklenburg.

Plans for the rest of the money have been on hold awaiting further federal action, including additional aid and greater flexibility in how states can use the coronavirus relief funds. The legislature set aside $300 million in funds in its initial bill with the intent to fill a widening budget gap at the North Carolina Department of Transportation once the state is granted the flexibility to do so.

In announcing his plan, Cooper said with negotiations on another round of federal aid stalled for more than a month, it’s time to go ahead and allocate the remaining $552 million in CARES Act money.

His plan would combine that and reallocate some of the unspent funds in the initial round to raise the total available in federal aid to $978 million. By law, the state must allocate the funds by the end of the year or risk losing them.

Cooper’s plan also includes another $150 million in direct aid to counties, which will be disbursed on a per capita basis. In addition, another $50 million — $25 million for cities and towns and $25 million for counties — would be available to local governments through a competitive grant process to be managed by the North Carolina League of Municipalities and the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.

McElraft said the legislature already allocated $150 million in the first round of coronavirus relief funding and isn’t likely to approve additional help. She said counties are expected to share the first round of funds with their municipalities.

The governor is also proposing two bonds, a $4.3 billion education and infrastructure bond that would go before voters in November 2021 and a $998 million special indebtedness bond for health infrastructure investments, that would not require approval from the voters.

Cooper said Wednesday the health infrastructure bond could be quickly put in motion. Major spending proposals for it include $250 million for high-speed internet access for telehealth services and $275 million for vaccine and public health research.

The bond plan would also allocate $50 million for renovations and expansion of the Department of Environmental Quality’s main laboratories at its Reedy Creek complex, a key priority for the department.

The legislature is expected to resume Thursday at noon, but it’s as yet unclear how long legislators will remain in Raleigh.

With tighter budgets ahead and a pandemic shutdown affecting operations and cutting revenue, planners at the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources are working on how to best maintain aquariums, parks and attractions and still move ahead with expansion and repair projects already in the pipeline.

The department’s budget office estimates that lost revenue for the first half of fiscal year 2021, which started July 1, to be $3.75 million for parks and $5.33 million for the state’s aquariums.

DNCR spokesperson Michele Walker cautioned that in the current environment, estimates are difficult to pin down.

“Keep in mind that this is only an estimate; there are a lot of unknowns in this equation so these numbers could end up looking different by the end of the year,” Walker said in an email exchange with Coastal Review Online.

So far, she said, both the parks and aquariums have been able to retain permanent full-time staff and some temporary staff have been hired on at busy parks.

Walker said the park system has played an important role during the pandemic. “State parks have been hugely popular and are providing a place of respite for NC residents during this time.”

But the state’s three aquariums are a different story. They’ve remained closed since March 17, when tighter, statewide stay-at-home orders took effect.

Walker said that’s meant a delay for a planned expansion at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher and a shift of priorities for the aquarium staff from in-person activities inside to improving outdoor experiences and online programming, such as virtual day camps. Inside, Walker said the priorities for the aquariums and Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head are to care for the aquariums’ creatures, continue assistance for stranded marine animals and maintain the tanks, exhibits and facilities for when the crowds return.

Leaning on bonds

The scope of future budget cuts is tied both to the course of the coronavirus pandemic and the extent of federal aid, but departments throughout state government are looking at priorities and how and where to find savings.

While it is delaying the Fort Fisher aquarium expansion, DNCR is one of several departments that will be able to keep some of its key projects funded and moving forward through the Connect NC bond program, a 10-year, $2 billion infrastructure funding program approved by the voters in 2016. This fall, the state will sell a $400 million tranche of bonds.

More than half of the Connect NC money is aimed at University of North Carolina system projects, with the rest distributed for state and local parks, the North Carolina Zoo, National Guard facilities, community colleges, state building repairs and water and sewer projects.

Legislation tied to the referendum sets aside 5% of the money for the zoo and the state parks system. Of the $100 million, it earmarks $25 million for the zoo and $75 million for 45 parks projects around the state.

A recent update by the State Office of Management and Budget shows that of the $971.5 million allocated so far, about 3% has gone to parks projects. Going forward, that pace will pick up with 6% of the allocations from the anticipated sale of the $400 million in bonds in October set aside for parks.

Coastal projects budgeted in the bond program include the following:

• Dismal Swamp State Park — $990,750 for land acquisition; $8,850 spent so far.
• Mountains-to-Sea State Trail — $4.5 million for land acquisition; $2,300,988 spent so far.
• Carolina Beach State Park — $855,000 for campground improvements; $273,622 spent so far.
• Goose Creek State Park — $1,477,500 for campground improvements; fully funded.
• Merchants Millpond State Park — $870,750 for campground improvements; none spent so far.
• Fort Fisher State Recreation Area — $1,125,000 for bathroom building improvements; revised to $456,775 and fully funded.
• Jockeys Ridge State Park — $751,500 for visitor center and exhibit hall improvements; $164,150 spent so far.
• Pettigrew State Park — $2,830,500 for visitors center and museum; $94,022 spent so far.
• Fort Macon State Park — $135,000, for cannon project; fully funded.
• Hammocks Beach State Park — $1,125,000 for mainland development project; 1, $51,311 spent so far.

Conservation fund concerns

Walker said there is concern going forward about the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, or CWMTF, and the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, or PARTF, the state’s two main conservation funds.

Although the Connect NC bond includes projects in both areas, demand for grants from the funds from local governments remains high, and in some cases the funds are being used in conjunction with the bond funds and could prove a drag on those projects if not available.

Walker said CWMTF currently has 144 pending applications requesting $82 million in grants. PARTF has 66 eligible local government applications pending this year with a total of $20.5 million requested.

Annual allocations for both funds have been reduced to cover past budget gaps. Walker said a similar move during the pandemic would come at the wrong time.

“The General Assembly has worked with us in recent years to maintain or increase the amounts in both trust funds and has continued to find money to invest in them. We believe they understand the importance and significance of these programs for North Carolina,” Walker said. “We are concerned about potential future reductions because PARTF funds are essential for ongoing maintenance of heavily used park facilities, and for completion of projects already underway with ConnectNC bond funding.”

Both funds have assisted in building the trails and greenways that are proving so valuable in the pandemic, she said. “These local resources have been critical for citizens during COVID-19 who needed access for recreation, fresh air and for people to safely venture out. The need is stronger than ever.”

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, one of the chief  budget writers in the House and a longtime backer of the conservation funds, said he doubts that the funds will see any additional money allocated as happened in years past, but should be able to maintain their regular appropriations.

In last year’s budget plan, more than $20 million in nonrecurring money was budgeted for the two funds each year. The ongoing budget stalemate between Gov. Roy Cooper and legislative leaders put that plan on hold and now any additional funds except those needed to cover administrative expenses and ongoing grants obligations are unlikely.

“At this point, I have no expectations that either of the trust funds will get their usual additional nonrecurring funds. I also don’t think we’ll need to strip them of any recurring funds,” McGrady, who opted to not seek another term, said earlier this week.

McGrady said he also doesn’t see any other major parks or natural resources money coming when the legislature returns in early September for a session to make necessary budget adjustments. That session, he said, is likely to be brief and narrowly focused.

“The adjournment resolution is very restrictive,” McGrady said. “Assuming the governor calls us back into session, I see that session as being pretty short in light of the need for candidates, some of which are incumbents, to get out on the campaign trail.”

Copublished with Carolina Public Press

RALEIGH — To say that North Carolina’s state budget is complicated right now is a Category 5 understatement.

But after a multiyear battle over state spending that’s included a mix of mini-budgets and hurricane and coronavirus relief measures, officials are preparing to put the 2020-21 fiscal year on the books, affording a much clearer picture of where the state stands for the uncertain year ahead.

With the state looking at major shortfalls in revenue, additional COVID-19 expenses and a pressing need for additional help for local governments, budget cuts and project delays across state government are inevitable.

The extent of those cuts will depend on the level of federal aid and the rules around it, but some have already started. In early June, departments were instructed to cut travel and training costs, keep unfilled positions open and hold off on raises, typical early steps that portend more to come.

Among the state agencies likely to take a hit in the belt-tightening to come is the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, whose budget has been entangled in disagreements over priorities between the state House and Senate and the executive branch for more than a decade as its dealt with a host of high-profile crises like coal ash, GenX in public drinking water supplies and hurricanes.

A budget deal between the House and Senate last year would have given the agency funds for a long-sought renovation of its main Reedy Creek laboratories in Raleigh as well as additional personnel for testing for emerging contaminants such as GenX.

But that deal along with the rest of the state budget was nixed in late June of last year after the bill was vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper and the legislature and the executive branch subsequently failed to reach an alternative agreement. On July 1 of last year, an automatic budget law kicked in, funding state agencies at the previous year’s level.

As the budget standoff dragged on, the legislature sent Cooper a series of mini-budgets to fund parts of state government along with hurricane relief bills following Hurricane Dorian.

Although there were some funds for DEQ in the bills to assist with storm expenses, the department has for the most part operated under the state’s 2018-19 budget and without further changes will do so into next summer.

DEQ officials declined last week to discuss the impacts of operating under the older spending plan or how programs and initiatives might be affected by potential cuts.

“We continue to monitor the situation but it’s too early to report anything or provide an outlook,” Sharon Martin, spokesperson for the department, said in an email response to Coastal Review Online. “As you know, DEQ is no stranger to limited funding, so we continue to achieve our mission with limited resources as we always have.”

‘It gets really complicated’

Robin Smith, an environmental lawyer and consultant who served during the Great Recession as assistant secretary for Environment at the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, DEQ’s predecessor, said the department is now faced with a far more difficult situation.

“I think this situation is worse than anything we saw previously. You’re already talking about a limited budget based on 2018-19, and now at some point the need for cuts in response to the pandemic and the loss of revenue is really going to hit,” Smith said last week.

Smith said when the budget numbers are finalized later this month there will be a clearer picture of the details, including things like permit fees, which are a major revenue source for the department.

Although DENR, which included the state park system, was larger in size and scope than DEQ, the process of winnowing the budget would likely be similar, Smith said. The added burden now, she said, is that it comes after years of meager funding.

“Inside the department what you would be looking at would be, where can we take that cut whatever it needs to be without doing any more damage than we need to?” she said. “At this point the real problem is that with the prior-year budget cut, they’re already operating on fumes and it becomes harder and harder when you have cut after to cut to do it without doing real harm.”

The different funding streams and federal grant requirements also make the process difficult. If the legislature or the governor calls for an across-the-board cut or a reduction in state appropriations, that will have different impacts across the department.

One example, Smith said, is that the budget for the state’s Air Quality Division is based entirely on fee revenue, so in that division there’s no appropriation to cut.

In addition, department programs for drinking water, water quality and air quality have to maintain funding and personnel levels because of required state matches for federal grants.

All that serves to concentrate the cuts within DEQ.

“Across-the-board cuts might sound like a good idea but are really not possible,” she said. “It gets really complicated. The bottom line is that it gets more and more difficult the more years you are taking cuts, because you are having to concentrate the next round of cuts in the same areas because those are the programs that have appropriated funds and can potentially take the cuts without putting a federal grant at risk. So, it’s not evenly distributed across the department and it’s not necessarily based on which program can afford to give up money, because it depends on which pot that money is in.”

Next steps

In the coming weeks, even though the legislature has not passed a formal budget bill as it usually does, the State Budget Office will certify the spending levels for the coming year.

Marcia Evans, communications specialist with the Office of State Budget and Management, said the goal is to be finished in the second week of August, but that this year is a little more challenging than usual.

“Given the multitude of bills involved in certification this year, it is significantly more complex certification process, and some agencies may take a bit longer than is typical to ensure all entries are accurate,” Evans said.

For now, what happens with the state budget is largely in the hands of the federal government and the next coronavirus relief bill. Negotiations over a new plan, which stalled this week, are continuing.

State Budget Director Charles Perusse said last month in an email response to Coastal Review Online that once the federal plan is in place, the administration will start work to have a comprehensive budget ready for when legislators return in early September.

For North Carolina, key aspects of any new plan directly influencing the state budget will be whether the plan includes additional flexibility over how funds in an earlier round of coronavirus relief can be spent and whether a new plan includes additional direct aid to state and local governments.

If a new federal package includes flexibility allowing the state to use the funds under the previous Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act to replace lost revenue, in what’s referred to as a “backfill” provision. Then the state can devote some of remaining $1.5 billion it has yet to spend to cover revenue shortfalls significantly easing the severity of state cuts.

Updated 9:30 a.m. Tuesday to include 24 bills Cooper signed into law 

Although the focus for the end of the short session was the ongoing fight between Gov. Roy Cooper and the legislative leadership over the state’s coronavirus response, several environmental and coastal provisions cleared the North Carolina General Assembly last week.

They include the final go-ahead for the Ocracoke-Hatteras passenger ferry, flood resiliency planning for eastern North Carolina and dredging, beach renourishment and shoreline funds, all bills that saw broad support.

The legislature adjourned last week without passing a new budget, despite the end of the state’s fiscal year Tuesday, instead passing smaller, targeted spending bills and relying on an automatic spending law until lawmakers return Sept. 3. Both spending and policy shifts were scattered in a series of omnibus bills hammered out at the end of the session.

One major shift in policy expands the use of the state Department of Environmental Quality Ecosystem Restoration Fund to include more projects designed to increase the amount of floodwater storage.

The provision sets up an inventory of natural and working lands that could become part of a new flood-control network. It creates additional incentives for private landowners to do stream restoration and wetlands enhancement to build flood stage capacity.

Speaking in support on the floor of the House June 25, Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said the idea is to use that additional capacity to take pressure off rivers and streams by temporarily flooding fields and natural lands to protect roads and buildings.

In a statement after the bill’s passage, Will McDow, resilient landscapes director with the Environmental Defense Fund, said natural solutions are often a faster, more cost-effective way to build capacity than levees or other hardened structures and could be helpful, particularly in cash-strapped communities hit by repeated flooding.

“This program expansion comes at a time when flood-prone communities across the state need increased assistance, especially those communities that have been marginalized and disadvantaged for too long,” McDow said.

The flood-control provision was tacked onto the end of legislation to address an increasing number of failing public wastewater systems.

The legislation, spurred by a special committee last year led by McGrady and Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabbarus, sets up a carrot-and-stick approach for dozens of failing water systems, many of which are located in eastern North Carolina.

Under the new law, the state would be able to assume management of failing systems and work with local governments to restructure and repair the systems. It would also facilitate mergers and consolidations along with creation of more regional water authorities. More than two dozen systems are on a state watch list. The state took over two failed wastewater systems in the past year and with the new law and additional funding in place, takeovers are likely to accelerate.

Also added at the end of the water system bill was $15 million from the state’s shallow draft dredging fund to the state Division of Water Resources as the state match for roughly $90 million in federal funds. Projects include Morehead City and Wilmington harbor work and beach and shoreline projects in Kure Beach, Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, Ocean Isle, Bogue Banks and Surf City, along with shoreline protection for North Topsail Beach.

Late-session rules push

Although much of the end-of-session legislation was stripped of more controversial sections, a few last-minute provisions did draw opposition, including proposed changes to oversight of executive branch rulemaking authority.

One provision gives more time for legislative challenges to new agency rules and another grants far broader authority over state policy making to administrative law judges.

That provision, stripped from a conference report after last-minute objections, would have given administrative law judges the power to “Determine that a policy, guideline, or other interpretive statement that a State agency has sought to implement or enforce is unenforceable,” if they determine it should have gone through a formal rulemaking process. The judge could then suspend the policy, order a refund of any fees collected and require the challenged agency to cover plaintiffs’ legal costs.

Derb Carter, director of the Chapel Hill office of the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the provision, which was pulled after objections from lawmakers, environmental organizations and the governor’s office, was an attempt to substantially expand the power of administrative law judges and give regulated industries another vehicle for slowing down or removing rules they don’t like.

“It raises another avenue to attack agency decisions,” he said. The legislature, he said, already has ample ability to undo those decisions. “At any time, if the legislature thinks that they ought to repeal or override a rule, they can just write a law.”

Another provision in the same bill rewrites the timeline whereby legislators can file bills to strike down specific agency rules. Under current law, just filing a bill stops a new rule from taking effect, a process that in recent years has been used to challenge or at least slow dozens of environmental rules. The new provision gives legislators more time by shifting the schedule for filing objections to an annual basis rather than only when the legislature is in session.

Carter said the change, an outgrowth of the legislature’s slow creep toward a year-round schedule, adds to the amount of legislative intrusion of an executive branch function.

“This is just an intrusion into what should be the authority of the governor to execute the laws in the interest of the people of the state,” he said. “The legislature is doing nothing but trying to impede this.”

The rule provision remained in the final version of the bill. Cooper has not announced whether he would sign the bill.

Cooper signs numerous bills

Cooper signed the following 24 bills into law:

• House Bill 1023: Coronavirus Relief Fund/ Additions & Revisions
• House Bill 1087: Water/ Wastewater Public Enterprise Reform
• Senate Bill 681: Agency Policy Directives/ 2019-2020
• Senate Bill 212: Capital Appropriations/ R&R/ Cybersec
• House Bill 1163: Guilford Funds/Cabarrus Land/Brunswick Shellfish
• Senate Bill 816: Community College Funds/Cooperative Innovative HS Funds/Coronavirus Relief Funds
• House Bill 32: Collaborative Law
• Senate Bill 733: UNC Capital Projects
• Senate Bill 817: Funds for UNC Enrollment Growth/ FY 2020-21
• House Bill 885: Only Allow Courts to Charge FTA Fee Once
• House Bill 1072: GSC Technical Corrections 2020
• House Bill 1064: GSC Clarifying Bingo License Statute
• House Bill 694: Designate Legacy Airports
• Senate Bill 739: Personal Delivery Device/PDD/Delivery Robots
• Senate Bill 208: COVID-19 Immunity/IHEs 
• Senate Bill 217: UI/Precinct Workers/2020 General Election
• House Bill 308: Regulatory Reform Act of 2020
• Senate Bill 364: NC Commercial Receivership Act Revisions 
• Senate Bill 813: UNC Building Reserve/ Certain Project/ FY 20-21
• Senate Bill 488: DMV/ MV Changes
• Senate Bill 361: Healthy NC
• House Bill 593: JCPC/ Detention/ CAA and Other Fees  
• House Bill 471: Exempt Direct Primary Care from DOI Regs
• Senate Bill 782: Merchandise Sales Limit/ Meck Dist Ct

RALEIGH — Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, and about three dozen cosponsors, have introduced a series of bills intended to demonstrate the range of steps the state could take in regulating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Harrison acknowledged Tuesday that none are likely to pass in their current form, but she was disappointed that after years of work the legislature has been unable to move on further PFAS regulation.

“It’s frustrating to know that our citizens are getting poisoned all across the state,” she said. “Known carcinogens, known neurotoxicants, and we don’t do anything about it. It’s extraordinarily frustrating to me.”

Last year, Harrison worked with industry representatives to try and find some middle ground, but an attempt to regulate firefighting foam containing PFAS stalled over industry objections. Further PFAS studies and additional PFAS funding for the state Department of Environmental Quality got tangled up in the battle over the state budget and never emerged in any of the mini-budgets approved during the impasse.

Now, funds will be even tighter, Harrison said, adding that big policy moves aren’t likely, considering the need to focus on the state’s COVID-19 response. But by putting the options and strategies out in bill form, Harrison said she hoped to lay the groundwork for when the legislature does start working on a strategy.

Grady McCallie, policy director for the North Carolina Conservation Network, said the three bills offer a “comprehensive statement” of the complexity of setting up a regulatory system for PFAS.

“This suite of bills basically says, ‘This is a complicated problem and we have to push it in several different directions,’” McCallie said. “It’s not just one strategy.”

It also broadens the discussion beyond reaction to the GenX contamination in the lower Cape Fear River.

DEQ has done a good job dealing with Chemours and reducing GenX discharges from its Fayetteville Works facility, McCallie said. What’s lacking, he said, is the recognition that there are many more PFAS substances and sources to deal with.

“What North Carolina has not done yet is deal with the broader problem of other dischargers upstream who are putting in a variety of contaminating chemicals that are also toxic,” he said.

What the bills do

The three bills offer three approaches to PFAS regulation.

House Bill 1109 is essentially an outright comprehensive ban on the manufacture and use of PFAS in the state. It would ban the manufacture of PFAS compounds or the production of any product using them except as authorized under federal law. Violations could result in civil penalties.

Harrison said she didn’t expect it to become law, but she wanted to put the industry on notice that there needs to be an active hunt for alternatives to PFAS.

House Bill 1108, PFAS Containment Mitigation Measures, requires the state’s Environmental Management Commission to begin to set standards for PFAS compounds and DEQ to develop a framework for regulation and enforcement of PFAS in discharges, runoff from biosolids and landfill leachate.

Harrison said the bill underlines DEQ’s authority to regulate discharge of PFAS under the Clean Water Act and requires industrial customers of wastewater treatment permit holders to disclose their presence and remove them from the waste stream. It would hold both the permit holders, often municipal- or county-owned sewage treatment operators, ultimately liable for PFAS discharges into state waters.

The argument that the state already has the authority under federal law mirrors a filing last year by the Southern Environmental Law Center that the Haw River Assembly intends to sue Burlington for Clean Water Act violations over PFAS and other industrial waste discharges into the Haw River from the city’s wastewater treatment plants and biosolids application sites. City officials said earlier this year they were working with industrial customers to identify and eliminate sources.

The third bill in the trilogy, House Bill 1110, would allocate about $600,000 for a series of studies, including ecological assessments of the Cape Fear River Basin and financial and budget impacts of PFAS across state government. It also requires DEQ to create an inventory of all ongoing direct and indirect PFAS discharges and emissions in the state.

Harrison said that continuing research is vital and that she wanted to see the legislature’s Environmental Review Commission take up the work started by the House Select Committee on River Quality, which was set up in 2017 after revelations about GenX contamination of the Cape Fear River.

This year’s debate will hopefully lay the groundwork for further PFAS regulation next year, she said. It’s important to remember that concerns about the health risks of their presence in the environment goes beyond what’s in the Cape Fear River.

“They’re found all over the state and all over the country,” Harrison said. “The health risks are significant and if it weren’t for this pandemic, I would say they’re the biggest public health risk facing our state.”

PFAS filters for New Hanover County schools

Under another new bill, New Hanover County schools would get state funding to install reverse osmosis water filters in schools that use water drawn from the Cape Fear River.

Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, filed Senate Bill 749 Monday. The bill would move $600,000 in unspent Department of Public Instruction funds from this year to New Hanover County Schools for reverse osmosis water filtration systems.

The bill would allow the school system to decide how many would go in each school, but it would limit the total number the state will pay for in any one school to 10.

The New Hanover County school system is working on a plan to install at least one filtration system per school, and a pilot project is underway in Brunswick County to tests systems for schools there.

Co-published with Carolina Public Press

The legislature resumes its 2020 short session next week with plans to take up another round of coronavirus response measures, but the path forward for its usual even-year work in Raleigh, adjusting the state budget, is unusually unclear.

Driving the uncertainty is not just a question of the course of COVID-19 in the state and nation and its impact on the economy. For the people trying to come up with a state budget also heavily weighted in the equation is how the next round of federal relief plays out.

Now, with the U.S. House set to vote on its latest proposal Friday, there is at least movement toward further federal legislation. But that plan is far different than what leaders in the U.S. Senate have proposed, leaving state and local officials facing end-of-fiscal-year deadlines on June 30 to press ahead with major parts of the budget still an unknown.

In an interview earlier this week 4^th District Congressman David Price, who chairs the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee, said the next round of legislation will be more difficult than the last.

“Each one gets more controversial given our politics,” he said. “I don’t think there will be any more just shouted through.”

Price said top priorities are more funding for states and local communities and an adjustment to the earlier federal coronavirus relief act to give states more flexibility on spending the money, including backfilling revenue holes in state finances.

Last month, the North Carolina General Assembly set aside $300 million of federal relief funds for Department of Transportation projects in its coronavirus relief bill. The funds are intended to offset a steep decline in gas taxes, but the state can’t spend the money unless Congress changes the provisions known as backfilling rules.

“That is major unfinished business,” Price said.

Also at the top of the list, he said, is further direct aid to local governments that reaches smaller cities and towns.

“Both things need to happen,” he said.

Whether they do or not and to what extent depends on cutting a deal with senators who have so far been skeptical about a bigger state aid package.

Uncharted territory, again

At this point in most even-year legislative sessions, budget committees in both chambers would be holding regular meetings and receiving briefings from departments and agencies. By now, the governor would have already delivered his annual ask and lobbyists and legislative liaisons would be stalking the halls, gathering votes.

But this is far from an ordinary year on Jones Street. Although leadership staff and some members are in their Raleigh offices, the halls are mostly empty. There are no school kids, no big constituent meetups and no groups holding annual lobby days. The building has been closed to the public since April 20 and anyone entering, including staff and legislators, has had to have their temperature checked first.

House and Senate leaders announced Wednesday that next week the legislature would be open to visitors and lobbyists, but under tight restrictions and a 50% reduction in capacity.

This year follows an often confusing 2019 session that featured fights over the budget and a half-year stalemate over Medicaid expansion. Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the House and Senate plan passed in late June still stands, and much of state government is funded through an automatic continuation budget law put in place after a similar standoff with Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in 2015.

Throughout the impasse, Cooper and the legislature found enough common ground on funding parts of the government to pass several “mini-budgets,” as well as relief bills following Hurricane Dorian in September 2019. The legislature ended the 2019 long session in 2020, the first time it’s run that long. It adjourned after reconvening Jan. 14 for one day without a deal, an override vote or much hope things would change. Before leaving the chamber that day, a clearly frustrated Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said that given the standoff and the lack of progress he didn’t see the point of trying to draw up a budget in 2020.

Six weeks later, North Carolina announced its first confirmed case of COVID-19 and everything began to change.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, one of the chief budget writers for the House, said he expects COVID-19 to influence nearly everything about this year’s work.

When asked in an email if anything this year will resemble a normal short session, he responded: “Not much about the session is likely to be ‘normal.’ First, we’ll still be dealing with COVID-19-related issues, including the appropriation of additional federal monies. It is likely that state funding will be necessary to fill some holes too. Second, we don’t have a complete budget for next year. The House is committed to moving a budget for FY2020-21, but the Senate has not committed to passing a budget.”

On top of that, he said, it’s an election year and there will pressure to keep the session brief.

The budget challenges, McGrady said, include not just the uncertainty of the fiscal effects of the pandemic, but things like shifting the tax filing date from April 15 to July 15, two weeks after the state starts its new fiscal year.

Estimates of the hole blown in the state budget range between $4 and $6 billion.

“I’m not sure how to fill the hole until I know how big the hole is,” McGrady said. A tax increase, he added, is not an option given the unemployment rate.

Across the rotunda, Senate leaders are now exploring a budget plan for this year. A lot has changed since Berger expressed his reluctance over another prolonged standoff with the governor in January. He said so plainly when the session opened in late April by announcing that the Senate would no longer seek to overturn Cooper’s veto of the biennial budget.

“Our state’s financial outlook is in a vastly different place than it was before this pandemic hit,” Berger said in a statement.

This week, Berger’s spokesman Pat Ryan said senators want to see a budget this year and are currently in talks with their House counterparts on how to approach it. The reason for the change is evident, he said. “We’re in a completely different world now.”

He did not say whether a plan would come in the form of one omnibus bill or a piecemeal approach like last year. Right now, he said, the decisions in Washington, D.C., on a new round of state aid and whether the state will be able to use parts of its initial $4 billion in funding to fill revenue gaps loom large.

Cooper administration spokeswoman Sadie Weiner said the governor is working on a budget request for this year, but he has not set a time for an announcement.

State budget officials have been compiling an analysis of the impacts throughout state government from loss of revenues to falling receipts and fees.

Estimates provided by the Office of State Management and Budget show the impact on receipts at the state aquariums estimated at $4.4 million and another $4.4 million for the state parks. The North Carolina Zoo impact is at $4.8 million and the State Ports Authority’s losses are estimated at $6.5 million.

Although the budget impasse may now be moot, the decisions last year still reverberate.

McGrady said there are parts of the budget that the governor and legislators couldn’t reach agreement on from last year, including large sections of the Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources section of the budget, which includes funding for both the Department of Environmental Quality and the state’s two major conservation trust funds, which McGrady, now in his final term, has helped to rebuild since their funding was slashed in the first year of McCrory’s term.

The budget hole caused by COVID-19 is likely to sweep up extra money for the trust funds he hoped to pass as well other environmental initiatives. It’s also likely to make it harder to pass other initiatives like redistricting reforms he and other proponents had hoped to push this year, he said.

“The best thing for those who care about protecting the environment might be getting nonpartisan redistricting,” he said, “but that too may fail to be taken up because all the oxygen has been sucked out of public policy debates by the pandemic.”

RALEIGH — Although COVID-19 response is expected to continue to dominate the agenda of this year’s North Carolina General Assembly session, legislators are pressing ahead with changes developed well before the pandemic took hold.

Over the past year, the legislature’s Program Evaluation Division has proposed changes to the makeup of state ports, the structure of the Division of Marine Fisheries and a more businesslike approach for the Department of Environmental Quality’s permitting reforms.

Bills filed in the early days of this year’s session follow through on those recommendations and are among the first slate of bills filed in this year’s short session.

This year’s bill deadlines are fast approaching. Legislators have until Wednesday to file bills recommended by study commissions. Budget bills and bills affecting state or local retirement systems are due by Thursday and all local bills must be filed by May 19.

Ports bill focuses on Morehead City

Senate Bill 707, State Ports Efficiency & Effectiveness, would require measures to address port utilization, throughput, gate times and ship-turnaround times at the Morehead City port and assess the service quality at both the North Carolina Ports of Wilmington and Morehead City in the State Ports Authority’s strategic plan.

The bill eliminates a legal requirement that the state provide cranes and container service at both ports, and gives the authority the discretion to decide on whether to add container service at Morehead City.

It also requires annual updates be provided to the General Assembly on environmental management plans at the ports.

Last year, a Program Evaluation Division study gave the authority good marks for general effectiveness and efficiency but citied declining performance at Morehead City. It also found that the authority does not have an adequate system to assess its customer service.

DEQ business plan

Also part of the package of changes proposed by the program evaluation committee is a requirement that the state Department of Environmental Quality adopt a business plan and “return on investment” analysis for its initiatives to reduce permitting backlogs and speed up turnaround times.

The bill would require DEQ to create formal benchmarks and performance assessments, and a data management system for its Permitting Transformation Project to assess the effectiveness and performance of the system.

The legislation also requires DEQ to review a Program Evaluation Division, or PED, study last year that found too many layers in the organizational structure for five of the department’s offices and divisions including Marine Fisheries, Mitigations Services and the Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs. The new legislation would require the department to review the study and report whether potential streamlining efforts and other proposed changes are feasible.

Both the structure report and the permitting program change proposals are due February 2021, near the beginning of next year’s regular session.

Another bill filed this month would change the local match requirements for Parks and Recreation Trust Fund projects, a requirement currently set at a dollar-for-dollar match.

The new system would lower the local government match for land acquisition and park or recreation site improvements, allow for local, in-kind donations to count as part of a match and reduce the match percentage for counties with greater economic distress.

Emergency relief for fishermen

The legislature is still studying how to put together its next round of COVID-19 funding, but legislators are already putting down markers for what they’d like to see in the next relief package.

Rep. Billy Richardson, D-Cumberland, who wanted to introduce help for fishing operations in the first relief package, has put his proposal to help the state’s fishing businesses into standalone legislation. It sets up a $10 million grant fund to be administered by the Division of Marine Fisheries.

The money would be made available to commercial and for-hire fishing operations. Each for-hire or commercial fishing license holder would be eligible for a one-time, $2,500 grant.

Bonds are back

Meanwhile, county and municipal officials charged with putting together funding for beach renourishment and parks are breathing a collective sigh of relief now that the state’s special obligation bond authority is back on the books.

Last year, legislators inadvertently repealed the statute that authorized municipalities to use the bonds for parks, beach renourishment, downtown improvements and other public infrastructure projects. The repeal was discovered this spring when Wilmington officials were informed that they couldn’t use the bonds for a downtown improvement project because the authority was no longer part of state law.

The repeal could have also affected the timing of bids for a handful of beach renourishment projects in Dare County and elsewhere that intended to issue bonds to finance the work.

The provision reinstating the special obligation bond authority was considered a high enough priority that it was added into the pandemic relief package passed last week.

Copublished with Carolina Public Press

The North Carolina General Assembly returns this week with a focus on pressing needs like protective supplies for medical workers and more aid to deal with coronavirus testing and infections, but also with an eye on the future amid a rapidly heating debate over when and how to phase out business shutdowns and stay-at-home requirements.

Last week, Gov. Roy Cooper announced an extension of his main stay-at-home requirement until May 8, along with what he called a “roadmap” on easing restrictions later in May and June, should certain health goals be met.

“North Carolina cannot stay at home indefinitely,” Cooper said at a Thursday press briefing, but he said any decision to ease restrictions would have to be based on sound science. On Friday, he also announced that schools would remain closed for the remainder of the school year.

“North Carolina cannot stay at home indefinitely.”

Gov. Roy Cooper

At the same briefing, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen said the state appears to be flattening the curve in terms of slowing the increase in cases, but that the current restrictions are still needed. She outlined a testing, tracing and trends plan to more than double the amount of testing each day and the number of people doing contract tracing. The trends the state will track focus on cases and hospitalizations and capacity of the state’s health care providers, including protective gear, to stay ahead of the curve, she said.

Thanks to the response to closures and social distancing efforts “North Carolina is in a very good place,” Cohen said. “We have flattened the curve, but we’re not there yet.”

“We’re staring down a multi-billion-dollar revenue shortfall, which negatively impacts our ability to fund the vetoed budget.”

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger

The governor’s announcement sets the stage for a session that is likely to feature strong approval for relief bills along with a substantial airing of disagreements with the administration over when to and what should reopen.

What it won’t feature is a replay of tensions from last year over Cooper’s budget veto, an area of vehement disagreement between the governor and legislative leaders.

On Friday, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, announced the session would focus on the relief legislation and that the long-running battle over the budget had been effectively ended by the pandemic.

“Our state’s financial outlook is in a vastly different place than it was before this pandemic hit. Because of that, we will not be reconsidering the veto of the state budget this year,” Berger said. “We’re staring down a multi-billion-dollar revenue shortfall, which negatively impacts our ability to fund the vetoed budget.”

Tourism questions raised

While the governor has received mostly broad support on his handling of the crisis from legislators, going into this week’s session some who represent areas of the state dependent on tourism said they’re worried that the administration is being overly cautious and should be willing to loosen restrictions in areas where infection rates are low.

In a Monday morning teleconference on the upcoming session sponsored by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, called on the governor to give some areas flexibility in opening back up.

“I’d really like to see the governor give consideration to opening up those who have very few positives.”

Rep. Pat McElraft

McElraft said she understands keeping restrictions in place in areas where there are a lot of positive tests like Mecklenburg, Wake and Guilford counties, but she would like to see some leeway in making decisions to open back up for counties with fewer cases.

“I’d really like to see the governor give consideration to opening up those who have very few positives,” she said.

On the other end of the state, Sen. Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, said reopening bars and restaurants is a critical part of serving the tourist trade. Downtowns in his district are “ghost towns,” he said, and many businesses won’t survive a prolonged shutdown.

Edwards said the governor’s plan is too vague and that businesses need greater certainty about when they could reopen.

“It’s unfortunate to say that they’re going to be businesses that are not going to make it, but let’s be real. This is a devastating crisis and some folks are not going to survive.”

Slate of bills being readied

An array of bills developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic will be read in Tuesday morning and fast-tracked to passage as early as Wednesday.

The legislature already scheduled a return to Raleigh this week for the even-year short session, which is typically set up to make second-year adjustments in the state’s biennial budget cycle. This year, however, is far from typical and the legislature is likely to deal with only a handful of bills before adjourning again to a date later in the summer.

During the brief session, the legislative complex will be closed to the public. Only staff, legislators and credentialed media will be allowed in and everyone will have their temperature checked at the door. The legislature will also have a video livestream available for most committee meetings and the House floor sessions.

Instead of the usual hearings ahead of the short session, a House Select Committee on COVID-19 held two months of meetings via teleconference to develop legislation in the areas of health care, education, economic support and state government operations. Working groups in the four subject areas have developed legislation to deal with policy changes as well as technical changes and workarounds to requirements in state law.

The legislature is also working on an overall spending plan to deal with the impact to both the public and private sector. Part of that plan is how to direct an estimated $2.2 billion in aid sent to the state in the initial federal response. Other sources will be $1.8 billion in the state’s rainy day fund and about $2 billion unspent from last year’s budget.

Cooper released his spending request last week, asking for about $1.4 billion in appropriations

Among the items on the governor’s list are $243 million for school equipment and to get ready for the next school year; $300 million for local governments; and $40 million to cover lost revenue at state cultural sites and aquariums and to cover positions at the Department of Environmental Quality that are paid for with regulatory fees.

The state budget office expects fee collections to slow down considerably until the economy recovers.

It will be one of the many budget sinkholes state and local governments will have to deal with going forward, everything from plunging gas taxes, which fund state transportation projects, to occupancy and meals taxes that pay for local parks, stadiums and beaches.

Further complicating the revenue picture is federal tax extension, which automatically moved the state’s April 15 tax deadline to July 15. The result shifts as much as $2 billion in revenue into the next year fiscal year. Among the policy changes Cooper is requesting the authority to use the rainy day fund for short term funds for cash-strapped parts of state government.

Coastal officials said a legislative error last year eliminated a key funding mechanism for beach renourishment and other public projects, which if not fixed could have a big impact on future plans.

Last June, in a unanimous vote in both chambers, the North Carolina General Assembly passed Senate Bill 381, Reconstitute and Clarify Boards and Commissions, a rewrite of laws for a handful of state boards and commissions affected by a successful executive branch legal challenge to having boards with a majority of legislative appointments.

Tucked into the 14-page bill was a one-sentence repeal of Chapter 159I of the state’s general statutes. The repeal eliminated as intended an obsolete board that was in part of the chapter law, but it also deleted authorization for municipalities to use special obligation bonds to finance projects in several categories, including beach renourishment, landfills, transportation, water and wastewater projects, and downtown improvements.

Recent plans by Wilmington officials to use $36 million in special obligation bonds to finance a downtown parking deck had to be rewritten after the city was told the authorization to issue the bonds had been removed from state law.

Farther north in Dare County, where special obligation bonds have been used to finance beach renourishment projects, word of the repeal began to spread late last month.

Nags Head Town Manager Cliff Ogburn said he first heard about the repeal two weeks ago.

“From what we understand this was an error, that it wasn’t the intent and it’ll be fixed,” Ogburn said. “It’s just a matter of when it will be fixed.”

Ogburn said it appeared that the repeal doesn’t affect current bonds, so Nags Head is fine for now. The town has two special obligation bonds totaling $27,613,837 for its current beach project, which started last year. Other nearby towns that have yet to put their projects out to bid may not be so lucky, he said.

Duck Town Manager Chris Layton said he’s also heard that legislature plans to fix the repeal error, so he’s hopeful it shouldn’t affect the financing for a beach project planned for 2022.

“If for some reason it doesn’t go back into place, we’re confident that we can still manage to finance the project with other sources,” he said. “It’s just that special obligation bonds are well-suited for this type of project,” he said.

The bonds are an easier process than other public financing, he said, and don’t require a special referendum. The town used a roughly $3 million special obligation bond to finance its last beach project.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said the special obligation bonds are a key part of how the county and towns work together on local beach projects.

“For our beach nourishment projects, the way we leverage our money is we use the special obligation bonds to do really short-term borrowing, four or five years for the life of a project, so that we don’t have to have all the money saved up in one go. We can stretch it out over about five years, the usual life of a project,” he said. “So, it allows us to leverage our beach nourishment fund and get more sand on our beaches.”

If there’s a $20 million project, he said, it gets paid off over five years at $4 million a year rather than having to write a $20 million check upfront. “That way if we had $20 million in cash, we could do five projects at the same time.”

Another lending source wouldn’t allow that kind of leveraging, Outten said, and some would require collateral that most small towns don’t have.

Outten said he also expected the legislature to reinstate the bond authority. He hopes that happens soon.

The projects in Duck and elsewhere will need to go out to bid. “You have to have your funding source in place in order to bid the projects,” Outten said. “That’s coming, and whether we bid them in the fall or the spring depends on how quickly the legislature acts.”

At least one sponsor of last year’s bill said he will work on a fix when the legislature returns at the end of the month for its short session.

“The repeal of special obligation bonds was not my intent in sponsoring S381 last year,” Mike Woodard, D-Durham, wrote in an email to Coastal Review Online. “I will work with our local governments to fix this situation when the short session begins.”

A legislative staff reply to Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, who asked about the change, also said the change appeared to have been “inadvertent and unintended,” according to an email from McGrady.

Scott Mooneyham, director of political communications and coordination for the North Carolina League of Municipalities, said a fix should happen soon.

“Given that the repeal appears inadvertent, we would hope that the General Assembly restores the authority as soon as possible,” he said. “This financing is critical when it comes to large capital projects like beach renourishment and solid waste facilities.”

Government response to the impacts of COVID-19 moved forward Wednesday with a federal disaster declaration and the approval by the U.S. Senate of a $2 trillion aid package, while state legislators gathered via teleconference to open hearings on the size and scope of a state response.

The federal aid package, which includes money for businesses and individuals, passed the Senate late Wednesday evening after days of negotiations. It follows on two prior responses to health care needs as well as job losses and business closures driven by social distancing controls put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The House is expected to approve the measure Friday.

Also late Wednesday, President Trump approved  a major disaster declaration for North Carolina, setting up for federal disaster funding for all areas affected by COVID-19 at a federal cost share of 75%.

Earlier in the day in Raleigh, members of the Economic Support Working Group of the House Select Committee on COVID-19 opened hearings on legislation that will be needed to mesh state law with new federal changes in tax law, small business loans and the state’s unemployment system.

Lockhart Taylor, assistant secretary of the Division of Employment Security, told legislators that the wave of unemployment filing is hard to put in perspective.

Taylor said that as of 8 a.m. Tuesday, the state had received 166,000 unemployment applications over the past week, with the number of those citing COVID-19 as the cause at running at between 85% and 90%.

To put that in perspective, he said that in 2008 at the height of the impact of the Great Recession, the state was taking in about 100,000 applications per month.

At the opening of the meeting, which took place as the state announced its first COVID-19 deaths, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said the fact that the legislature had to find a digital workaround to conduct business was a sobering reminder of the impact of the virus.

Moore said he named both Republican and Democrats as co-chairs to committees emphasize the need to come together on solutions.

“There are times that situations like this remind us that we are first of all Americans and North Carolinians and at those times we need to put aside what differences we have on other things and focus on what we need to do to help the folks that sent us here,” Moore said.

Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and minority leader Dan Blue, R-Wake, put out a joint statement Wednesday that echoed the same theme and said senators are being asked to gather requests and comments from their districts ahead of discussions with the House and Gov. Roy Cooper on a path forward.

In this unprecedented time, the #NCGA is working to collect ideas from all corners of the state so we can recover from this crisis. For now, we are stronger apart than we are together. #ncpol #COVID19 #InThisTogetherhttps://t.co/k1sDYYQc00

— Senator Phil Berger (@SenatorBerger) March 25, 2020

Coastal concerns

Coastal legislators on the working group said they’d like to see assistance for travel and tourism and commercial fishing businesses.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said federal legislation such as forgivable small business loans and disaster unemployment benefits for self-employed people will be helpful. Additional state support could also follow, she said.

“It’s early but I’m hopeful,” she said Wednesday. “The federal dollars can be supplemented with state dollars.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Rep. Phil Shepard, R-Onslow, said he wants to make sure fishing operations can qualify for Small Business Administration help and tap into a new $15 million rapid recovery loan program announced this week by the state’s Golden LEAF Foundation.

In an interview Wednesday, Steve Murphey, director of the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries said that right now it’s difficult to fully assess the effect on the industry.

“Time will tell what the overall impact is, but we really don’t have a good bead on it right now,” he said. “What we’re seeing across the coast, not just in North Carolina, is that some of the bigger markets quit buying.”

Some major markets are starting to buy again and frozen seafood products appear to be moving again, he said, but much of the North Carolina market relies on sales to restaurants, which are now operating as take-out only, as well as many nearby states.

“A lot of North Carolina seafood sales are fresh sales, so those fresh markets with the closures of restaurants have been reduced,” he said.

Murphey said he expects some support for the industry will come from federal and state sources, but how much and how that will work are unclear right now.

After Hurricane Florence, the state set up a special program to assist commercial fishing operations, using trip tickets to log the amount of losses.

Meanwhile, like other state agencies, DMF is adapting. Murphey said much of the division’s workforce is teleworking from home and the offices are staffed with skeleton crews and closed to the public. License sales are still going on but are done by appointment only.

On Monday, DMF announced the cancellation of three public hearings on proposed shellfish leases scheduled for April in Pender and Carteret counties. Most of its other meetings are moving online or through conference calls.

“We’re continuing business as usual the best that we can in the situation that we have,” Murphey said.

In addition to immediate fixes, the Economic Support Working Group along with three other working groups in education, health care and continuity of state operations. The working groups are meeting online and audio is available on the North Carolina General Assembly website.

The committee’s main page has presentations, documents and proposed legislation.

And a public comment portal, which already has 30 pages of comments logged, has been set up.

Legislative leaders suspended previously scheduled meetings earlier this month. The General Assembly is due to return April 24 for its short session, but could be called into session earlier.

Although North Carolina joined dozens of other states mid-March in closing schools and restricting public gatherings, the state has not issued blanket stay-at-home orders. In an update Wednesday afternoon, Cooper said he expects to issue further restrictions and recommendations, but he did not say when. Both the city of Durham and Wake County issued stay-at-home orders Wednesday.

Coastal legislators in both parties survived primary challenges in a Super Tuesday dominated by headlines at the top of the ticket.

Unofficial results from the State Board of Elections show incumbent Reps. George Cleveland, R-Onslow, Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, Howard Hunter III, D-Hertford, and Phil Shepard, R-Onslow, all survived primary challenges by wide margins.

In legislative races for open seats, former Craven County commissioner Steve Tyson won the Republican primary for state House District 3 in Craven County, taking 52.57% of the vote in a four-way race to replace Rep. Michael Speciale.

Taking 82% of the vote, Marcia Morgan, who lost a close race in the 2018 general election against Davis, won the Democratic primary for the new House District 19 that includes parts of New Hanover and Brunswick counties. She’ll face Republican Charlie Miller, a member of the Brunswick County Board of Education, who won 62.4% of the vote.

Jacksonville City Council member Michael Lazzara won the Republican primary with 63% of the vote to replace eight-term Sen. Harry Brown in Senate District 6, which includes Jones and Onslow counties. He’ll face Ike Johnson, chair of the Onslow County Democratic Party, in the fall.

In other state races, both Gov. Roy Cooper and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest won their primaries by wide margins and will face off in the fall race for governor.

Forest’s replacement will be decided in a matchup between Republican Mark Robinson and Democrat Yvonne Holley.

National Races

The vote count Tuesday night yielded decisive victories in the presidential race with Donald Trump, who faced nominal opposition, taking 93.5% of the Republican vote and former Vice-President Joe Biden winning roughly 43% of the Democratic votes.

Biden’s closest challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., won 24% of the vote in a race that saw a jump in turnout compared to the 2016 primary. The two will divide up the state’s 110 delegates. No other Democrat reached 15%, the threshold required to win a share of the delegates.

Biden won decisively in all 20 coastal counties and the rest of the state, taking all but four western counties. Sanders strongest showing was in New Hanover County where he picked up 27% of the vote.

Former mayor of New York Mike Bloomberg, who dropped out of the race Wednesday after a dismal Super Tuesday showing, came in second in Brunswick, Craven, Pamlico and Tyrell counties but only topped 20% of the vote in Brunswick.

In other national races, three-term incumbent state Sen. Erica Smith, D-Northampton, who represents Beaufort, Bertie and four other northeastern counties, lost her bid for the U.S. Senate to Cal Cunningham who took 57% of the vote to Smith’s 34.75%. Cunningham will face incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who walked away with 78% of the vote.

Smith was one of two legislators who opted to run statewide rather than seek reelection. State Rep. Holly Grange, R-New Hanover, lost her bid in the primary for governor to Forest. Her district was among those redrawn by the legislature last year after a successful court challenge in state court over partisan gerrymandering.

In the Democratic primary for the sprawling 7th District, which stretches from Brunswick and New Hanover counties to just south of Raleigh, Christopher Ward of Tabor City won with 46.37%. He will face three-term Republican David Rouzer of Wilmington, who did not face a challenge in the primary.

The district, redrawn last year after a court challenge over partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, covers Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties on the coast along with five inland counties.

There was no primary opposition for the 3rd Congressional District, which covers the rest of coastal North Carolina. Incumbent Greg Murphy, R-Pitt, who won a special election last year after the death Rep. Walter Jones Jr., will be facing Democrat Daryl Farrow of Trenton.

Rematches in state Senate races in districts along the Cape Fear River and key departures from the North Carolina General Assembly have set the stage for the 2020 elections now that candidate filing has closed.

North Carolina’s primaries are synced with Super Tuesday in presidential election cycles, so the 2020 primary falls on March 3. Absentee ballots can be requested as early as Jan. 13 and in-person early voting starts Feb. 13.

This year continues the competitiveness seen in 2018, when all 120 state House seats and 50 state Senate seats were contested. This year, only one House race is uncontested.

Some of the state’s House and Senate districts that represent all or part of the state’s 20 coastal counties were redrawn this year after a successful lawsuit struck down most of the state’s legislative districts as the result of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.

It was part of a wave of changes for the delegation, including the retirement of Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, who announced he would not run in 2020. Brown, one of the chief Senate budget writers, is a key conduit for coastal funding and succeeded in creating two permanent state trust funds, one for inlet dredging and another for coastal storm damage mitigation.

At the same time, he often squared off against environmental groups, most famously for his attempt to halt wind energy projects, which he said would harm North Carolina’s odds at keeping its military bases because of potential flight path conflicts.

Brown’s departure creates an open seat in the central coastal region.

Brown’s will not be the only open Senate seat in a coastal district. Incumbent Sen. Erica Smith, D-Hertford, whose district includes Beaufort and Washington counties, has opted to run for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.

Rematches

The 2020 races also include a rematch in two of 2018’s closest Senate races, both in districts that include the Cape Fear River, and driven by concerns about Gen X and other emerging contaminants.

Squaring off in Senate District 9 are incumbent Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, and former GOP Sen. Michael Lee, who lost in 2018 to Peterson by 231 votes out of roughly 87,000 cast. Neither has a primary opponent.

Upriver in Cumberland County, former GOP Sen. Wesley Meredith has filed for a rematch in District 19 against incumbent Democrat Kirk DeViere, who won by 433 votes in a race with 60,000 votes cast.

In another potentially close race for District 1, GOP incumbent Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, faces Dare County Democrat Tess Judge, who lost a state House bid against Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, in 2018.

Not running

On the House side, Rep. Holly Grange, R-New Hanover, made official her previously announced run for governor. She faces Lt. Gov. Dan Forest in the primary. Grange first indicated earlier this year that she would run for governor. During the court-ordered redrawing of districts around Wilmington, Grange and incumbent Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, were put in the same House district.

Also not running this year is four-term incumbent Michael Speciale, R-Craven. Four Republicans and a Democrat are vying for the chance to replace him.

Numerous House challenges

Unlike the Senate, where the only primary is in the Libertarian race for the southernmost district, state House races in March will include numerous challenges to incumbents.

Davis faces businessman Justin LaNasa, who owns a tattoo parlor and the Museum of the Bizarre in downtown Wilmington.

Hanig, of Currituck County, faces fellow Republican Rob Rollason of Kill Devil Hills in House District 6.

Rep. George Cleveland, R-Onslow, faces former Jacksonville-Onslow Chamber of Chairman Cindy Edwards.

Phil Shephard, R-Onslow, faces Mark Price of Jacksonville.

Incumbent Rep. Howard Hunter, D-Hertford, is also facing a primary challenge for District 5 from Keith Rivers of Elizabeth City.

Primaries will also decide the candidates in both parties for the new House District 21, which stretches along the coast and parts of inland Brunswick County from the southern end of Masonboro Island to Holden Beach.

Marsha Morgan of Carolina Beach faces James Dawkins Jr. of Southport in the Democratic primary, and in the Republican primary, David Perry of Wilmington faces Charlie Miller of Southport.

Congressional changes

The western edges of the state’s two congressional districts that represent the coast shifted this year as well, when the legislature redrew congressional districts at the urging of the court after a challenge on similar grounds to the legislative district.

The consensus analysis for the new maps yield a two-seat pick up for Democrats from the current 10-3 GOP majority to an 8-5 split. The legislature elected next year will be tasked with drawing new maps again after the 2020 census for use in the 2020 election cycle.

The major change for coastal congressional districts this election cycle is the shift of most of Greenville from the 3^rd District to the 1^st District.

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-Pitt, who won a special election earlier this year to replace the late Rep. Walter Jones, Jr., filed for reelection in the 3^rd District. He will not face primary opposition.

Democratic candidate Daryl Farrow of Trenton, also will not face opposition in the primary.

Incumbent 7^th District Rep. David Rouzer, R-New Hanover, also will not face opposition in his bid for reelection. His opponent in the fall will be the winner of a three-way Democratic Party primary between Mark Judson of Apex, Christopher Ward of Tarrboro and Robert Colon of Wilmington.

RALEIGH — As legislators departed last month there was a finality, at least in rhetoric, when it came to the lengthy budget standoff between the legislative and executive branches.

With Gov. Roy Cooper’s late-June veto of the roughly $2.4 billion budget bill still standing, legislative leaders declared a victory of sorts. A press release from Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger’s office at the close of business on Oct. 31 noted that 98.5% of the legislature’s budget had been passed, a combination of the continuation of last year’s budget and a series of mini budgets funding new spending for several departments and programs, disaster aid and other consensus spending.

The flip side of the 98.5% spend tells a different story: what’s unspent. Simply calculated, that total is somewhere in the ballpark of $365 million. State budgets, however, are never that simple. They include a complex set of interlocking funds and revenue streams. Combing through what was proposed, what was included in the mini-budgets or funded through other means, however, spotlights a significant number of initiatives and long-sought environmental priorities that for now at least are on hold.

That much of what was left unfunded in state government includes a number of environmental priorities should be no surprise. Environmental policies and spending, especially the Department of Environmental Quality, have been a long-running area of disagreement, not just between the governor and the legislature but also between the House and Senate and even within the party caucuses in each chamber.

For DEQ, the immediate impact of working with just a continuation budget — one that’s based on last year’s funding levels — is the continuation of an untenable balancing act between permitting and environmental oversight driven in no small part by an explosion of work in areas of keen public interest such as coal ash, emerging contaminants and the effects of development, industry and agriculture on public waters.

Even before this year’s budget process began, DEQ officials and the governor made a push for more technical staff and funding along with a $30 million rebuild of DEQ’s aging science labs at its Reedy Creek complex.

In a pitch to visiting legislators during a tour at Reedy Creek last year, DEQ Secretary Michael Regan, stressed that the labs are crowded and need major equipment changes to handle the increase in testing and monitoring for emerging contaminants and other challenges.

Since taking office, Regan has been lobbying for more help to clear permitting backlogs and reduce turnaround time, taking the case not just to legislators, but also to industry groups who have complained about the lengthy permitting process.

A recent review of the department by the legislature’s Program Evaluation Division said DEQ management had made strides in improving the flow of permits, but still needed to step up its efforts. In response, department officials pointed to repeated requests for more resources to the legislature that went unanswered.

This year, for instance, the administration requested $6 million for 37 new positions to handle growing demand for work on emerging contaminants, which would in turn free up staff who are juggling those demands with reviewing and processing permit applications.

The legislature’s budget dialed back that figure to $406,024 and rejected another $500,000 requested for more personnel to handle permit backlogs.

Cassie Gavin, director of government relations with the North Carolina Sierra Club, said that while the amount was a disappointment, it did give the department some additional resources to deal with the concerns in the growing number of communities that are dealing with contaminants in their drinking water.

“It was at least something,” she said. “Now it’s nothing.”

The long-running battles over DEQ have the agency often on its heels, trying to accommodate the legislature’s sometimes confusing direction. This year, based on the new study on permitting, legislators questioned whether the department was putting enough resources into its regional office. Three budget cycles ago, the legislature wanted to shut down some of the offices, cutting staff and forcing the department to complete an extensive review to justify keeping them open.

Last year, agency officials had to scramble to justify the existence of its Division of Environmental Assistance and Customer Service, which works with industry and local government to improve recycling programs and energy efficiency, after the Senate proposed eliminating it.

Gavin said along with the funding cuts, that’s the kind of thing that has made it harder and harder for the department to do its job. The long-term effect, she said, has been to make it generally harder for DEQ to get out in front of the state’s environmental quality challenges.

“You get a reactive agency instead of a preventative agency that’s constantly trying to put out fires like GenX, like coal ash,” she said. “If you had a well-funded and supported environmental enforcement agency, then perhaps we could have some preventative work and we wouldn’t see so many fires.”

Funding limbo

The emerging contaminants response wasn’t all that DEQ lost out on in the budget impasse. The legislature’s budget approved in June included additional money for about 20 categories and programs.

They range from the $30 million rebuild at Reedy Creek to $25,000 to support the Crystal Coast Oyster Festival. Major items include $1.5 million to replace the West Bay, an aging Division of Marine Fisheries vessel used to build reefs and oyster beds; $2 million that would go to the Jean Preston Oyster Sanctuary program; and $9 million for each of the next two years to address dozens of failing water and sewer systems throughout the state.

In addition, coastal programs lost nearly all funds destined for the state’s ongoing efforts in shellfish mariculture, including money for a new aquaculture program at Carteret Community College.

What was funded

Although the main budget for DEQ has been held up in the impasse, some of the mini-budgets did provide money in targeted areas. Most of those funds went into the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, grant programs that are used to match federal dollars. Both were funded through mini-budgets and received an additional round of money in the most recent disaster aid package after more federal funds became available.

The two disaster aid packages passed this session also provided some money for DEQ, including $8 million in disaster funds for infrastructure repairs and cleanup, $11.5 million for the Coastal Storm Mitigation Fund for beach renourishment and berm and dune repair, $50,000 for further storm repair and cleanup at the state’s Coastal Reserve sites and $175,000 to the ferry-based water quality monitoring.

RALEIGH – Long-awaited state parks and clean water plans could be put on hold or even scrapped after the state’s two main conservation funds lost significant appropriations in the state budget standoff.

Combined, the state’s Park and Recreation Trust Fund and Clean Water Management Trust Fund were appropriated an additional $15 million in nonrecurring funds in a budget passed by the General Assembly in June. The state’s roughly $24 billion budget was quickly vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper, starting a monthslong impasse that ended, temporarily at least, when the legislature adjourned for the year in November.

So far, the conservation funds, like dozens of other additional nonrecurring appropriations, have not been restored through a series of mini-budgets passed this fall.

That’s worried advocates for the state’s conservation funds, who had seen a steady rebuild in appropriations following steep cuts earlier this decade.

Both trust funds did receive their regular, recurring appropriations thanks to an automatic budget law that kicks in if a new budget is not in place when the fiscal year ends June 30. The law funds government operations at current levels, but it leaves on the table $7 million for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and $8 million for Parks and Recreation Trust Fund in additional appropriations.

In recent years, both the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund have received a mix of recurring and nonrecurring funds. The recurring base budget for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund is roughly $13 million and $17 million for the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund.

Bill Holman, state director for environmental nonprofit, The Conservation Fund, said given the recent progress, the significant loss of funding this year was disappointing.

“Both the governor and the General Assembly have been supportive of the conservation trust funds. Gov. Cooper requested increased funding and the General Assembly’s  budget provides that,” he said. “Thanks to conservation funds over the years we’ve been making steady progress across the state in protecting water quality, increasing public access and protecting wildlife.”

Holman said there will be a push to try and get the funding restored when the General Assembly returns in mid-January.

Greg Andeck, Audubon North Carolina’s director of strategy and government relations, said members were encouraged earlier this year when there was an agreement to boost funding, including a project to purchase for conservation undeveloped Lea Island north of Wilmington, in which the organization has been a key player.

“We remain hopeful that the Governor and legislature can reach an agreement when lawmakers reconvene in January. If they are not able to reach agreement, it would be a real tragedy to see conservation funding levels decrease by 20% from last year given the broad base of bipartisan support that North Carolina’s trust funds enjoy,” he said.

Holman said the impact of losing $7 million for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund will be felt across the state as projects already in the grant application pipeline go unfunded. “That’s $7 million worth of land and water conservation that won’t occur,” he said.

The dropped Parks and Recreation Trust Fund appropriation was directed to seven projects, including three new trails and two major land purchases on either end of the state, $2 million for the initial land acquisition for the new Pisgah View state park in Buncombe and Haywood counties and $4 million for the Lea Island Natural Area, an undeveloped barrier island between Topsail Island and Figure Eight Island.

Land acquisition is often a long, painstaking process for state agencies and land conservation organizations, Holman said, and having funding delayed or fall through could have a big impact on the outcome on negotiations with landowners.

“There could easily be opportunities missed or landowners may decide they need more money because they’ve been waiting longer,” he said.

Michele Walker, spokesperson for the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, declined to speculate on what would happen when the legislature returns. The department plans to move ahead on the new western North Carolina park project, she said, but is seeking more information on Lea Island.

“Pisgah View has been approved by the Council of State and is moving forward as mandated by legislation. The Lea Island project is essentially on hold right now until we get further clarity through the budget process,” Walker said in an email to Coastal Review Online last week. Clean Water Management Trust Fund projects that have yet to be funded in the latest round of grants could be affected if the funding isn’t resolved, she said. “Both trust funds have already allocated their recurring grant funds. CWMTF in particular has many additional projects that applied for grants. Without the non-recurring funds, several good projects will unfortunately not receive grant funding and may be unable to move forward.”

Andeck said he hoped the legislature would follow through on the commitment shown earlier this year for the barrier island project, noting that biologists had documented the state’s largest-ever least tern colony on the island.

“Lea-Hutaff Island is one of the last remaining undeveloped barrier islands along the North Carolina coast, providing critical nesting habitat for birds and sea turtles and serving as a natural storm buffer for inland communities, he said. We’re encouraged that lawmakers recognize the importance of Lea-Hutaff and are hopeful they’ll reach an agreement soon.”

RALEIGH — Legislators want to see the Department of Environmental Quality further streamlined and turning around permits faster but were warned this week that both tasks will be difficult at current funding levels.

A deep dive into permitting turnaround times and the layers of bureaucracy at DEQ released Monday revealed both the complexities and challenges as the department’s mission has been altered in the past few years as the North Carolina General Assembly has removed major divisions from DEQ to other departments to make DEQ more strictly a regulatory agency.

The report from the legislature’s Program Evaluation Division analyzed DEQ’s permitting processes as well as a department-wide review of its management.

It found that five areas within the department including the Division of Marine Fisheries, one of its largest, have the fewest number of employees per managers and more institutional layers.

The report also looked at DEQ’s ongoing efforts to streamline its permitting process, and while it finds that DEQ has taken significant strides in improving the permitting process since the launch by Secretary Michael Regan of its Permitting Transformation Project, it still lacks an adequate permit performance management system and an overall business plan that tracks the results of changes.

In a review Monday of the report findings and potential legislation for next year’s short session, members of the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Program Evaluation Oversight Committee noted that the department has made strides in the past two years, but pressed DEQ to push forward with the permit tracking program and the administrative changes to reduce organizational layers.

Joy Hicks, senior director for governmental affairs and policy for DEQ, told legislators that the department had made major structural changes since the state’s last major review in 2016.

“We’re not the same agency we were in 2016,” Hicks said.

She said efforts to change, particularly those to improve its permitting systems, have been hampered by a lack of funding.

DEQ has unsuccessfully sought funding from the legislature for additional personnel to help clear permit backlogs and improve service since 2017.

The department issues roughly 25,000 permits each year and reviews applications for more than 200 different kinds of permits.

This year, DEQ’s funding has been caught up in the ongoing budget impasse between the Cooper administration and the General Assembly and is not one of the departments included in a series of minibudgets passed before the legislature adjourned for the year. That’s frozen much of the department’s spending at last year’s levels.

The legislature has also consistently trimmed down recent requests by the department for additional funding to cover additional testing and studies on emerging contaminants such as GenX and related compounds.

Hicks said that’s had an impact the ability to process permits, especially in the Wilmington office, where the DEQ technical staff must balance ongoing permit applications with the need to keep up with issues around coal ash and Gen X.

“Right now, you have the same staff doing both,” she said. “Just in this last year, if you think about all the big environmental issues this agency has had to grapple with, it has all fallen back on the same staff.”

In a letter responding to the report, DEQ Assistant Secretary Sheila Holman responded to concerns about staffing levels, saying that in some cases the ratio of managers to employees is higher by necessity in many of DEQ’s technical operations.

“As an example, the report notes a larger staff and more organizational layers occur at the Manteo office – a factor reflective of the fishing and law enforcement activity for the area as well as the remoteness of the Outer Banks, both requiring more staff,” Holman wrote.

Holman said the issues brought up with the Division of Marine Fisheries, including the complexity of the Manteo office, would likely be resolved after some anticipated retirements and restructuring.

At Monday’s meeting, Sen. Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, said he wants to see the department spell out what it needs to improve the permit programs.

Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, said he didn’t think the changes required should be that difficult to put in place because it only represents about a quarter of the agency, Wells demanded to know when he would see a report on changes proposed for the division.

“Getting that 25% in line shouldn’t be that much of a challenge,” he said.

When the Program Evaluation Division Oversight Committee returns in January, members will likely take up legislation aimed at DEQ’s permitting and management structure raised in the report.

A draft of the bill would require the department to conduct a management study of the Division of Marine Fisheries, the Division of Mitigation Services, the Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs and its Financial Services and Human Resources units. It would also require development of a formal business plan for the permitting initiative and call for a department study of the issue to be filed with the legislature by May 1 of next year.

Hicks told legislators that given limited resources, the report requirement could delay implementation of what the legislature demands.

Sharon Martin, DEQ’s deputy secretary for public affairs, said the department is already working to meet the goals set out in the study.

“For years, DEQ has had to maximize efficiencies, to do more with less, due to budget cuts and staff reductions and is underfunded and understaffed, even as we try to meet the goals laid out by the Program Evaluation Division,” she said Thursday.

Ports legislation considered

Also on Monday, the committee approved legislation based on a recent evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of the state ports at Wilmington and Morehead City.

The legislation that is likely to be introduced during the 2020 short session requires the State Ports Authority to include measures to address port utilization, throughput, gate times and ship turnaround times at Morehead City and revises current law requiring container services at both ports to give the authority the option to decide whether container services are provided.

Update: Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday signed into law House Bill 200.

Copublished with Carolina Public Press

RALEIGH — The state House and Senate approved Thursday $180 million in disaster recovery funding along with an array of policy changes as the General Assembly wrapped up work for the year.

The storm recovery bill was hammered out by House and Senate negotiators who dialed back some of what the House approved but left in place a significant boost to the state’s Dorian recovery efforts.

The two chambers initially agreed for the need for about $122 million in state funds needed to match federal disaster aid for Hurricanes Matthew, Florence, and Dorian and Tropical Storm Michael. Without the additional funds, accounts providing the 25% state share for debris removal, infrastructure repair and other work were expected to run dry by the end of the month.

Everything beyond that was part of an ongoing negotiation until a deal was locked down on Wednesday.

The final version of the bill, which passed both House and Senate with only one dissenting vote, includes $1.7 million for Ocracoke School repairs, money for flood control around Lake Mattamuskeet and additional state help for local governments to speed up Dorian recovery.

Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, said the bill marks an important step in the journey back from disaster.

“Ocracoke has a long road to recovery, and this will be instrumental in that recovery,” he said.

The bill’s passage came as a relief to Ocracoke residents as they prepare for yet another weekend of high winds and heavy swells.

Peter Vankevich, co-publisher of the Ocracoke Observer, said there’s relief the bill has passed but also an immediate worry that some of the progress on the island’s roads could be set back if the storm forecast for this weekend is bad enough. It could slow the final bit of progress needed to reopen N.C. 12.

“You get two days of 30-knot winds and a lot can happen here, he said.

Vankevich was one of several who greeted Ocracoke resident Kelley Shinn when she returned home Thursday after visiting Raleigh to take the island’s case directly to legislators. Shinn met with Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, and joined a group of other Ocracoke supporters outside the Legislative Building Wednesday to raise awareness about the island’s needs.

Shinn said she was glad to see the funding in the bill was similar to the higher House levels, compared to the Senate version, and included the key items for Ocracoke and Hyde County. Residents will want to dig into the details on the funding and what programs and services it will go for, she said.

“I think we are ever hopeful, but still cautious,” Shinn said. Transparency, she said, will be important at all levels.

Ninth-generation Ocracoke resident Trudy Austin agreed and said she was confident Gov. Roy Cooper, who visited the island shortly after the disaster, will sign the bill.

Austin said Shinn’s trip provided inspiration in that people are listening.

“The island’s pretty excited about what she did, going there and standing up for us,” Austin said.

Recovery on the island will continue to depend on a mix of state and federal aid. Last month, the Federal Emergency Management Agency rejected the governor’s request for federal Individual Assistance, saying the disaster had not reached necessary damage thresholds. A program to provide state individual assistance grants to fill that gap is expected to begin soon, said Keith Acree, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety. Acree said individuals who did not qualify for help through a Small Business Administration grant program would be able to apply for the individual assistance grants.

The state is also in the process of finalizing a $600,000 grant to Hyde County. Half of the funds will go to rental assistance and for the purchase of 35 travel trailers for temporary housing. The other half will go for project management assistance for countywide recovery programs.

Resiliency planning

The bill contains some of the House version’s resiliency initiatives along with policy revisions clarifying the role and authority for the recently created state Office of Recovery and Resiliency.

It leaves out proposed funding aimed specifically at resiliency planning for the state’s 20 coastal counties. Also on hold is a $32 million update to the state’s topographic mapping program and a $5 million appropriation for  buyouts of hog farms in the 100-year floodplain.

Bill co-sponsor McGrady said he was surprised that Senate negotiators agreed to as much as they did, considering the Senate version focused almost solely on the needed matching funds. McGrady said he had been promised that the buyout funds and resiliency initiatives would be up for further discussion when the legislature returns in January to work on additional recovery legislation.

Other policy provisions in the bill include additional flexibility for local governments to allow them to combine costs and projects and reallocate funds from individual storms.

The bill also implements a legislative review panel’s recommendation for new state systems, responsibilities and oversight for disaster recovery under the Office of Recovery and Resiliency.

A provision in the bill giving the legislature explicit authority to determine the distribution of money from legal settlements drew a sharply worded statement from the governor’s office just before the vote on the bill that said the provision was an attempt to get around a court case regarding funds from the Volkswagen emissions testing fraud settlement.

The bill “uses disaster victims as political pawns,” Governor’s Office spokesperson Megan Thorpe said in the statement.

Sen. Bill Rabon, R-New Brunswick, responded in a statement that the governor had his facts wrong and the provision “simply re-affirms existing state law.”

The statement from the governor’s office did not contain an explicit veto threat and McGrady told House members that he understood that although the governor objected to the specific provision, he supported the recovery bill.

Also on Thursday, both chambers passed separate Department of Transportation funding and oversight bills covering recent outlays for disaster spending and funding some resiliency work and planning studies.

The spending includes $2 million for work expanding living shorelines around critical transportation infrastructure.

Funding highlights for House Bill 200 include the following:

• $70,812,336 to the Hurricane Florence Disaster Recovery Fund to provide state match for Florence federal disaster assistance programs.
• $11,197,013 for state match for Hurricane Matthew related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $4,176,245 for state match for Hurricane Matthew related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $17,800,000 for state match for Hurricane Dorian-related federal disaster assistance programs and similar state assistance that may supplement federal assistance or cover housing repairs and rehabilitation for those who do not qualify for federal assistance.
• $17,600,000 for the state match for additional federal funds for the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
• $5 million to replenish the state’s Emergency Response and Disaster Relief Fund for future storms.
• $5 million for expansion of flood-mitigation studies
• $4.8 million for water and breach level monitoring systems for 1,510 high- and intermediate-risk dams.
• $15 million to the state Office of Recovery and Resiliency, including $10 million for a bridge loan program for local governments affected by Matthew, Michael, Florence or Dorian to kickstart FEMA and Hazard Mitigation Grant projects and $5 million in grants to local governments for Dorian disaster recovery.
• $15 million for Golden LEAF grants for infrastructure repair.
• $5 million for stream debris removal.
• $5.2 million for repairs to storm damage at Elizabeth City State University.
• $1.7 million for repairs at the Ocracoke School.
• $1.8 million to Hyde County for a pump station at Lake Mattamuskeet.
• $50,000 for restoration work at Coastal Reserve sites damaged during Dorian.

RALEIGH – Disaster aid legislation is stalled in the North Carolina General Assembly as House and Senate negotiators work through differences in competing versions of the bill.

Among the top difference is the House’s inclusion of resiliency funding and a handful of significant policy shifts, initiatives Senate leaders say should wait until next year.

The Senate’s bill is aimed mainly at replenishing state matching funds for federal recovery programs.

Spending in the two bills differs considerably, with the House plan at $280,518,719 and the Senate’s at $130,812,336.

Also up in the air is how much the state will put into disaster aid for Ocracoke Island and mainland communities now that the state has been denied federal aid for individual assistance, a key source of housing repair and rehabilitation funds. Federal officials turned down the state’s request last month, saying it did not meet damage thresholds.

The state did receive approval for federal public assistance that will help cover debris removal and infrastructure repair costs.

The House bill includes flexibility to use some of the state disaster funds to help repair homes and businesses damaged during Hurricane Dorian in September, as well as $1.7 million for Ocracoke school repairs and elevation and $1.8 million for a pump station and flood-control infrastructure at Lake Mattamuskeet, items not included in the Senate legislation.

Both the House and Senate versions include a $30 million appropriation to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

In explaining the House bill to the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, co-sponsor Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said the bill represents a shift in approach, moving the state from a storm-by-storm response to one that recognizes that major storms are bound to occur with far more frequency.

“This bill is in some ways a pivot from what we’ve done in the past because for the first time you’re seeing a large portion of the bill deals with resiliency or mitigation,” McGrady said. “When Hurricane Matthew hit us, we put in disaster relief to deal with the specific things that occurred. Then Florence hit us, then Michael hit us.”

The bill would add positions at the Office of Recovery and Resiliency, which was created earlier this year, to facilitate the flow of federal assistance and would accelerate resiliency planning throughout the state, including a targeted program through the Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management for the state’s 20 coastal counties.

McGrady said the bill also makes it easier for state agencies and local governments to shift unspent funds from one storm to needs related to another.

As the House moved its plan, the Senate took a different approach, advancing a bill that included the needed matching funds and little else.

Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, said he and his colleagues wanted more time to work through parts of the bill that go beyond immediate needs for matching grants. Jackson said he preferred to wait until the legislature returns in mid-January to take up other portions of the bill.

“We wanted to stick with just the federal match,” he said in an interview last week. “I think we’ll revisit it all at that point in time and we’ll have a better handle on what actually went on with Dorian that we don’t have now, as far as the damage.”

Both chambers appointed conferees to work out a final version of the bill.

House appointees are McGrady, the House chair, Reps. John Bell, R-Wayne, Donny Lambeth, R- Forsyth, Billy Richardson, D-Cumberland, and Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin. Senate appointees are Jackson, the Senate chair, Sens. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, Kathy Harrington, R- Gaston, Danny Britt, R-Columbus, and Ralph Hise, R-Madison.

In an interview with Coastal Review Online, Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, said he was disappointed a deal couldn’t be struck on the additional aid, especially Hyde County’s needs for Ocracoke and the mainland.

Hanig said that until the final version of the legislation is worked out, it’s difficult to assess what it will mean for the heavily damaged areas in his district. He’s willing to wait to discuss the resiliency portions of the bill, but not state aid to the hurricane victims.

“I’m focused on the immediate recovery needs,” he said.   “Resilience is something we have to look for down the road, but we have immediate needs that need to be met. We can’t make people wait for that.”

Ocracoke faces a long recovery regardless, he said, given the difficulties of getting needed materials to the island and getting debris off it.

“The logistics are the most severe you could imagine to get things done there,” Hanig said. “You have construction workers on a ferry five hours a day just going to or from work because there’s no place for them to stay.”

The next steps for the bill are unclear, but the deadlines for sections of it are not. State matching funds are estimated to start running out before the end of the month and the legislators would need to pass at least that portion of the bill when they return to Raleigh on Nov. 13 to avoid a disruption of federal funds.

Any funding beyond that will be up to the conference committee.

Bell, the House majority leader, expressed confidence last week that some of the House priorities would make it into the final version of the bill.

Bell was part of a House negotiating team that insisted that conference reports, including the disaster legislation, be eligible for consideration when the legislature returns.

Whether the final product includes both the additional Dorian assistance and the resiliency efforts is still a question, however.

During a hearing last week, Bell told his colleagues that putting the funds into resilience was a step in the right direction in improving the state’s follow-through on storm response.

“We do a really good job before the storm, during the storm and immediately after the storm,” Bell said. “We have been, as has been mentioned, lacking on the long-term recovery side.”

Bell, who led a recent select House committee that looked into hitches in disaster aid, said he’s convinced the state is now moving in the right direction on long-term recovery and resiliency. The need for it is clear he told colleagues.

“Hopefully we’ll get a couple years of relief and no storms,” he said. “But we’ll probably get another storm and we need to be prepared.”

Bridget Munger, a spokesperson for the Office of Recovery and Resiliency, said the new office and the Department of Emergency Management are committed to getting help for hurricane survivors.

“Due to the impacts of four storms over the past three years, many communities have substantial unmet needs that must be addressed. We will continue our efforts to work with the legislature to meet those needs as quickly as possible,” she said.

Crunching the numbers

Here’s a breakdown of the two bills:

Senate Version of House Bill 200, The 2019 Storm Recovery Act

Totals $130,812,336 in spending, appropriates the following:

• $70,812,336 to the Hurricane Florence Disaster Recovery Fund to provide state match for Florence-related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $11,197,013 for state match for Hurricane Matthew-related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $4,176,245 for state match for Hurricane Matthew-related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $16,300,000 for state match for Hurricane Dorian-related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $30 million to the Department of Transportation for current and future Hurricane Dorian activities such as debris removal, highway and infrastructure repair.

Policy Provisions include the following:

• State universities and other nonstate entities that receive funds are required to seek private donations to help cover losses.
• No state funds are allowed for construction of new residences within the 100-year floodplain.
• $30 million nondisaster-related appropriation to the state Rural Health Care Stabilization Contingent Fund.

House Version — H1023, Storm Recovery Act of 2019

Totals $280,518,719 in spending, appropriates the following:

• $70,812,336 to the Hurricane Florence Disaster Recovery Fund to provide state match for Florence federal disaster assistance programs.
• $11,197,013 for state match for Hurricane Matthew-related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $4,176,245 for state match for Hurricane Matthew-related federal disaster assistance programs.
• $17,800,000 for state match for Hurricane Dorian-related federal disaster assistance programs and similar state assistance that may supplement federal assistance or cover housing repairs and rehabilitation for those who do not qualify for federal assistance.
• $5 million to replenish the state’s Emergency Response and Disaster Relief Fund for future storms.
• $40 million to the state Office of Recovery and Resiliency to cover a $20 million bridge loan program for distressed local governments impacted by hurricanes Matthew, Michael, Florence or Dorian; $10 million in grants to local governments for Dorian disaster recovery; and $10 million for assistance and staff support to help local governments and regional agencies to develop resilience implementation.
• $17,600,000 to the Department of Environmental Quality for the state match for additional federal funds for the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
• $1.3 million to DEQ for four temporary positions and funding for coastal resiliency planning for all 20 coastal counties.
• $50,000 to DEQ for repair, restoration and recovery at the state’s Coastal Reserve sites damaged during Dorian.
• $30,000 to the Wildlife Resources Commission for repair and restoration to boating access areas in Carteret and Currituck counties.
• $30 million to the Department of Transportation for current and future Hurricane Dorian-related activities such as debris removal, highway and infrastructure repair.
• $2 million to DOT for living shoreline projects near key transportation infrastructure.
• $2 million to DOT to expand the state’s flood inundation mapping alert network, or FINMAN.
• $2 million to DOT for flood risk assessment along highway major transportation routes.
• $5 million to the Division of Emergency Management for expansion of flood mitigation studies
• $4.8 million to DEM for water and breach level monitoring systems for 1,510 high- and intermediate-risk dams.
• $32.3 million to DEM for LiDAR topography updates, aimed in at improving flood and landslide mapping.
• $5.2 million for repairs to storm damage at Elizabeth City State University.
• $1.7 for a direct grant to Hyde County for repairs at the Ocracoke School.
• $15 million for Golden LEAF grants for infrastructure repair.
• $1.8 million to Hyde County for a pump station and watershed restoration infrastructure for Lake Mattamuskeet.
• $753,125 for funding of the 2-1-1 program and new positions to administer federal grants for the Department of Public Safety.
• $5 million to the Department of Agriculture for the state’s swine buyout program to cover buyouts of high-priority operations in the 100-year floodplain.
• $5 million for stream debris removal.

Policy Provisions include the following:

• Adds flexibility in reporting for local governments to allow them to combine costs and projects and reallocate funds from individual storms.
• Allows local governments to use prequalified contractors during emergencies and disaster recovery.
• Implements a legislative review panel’s recommendations for new state systems, responsibilities and oversight for disaster recovery under the Office of Recovery & Resiliency.
• Appropriates $2 million for the extension of a pilot program that assists low income households in obtaining flood insurance.
• Appropriates $1 million to the Wildlife Resources Commission and authorizes the WRC to remove and dispose of abandoned and derelict vessels.

A bipartisan measure that Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law this past summer could help ensure that bird habitat in North Carolina is supported by plantings along the state’s highways.

Senate Bill 606, prioritizes the use of native North Carolina trees, shrubs, vines, grasses and legumes on highway rights-of-way. The bill passed both houses with unanimous support. Bird advocates say the measure will have a major benefits for bird sanctuaries, ecosystems and nesting areas.

Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, was one of the bill’s primary sponsors and its champion.

“Our natural habitat is being lost at an alarming rate and I wanted to make sure our properties and rights of way are not part of the problem,” Rabon said in a statement.

The National Audubon Society’s North Carolina chapter heralded the bill’s passage.

“Audubon thanks Senators Bill Rabon from District 8, Jim Davis from District 50 and Tom McInnis from District 25, the bill’s primary sponsors, for recognizing the value of native plants to North Carolina’s wildlife and natural heritage,” said Audubon spokesman Ben Graham.

Cooper had proclaimed last week, Oct. 21-27, as Native Plants Week to encourage such plantings. First Lady Kristin Cooper has also gotten involved, partnering with Audubon North Carolina during the first Native Plants Week in 2017 to plant a bird-friendly garden on the Governor’s mansion grounds.

According to the measure, native plants support more than 350 resident and migratory bird species in North Carolina, many of which are species of concern and face growing threats from climate change. The measure also states that gardens and landscapes composed of native plants require little or no fertilizers, soil amendments or pesticides and use less water.

The law requires that the North Carolina Department of Transportation give preference to plants the U.S. Department of Agriculture has classified as native to North Carolina when planting for erosion control and landscaping along highways and at roadside parks, picnic areas, scenic overlooks and other areas.

North Carolina has more than 3,900 native plant species, making the state one of the most diverse for flora in the Southeast, and 26 of those species are extremely rare and considered federally threatened or endangered. The state’s native plants provide food and shelter for wildlife, including more than 350 resident and migratory bird species. Many of these birds are species of concern and face growing threats from climate change.

“Native plants play a crucial role in sustaining North Carolina’s birds, but non-native and often vigorously growing plants continue to put pressure on these habitats,” said Audubon North Carolina Executive Director Andrew Hutson. “This bill represents a bipartisan, common-sense and far-reaching win that ensures the state will prioritize native plants across North Carolina.”

The law builds on legislation passed in other states aimed at greening roadsides to benefit birds and supports maintaining an ecofriendly environment.

Gardens and landscapes composed of North Carolina’s native plants require little or no fertilizers, soil amendments or pesticides and use less water, according to the measure, and planting, cultivation and preservation of the state’s native plants provide a natural link to wild land while presenting beauty and benefit and instilling a greater appreciation for North Carolina’s natural heritage.

Reducing the use of fertilizer helps cut down on contaminated runoff that can result in toxic algal blooms, which sap oxygen in waterways and kill marine life. Native plants absorb nitrogen and help solidify soils, guarding against erosion.

Native plants also mean more berries to support nesting and migrating birds, more seeds to keep birds fed and more leafy food for caterpillars, which, in turn, means more baby bird food.  This food is necessary for birds’ survival during their migrations.

The Audubon Society has for several years pushed measures to protect wildlife and support pollinators and called for North Carolina to support bird-friendly native plants across the state.

There has been growing support for the use of native plants and communities are revising their acceptable plant lists with the help of Audubon ambassadors.

The new law means that instead of using invasive plants that spread into parks and forests, species such as foxtail, crown vetch and millet, “North Carolina residents will see more roundhead lespdeza, ricecut, plants such as beautyberry, fringe trees, winterberry, scarlet oak and red buckeye along with other ‘acceptable’ or native plants, according to NCDOT.”

Native plants that suit all North Carolina regions include wood anemone, Carolina lupine, northern maidenhair fern, coneflower, goldenrod, dwarf crested iris, eastern blue star and swamp milkweed. Grasses and sedges used by NCDOT will include muhly grass, little bluestem, river oats and switchgrass.

Recommended native canopy trees are the pin and willow oak, red maple, river birch and loblolly pine.  A few understory trees are serviceberry, redbud, flowering dogwood and sourwood.

Learn More

• N.C. State Extension’s native plant resources

RALEIGH – With a lengthy list of unresolved bills and a lingering stalemate over a final budget, North Carolina General Assembly leaders say they plan a monthlong push to finish up work in a long session that has certainly lived up to its name.

It has been 15 weeks since the legislature passed the state budget bill and saw Gov. Roy Cooper return it a day later bearing a veto stamp.

After more than two months, the House overrode the veto on Sept. 11 in a lopsided vote that Democrats said they were promised would not happen that day. The action sent the budget bill back to the Senate where a much stronger GOP majority only needs one Democrat’s vote for an override.

In a press conference Tuesday, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said the chamber’s rules require 24-hour notice before for a vote, so he didn’t expect any confusion about whether a vote is coming or not.

Berger said rather than an override, he would prefer to reach a compromise with Senate Democrats on areas in disagreement.

Berger said the Senate intends to adjourn by Oct. 31 and would continue to chip away at the impasse, passing agreed-upon items in the budget.

Earlier this month, both chambers started passing so-called “mini budgets” that were drawn almost verbatim from the vetoed budget bill.

The batch of mini budgets, which included an extensive section on disaster recovery spending, have passed with wide majorities and been signed into law by Cooper. But those bills avoided some of the thornier disagreements between the administration and the legislature as well as disagreements between the two chambers themselves.

Berger said the next round of bills would concentrate on numerous special provisions in the budget as well as department spending, starting with the Department of Transportation.

The major hitch continues to be Medicaid expansion, but the governor has outlined about a dozen areas where there’s disagreement. They include the level of additional spending to catch up water and sewer infrastructure backlogs and funding for the Department of Environmental Quality for personnel and equipment to improve water quality testing and regulation of emerging contaminants.

PFAS, beach funds, rate legislation moves

Coming back to work after a two-week break, this week the House passed a wide-ranging bill with provisions dealing with emerging contaminants, unsustainable water and sewer systems and spending flexibility for the coastal disaster mitigation fund.

The section of the bill dealing with the use of firefighting foam grew out of earlier legislation aimed at banning the use of firefighting foam containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

That legislation, sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, hit a wall over objections from manufacturers and industrial users, as did companion legislation in the Senate and a proposal by Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, for a Cape Fear region task force to analyze PFAS and other emerging contaminants and increase alternative water system requirements in PFAS-contaminated areas.

The provision passed Wednesday mandates a study by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory that would include a statewide inventory of firefighting foam and a way to determine if stockpiles are being stored correctly and, if stocks are out of date, how they can be collected and disposed of. The study is due April 1, 2020.

During floor debate, Harrison said she hoped the study would be the first step toward an eventual ban on the use of the foams that have caused contamination in several local water supplies around the state. Harrison said she would like to see the legislature take up the ban again in the short session.

“I do want to note that we’ve got documented firefighting foam contamination in many of the water supplies throughout this state, including Charlotte, Stanly County, Greensboro, Seymour Johnson and Goldsboro and Atlantic. This is a real problem, ” Harrison told her colleagues. “I do hope we can spend some serious time with this in the short session.”

The omnibus legislation also includes a provision giving DEQ greater flexibility over $18.5 million appropriated to the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund, which is being used for state matching funds for beach repair and renourishment projects started after Hurricane Florence.

The provisions would allow the funds to be used for damage from any major disaster after Jan. 1, 2016.

The scope of the projects is limited to the mitigation and remediation of storm damage to ocean beaches and dune systems. A staff analysis last month said that would rule out any use of the funds for terminal groin projects, which by law cannot be paid for with state money.

The legislation also allows DEQ to use some of the funds going to a beach and dredging needs assessment for developing a dredge materials management plan for disposal in state waters outside of the current federal disposal areas.

The omnibus bill also builds on prior legislation aimed at struggling water and wastewater systems. During this session, legislators have been fine tuning a carrot-and-stick approach that could require mergers or takeovers of small, unsustainable systems in exchange for state funding for repairs and upgrades.

The new legislation would allow the Local Government Commission to tap the state’s Wastewater Reserve or Drinking Water Reserve funds for emergency operating funds.

The LGC recently took over operations of a small water system in Rutherford County and the town of Eureka in Wayne County, which could no longer cover the costs of operating its wastewater system.

The LGC has identified dozens of struggling water and wastewater system statewide and, along with DEQ, is working with Eureka and its neighbors to develop a model for regionalization of smaller systems that can’t keep up with maintenance or have lost too many customers to remain viable.

Also this week, the Senate passed a new version of a bill backed by Duke Energy that includes a controversial provision to allow the state’s Utilities Commission to set electricity rates on a multi-year basis rather than the current year-to-year schedule.

NCDOT budget

On Thursday the Senate passed the first departmental spending plan of the budget impasse, sending the North Carolina Department of Transportation provisions to the House after a 44-0 vote.

The bill includes $11 million over the next two years to raise the power lines over the Cape Fear River near the North Carolina Port of Wilmington to accommodate larger vessels. The project would raise the lines by 41 feet to create an overall clearance of 212 feet.

The plan also includes $1 million to cover this year’s cost for leasing a passenger ferry for the Hatteras to Ocracoke Village crossing. A ferry was leased earlier this year to provide the service originally intended for a new state ferry that’s still being built in Swansboro and delayed by construction and safety inspection problems. The builder, U.S. Workboats, recently sued NCDOT alleging breach of contract and defamation.

NCDOT’s Ferry Division would also receive $833,000 for repairs and renovations to the Ocracoke Ferry Headquarters and an additional $3.5 million this year and $5 million next year for projected increases systemwide for operations and maintenance.

The legislation also requires the department to study the feasibility of raising ferry tolls for nonresidents, including an analysis of usage by residents and nonresidents of each route. The study, including any recommendations for legislation in the short session, is due March 1, 2020.

RALEIGH — Funds for buyouts and repairs, bridge loans for local governments, repairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, environmental cleanup and a major resiliency study are all part of a disaster recovery package that is expected to be considered this week by the North Carolina General Assembly.

The House was expected to take up the bill Wednesday. If approved, it would move on to the Senate.

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday reviewed the legislation, which duplicates language in the budget passed in July that Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed over concern about teacher pay, the lack of a Medicaid expansion provision and about 10 other areas of disagreement.

Although a veto-override vote has been on the legislative calendar since then, legislative leaders had yet to assemble enough votes for an override. Last month, they opted to start moving less controversial parts of the budget, breaking them out into “mini-budgets.”

The disaster recovery funding, a compromise worked out earlier this year between the House and Senate versions, is the latest in the series.

“They’re the same projects, the same money,” Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, a main House budget writer, told the committee Tuesday.

The bill includes more than $112.6 million in funding, mainly in response to Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Michael in 2018. It also contains rules on how grants from the state’s disaster recovery funds can be spent and extends expedited Coastal Area Management Act emergency permits through Oct. 21, 2020.

McGrady said the legislature would take up another round of disaster funding to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, but it’s too early to say when that would happen given that the storm was less than a week ago.

“It’s way too early to assess the damages that have occurred,” he said.

The legislature moved quickly after 2016’s Hurricane Matthew, convening to pass legislation more than a month after the storm, but at the time the full range of damage assessments wasn’t ready and follow-up legislation was required.

The new bill includes about $5 million in funding that the administration can use as needed to meet some of the costs incurred during Dorian recovery and any future disasters.

The legislation also earmarks $22.68 million for the Department of Environmental Quality, including $8 million for disaster-related infrastructure and cleanup needs. The total also includes water and wastewater infrastructure, coastal management planning and dam safety, and $11.5 million for the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund to finance beach and coastal infrastructure repairs.

DEQ would also receive $175,000 to continue the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences’ water quality program testing program that works in partnership with the state Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division.

The bill sets aside $27,868,000 for more than a dozen targeted appropriations from the state disaster recovery fund set up after the storms. They include the following:

• $68,000 to Morehead City for the renovation and dredging of Pelletier Creek.
• $300,000 to the Bladen County Kelly Dike District for engineering and planning for repairs to Kelly Dike, which spans both Bladen and Pender counties.
• $500,000 to Pender County to repair damage to the county courthouse caused by Hurricane Florence.
• $1 million to Elm City for disaster recovery projects.
• $3.3 million to Carteret County to support the Bogue Sound Project that involves 74 acres, 20 acres of which is undeveloped waterfront, that the Marine Corps had sought for more than 10 years to prevent residential development near its auxiliary airfield.

The UNC system would receive $10.16 million, including $8 million for repairs and renovations at UNC Wilmington; $2 million for UNC Chapel Hill’s North Carolina Policy Collaboratory to study flooding and storm resiliency; and $160,000 to expand the ModMon water quality monitoring program in sounds and rivers.

The state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services would get $1 million for stream debris removal and the Wildlife Resources Commission would get $1 million to “inspect, investigate, and remove” derelict vessels.

The bill also includes the first tranche of funds in a new state program to aid low-income homeowners in purchasing flood insurance and sets aside $5 million for mitigation, relocation, buyout assistance to local governments and infrastructure repairs and $8 million to help move families out of floodplains. Another $9 million would go for grants and loans to assist local governments that have need immediate cash flow assistance to cover recovery operations while federal funds are still being processed.

RALEIGH – As the state budget impasse heads into its second month, work on most major bills, including controversial environmental measures, has all but stopped on Jones Street.

On Monday, with a vote to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s June 28 veto of the two-year budget plan again on the calendar, the House again backed off, held a 10-minute session and adjourned for the evening. It marked the 17^th time the override vote was delayed, although House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, continues to assert that he is close to having the votes to push the through the override.

Meanwhile, Moore, Cooper and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, appear no closer to a deal, and with the state finances on a kind of autopilot, the impact of protracted impasse is starting to sink in.

Since a state budget wasn’t adopted at the end of the fiscal year on June 30, automatic funding legislation passed in 2016 kicked in and, in most cases, continues to support departments and agencies at current levels. But the legislation doesn’t provide for expansion funds, such as new programs or increases in student enrollments and raises and bonuses for state employees. Because the legislation applies only to recurring appropriations, projects funded in the new budget with nonrecurring funds are on hold until the logjam is broken.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, one the main budget writers for the House, said that for environmental programs the main impact is a hold on additional funds for supplies and personnel for research and testing of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, by the Department of Environmental Quality, along with millions of dollars in nonrecurring funding for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund.

McGrady said the new funds for studying PFAS and other emerging compounds is a significant step, and along with it is needed funding for major renovations at DEQ’s outdated Reedy Creek complex, headquarters for water and air quality testing.

“While the governor had sought more money, up to now, the legislature hasn’t expanded the testing,” McGrady said Tuesday in an email response to Coastal Review Online. “In this budget, the legislature is finally approving more staff to do the testing. Also, in the capital budget, the complete renovation or rebuild of the testing facility is funded.”

McGrady, a longtime backer of the state’s conservation funds, said the budget stalemate could have an impact on both trust funds, CWMTF and PARTF.

“Both of these funds have some nonrecurring monies, and those monies are hung up along with expanded funding, particularly in the second year of the budget,” he said.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, agreed that both the PFAS funding and the conservation funds are significant, but she was also not happy with much of the rest of the budget, including the special provision that delays implementation of DEQ’s new permit rules for large-scale animal feeding operations and a proposed yearlong delay in a report on PFAS contamination by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory.

Harrison said that’s why she was “not heartbroken” that the budget was vetoed, but she has been disappointed about the lack of negotiations since.

“This is just a ridiculous standoff,” she said. “The parties ought to get together and negotiate. It frustrating to watch.”

Both Moore and Berger have accused the governor of refusing to negotiate on the budget unless they first agree to a Medicaid expansion plan.

Cooper, who offered an alternative budget plan in early July, insists he’s willing to talk about both expansion and other budget items, but that legislative leaders are more focused on an override than a compromise.

In Cooper’s initial budget proposal in February and again after the veto, he called for a much larger increase in DEQ funding than what the legislature ultimately agreed on. His July proposal, which asks for changes in roughly a dozen areas, includes an additional $4.5 million per year for DEQ.

Cooper spokesperson Sharon Martin said Tuesday that the legislature’s budget failed to go far enough on water quality protections and emerging compounds.

“The governor’s budget compromise prioritizes funding for staff, equipment and improvements to facilitate DEQ’s response to PFAS and water quality issues facing North Carolina,” she said.

Other PFAS items on hold without a budget deal is a $500,000 appropriation to replace a public well for the town of Maysville, where firefighting foam is suspected of contaminating the water supply, and a $1.5 million appropriation to the collaboratory as additional funding to complete its statewide PFAS assessment and prepare a report to the legislature.

The budget isn’t the only legislation related to PFAS that is on hold right now.

Harrison said legislation she sees as an important first step in regulation of PFAS and other compounds is likely dead for this year’s session. The measure would ban the use of PFAS and similar compounds in firefighting foam used for training exercises.

Harrison wanted the state to ban the use of the foam outright as other states are considering, but the move was strongly opposed by industry groups. Her attempt to limit the ban to training was also rejected by industry lobbyists. It’s an example, she said, of how difficult it is to regulate emerging compounds.

“I thought for sure at minimum we’d get some limitations on the use for training,” she said Tuesday. “If we really want to do the right thing, we’d take step to limiting the use of that chemical, but we’re not there yet in North Carolina.”

The bill remains eligible for consideration in the short session and Harrison said she would try again next year.

McGrady, who recently announced he would retire from the legislature after this term, said he would also work on trying to get the firefighting foam bill passed in the short session.

RALEIGH — A bill that started out as an effort by Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, to limit the areas available for wind energy projects won’t be taken up again this session, the senator told a state court last week.

Brown, the Senate majority leader, testifying before a three-judge panel in Raleigh during a partisan redistricting trial, used the bill’s lack of progress as an example of when even powerful members of the legislature don’t get their way.

“To be honest with you the bill is going to die in the House,” he said on the stand under questioning from counsel for the legislative defendants. “I’ve worked it as hard as I can work it this year, but I can’t get that bill done just because I don’t have the support in the House to get it passed,” Brown testified.

The pronouncement was a blunt admission that the legislation would not surface again in the House even after a compromise to move the bill had been worked out earlier this session.

House Majority Leader John Bell, R-Wayne, said Brown’s assessment is accurate given that it is unlikely that a deal between the House and Senate can be reached this session.

Bell said there was enough pushback on a version passed June 24 by the House Committee on Energy and Public Utilities to convince him that a deal can’t be worked out this session.

Bell said he expected to revisit the bill during the legislature’s short session next year.

Wind energy advocates, including the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, or NCSEA, said they were relieved to hear the bill wouldn’t be taken up again this session.

“NCSEA, many legislators, their constituents, especially landowners, are pleased to hear that Senate Bill 377 will not move forward; however, we will continue to discuss this topic and other important clean energy issues with legislators.” Peter Ledford, the main counsel for the group and a lead negotiator for the industry on the bill, said Friday in an emailed response.

The main hitch in the legislation for now is how much maps developed to show potential areas of conflict will play in the regulatory system for wind turbines.

In 2017, Brown pushed through an 18-month moratorium on wind energy projects while maps on potential conflicts with military operations were developed.

The moratorium ended Dec. 31, 2018. The maps, produced by the state Department of Commerce using research by Morrisville-based consultants AECOM, show conflicts in nearly all of eastern North Carolina and would automatically rule out large swaths of the state from consideration for wind energy projects.

The maps were posted to the General Assembly’s website in April. Brown had introduced Senate Bill 377, the Military Base Protection Act, in late March. The bill would have required the state to use the maps in any siting process and would have banned construction in areas listed as having conflicts. In effect, that would have eliminated nearly all of North Carolina east of Interstate 95 except for a small portion of Currituck County and most of New Hanover, Pender, Brunswick, and Columbus counties from consideration for wind energy projects.

The bill sparked a battle in the Senate between Brown and Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, whose district includes a major wind farm that was built to supply energy to the grid that serves Amazon Web Service’s current and planned cloud data centers. Senate Bill 377 passed the Senate 25-19 with Steinburg voting against it.

At the time, Sen. Jim Perry, R-Lenoir, a cosponsor with Brown who was in charge of steering the bill through the Senate, called the bill a work in progress. That version included a three-year moratorium on wind projects, a move that was strongly opposed by wood products company Weyerhaeuser, one of the region’s largest landowners. The company owned some of the land under consideration for a wind energy project that fell apart after the 2017 moratorium was imposed. Weyerhaeuser officials said earlier this year that the moratoriums interfere with the property rights of the region’s landowners.

With prospects poor for passage in the House, Bell, Steinburg and Perry worked on a compromise, eventually coming up with a bill that eliminated the moratorium and provided a system that would reduce reliance on maps showing conflicts with military training routes while at the same time adding additional ways for project opponents to make their case.

After the successful committee vote in the House, Perry said it was a positive step forward, but Brown said he was disappointed and declined to say whether he would support the new version.

His statement during the trial last week ended any speculation that he might support it. Brown called the issue paramount for eastern North Carolina.

Bell said he still intends to work on the bill next year.

Under General Assembly rules, bills passed by one chamber remain viable for the entire two-year session. He said his main objective is to give the military, especially wing commanders, more input.

Bell said a bill he sponsored in 2013, already gives the military more input, but he’s open to adding to that, including using the maps in the permitting process and finding additional processes for input.

“My focus has been just like Harry’s, to protect the military,” Bell said.

This story has been updated.

RALEIGH – Gov. Roy Cooper late Friday signed a bill making long-sought changes to North Carolina’s shellfish leasing program that was unanimously approved in the General Assembly.

The House passed Senate Bill 648, Support Shellfish Aquaculture, on June 12 in a 116-0 vote. In early May, the Senate approved the bill in a 47-0 vote.

In a recent interview, Steve Murphey, director of the Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries, said planning had started for implementing the bill, which was drafted at the division’s request.

The division is the lead agency for major initiatives in the bill, including the determination of locations and rules for new shellfish enterprise areas and the establishment of three large-scale shellfish leases in Pamlico Sound.

The enterprise areas proved to be one of the key reasons why this year’s effort on aquaculture was successful. The areas will be established for shellfish leasing ahead of time and are to have a faster, more streamlined permitting process. Murphey said the initiatives are intended to reduce potential conflicts with other users of public trust waters and reduce legal fights over leases.

“We have areas of the state where you can apply for a lease and there’s a public hearing and nobody shows up, but we have other areas of the state, particularly with these intensive and water column methods, where as soon as we receive the application we know we’re going to have a lot of conflict,” Murphey said. “Everybody has due process rights in this and so often times we’re in a situation where, regardless of what we do, we end up in court.”

The program mirrors those in several other states, he said, including Florida, where nearly all the state’s shellfish leases are in enterprise areas.

The new legislation allows the creation of “one or more” enterprise areas. Murphey said the division plans to identify potential areas and then hold meetings with local stakeholders, including property owners, commercial and recreational fishing operations, tourism interests and county and municipal planning departments, to work through concerns. The sites would likely be about 20 to 40 acres and the leases could range between small, 1- or 2-acre parcels and the current maximum lease size of 10 acres.

Bogue Sound, where the division and National Marine Fisheries are developing a spatial planning analysis to identify potential areas, is a likely location for one of the first sites, but don’t expect anything to happen quickly. The new legislation includes a moratorium for both Bogue Sound and much of New Hanover County, areas where there are both a lot of lease requests and the most potential for conflicts with other users.

“We’re not going to rush this,” Murphey said. “We want to take it kind of slow because we want to get it right.”

Once identified, the division would also hold public meetings on the enterprise areas. Once set up, the division would become the leaseholder and would subdivide the area through an application process. Unlike the current lease system, which allows the leases to be traded or passed on to heirs like property, the enterprise area leases would revert to the state once the holder stops operations.

“If you got on the lease and you got a couple of acres and you decided that wasn’t for you or too much work, or you couldn’t make production (goals) or couldn’t pay the rent, then it would revert back to the state,” he said. “Then we would go back to the queue and pull another applicant up, look at a management plan and put them into that.”

One of the main ideas behind the plan is to create a faster, simpler way for people interested in aquaculture to get started, but for the division, the new plan would lead to a more efficient and less contentious process.

Murphey said the change is also needed to keep up with a growing demand for leases. When he first started working with the division as a marine biologist in the late 1980s, it would get requests for 10 to 12 leases a year. Most of those were for growing clams.

“Now they’re all oyster leases and they’re all intensive culture leases and we’re getting between 80 and 100 a year,” he said.

Pamlico Leases and FLUPSY Provisions

While the potential conflicts with other users was part of the objections over last year’s failed aquaculture legislation, the biggest hitch was over the size of the leases.

An early version of the bill, aimed at attracting large producers, envisioned leases of 2,000 acres. In response to objections, that was reduced to 200 acres, but even that size drew strong objections.

This year’s bill includes a scaled-down pilot project in Pamlico Sound with three, 50-acre leases. Murphey calls it a “toe in the water” approach. He said finding the right location for the large leases will take one to two years. They can’t be in places with a lot of wave energy and they can’t be so remote that it takes a lot of time and fuel to get out and monitor them.

The division would carefully review business plans to make sure those interested are willing to make the kind of investment needed for such a large-scale lease.

The bill also gives the division authorization to allow shellfish growers to use waters currently off limits to grow seed oysters through the early part of their life cycle and then transport them to approved shellfish waters.

Murphey said the division asked for the authorization, which would allow for floating upweller systems, a platform known in the trade as a FLUPSY, to be located closer to a grower’s home base.

He said most growers like to use the systems in marinas because they are protected areas with access to electricity for the pumps, but under North Carolina law, marinas are automatically off limits for shellfish cultivation.

The change would allow more growers to use the systems to start their oysters, which is far cheaper than buying them at sizes large enough to survive in the standard beds. He said the division determined that the oysters would spend enough of their life cycle in approved shellfish waters to negate any effect from starting out in prohibited waters that are off limits.

The systems would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to make sure the waters in the area don’t have toxic substances or heavy metals. If authorized, growers would be required to transplant the oysters before they reach more than 25 millimeters or roughly 1 inch in size.

“This is just for seed,” he said. “That way by the time they grow out, they’re not going to have any deleterious substances.”

RALEIGH — A new version of legislation spelling out restrictions on wind energy projects passed the Senate this week, but backers in both chambers say to expect yet another rewrite soon.

Wayne County Republican and House Majority Leader Rep. John Bell, whose Greene, Johnston and Wayne County district includes Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, said a new version of the bill could be announced as early as next week.

Its sponsors, including Sens. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, and Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, say the bill is necessary to prevent conflicts between wind turbine projects and military training and safety, which in turn would be seen as a negative by a future Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The legislation, Senate Bill 377, is titled the Military Base Protection Act.

Opponents have called the bill an unnecessary infringement on property rights, citing an extensive military oversight process already in use.

Bell, the main sponsor of 2013 legislation that set up a process for dealing with wind energy conflicts with military bases, said that among the changes being worked out is a process that accounts for situations in which military officials are unable to raise objections.

Even though base managers are free to speak up, he said, “a lot of time through politics and government policy they were not allowed to speak.”

Bell said negotiations over the past two weeks with industry representatives had been productive.

“We’ve had discussions, shared language back and forth,” Bell said Thursday in an interview. “We’re hoping to address our concerns and hoping to alleviate their concerns and right now we’re about 95% there.”

This year’s legislation started out as an outright ban on areas deemed in serious risk of conflict, according to a set of maps commissioned under previous legislation. The maps were produced by the Department of Commerce using research by Morrisville-based consultants AECOM. They show conflicts in nearly all of eastern North Carolina and would automatically rule out large swaths of the state from consideration for wind energy projects.

After the bill stalled in the Senate, it was re-written. Now, instead of a permanent ban, it calls for a three-year moratorium on new wind energy projects in areas deemed in conflict. The bill also anticipates further guidance from federal officials on how wind projects could affect base closure plans.

That version passed the state Senate Wednesday by a vote of 25-19, but sponsors said they expect to see the bill come back with a clear set of guidelines that can be put in place, rather than another moratorium.

The legislation passed mostly along partly lines with Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, whose district includes a wind farm operated for Amazon, the lone Republican opposed.

Steinburg, who has fought over the issue with Senate Majority Leader Brown since his time in the state House, said the bill strips people of their economic opportunities and private property rights and would do nothing to prevent base closures.

Sen. Don Davis, D-Greene, said he had confidence in the system for determining conflicts as used by the Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse. Davis said he disagreed with the moratorium and couldn’t support the bill as written, but encouraged sponsors to push forward with negotiations.

Sen. Jim Perry, R-Lenoir, who along with Brown led the effort to move the bill, told his colleges during floor debate that a vote for the bill was a vote for moving forward with negotiations and not the final draft of the legislation.

Perry has been meeting with Bell and other House members as well as wind energy industry representatives and other stakeholders to try to strike a deal.

In an email response to Coastal Review Online, Perry said he expects a new version to be adopted by the House that removes the moratorium and adds additional provisions, including one addressing concerns that military officials can’t speak freely on potential project conflicts and another that would further spell out how the maps would be used in the process.

“We will see language referencing maps as a tool in the process, but not as a single point ‘go/no go’ mechanism,” Perry said in the email.

While Perry and Bell said they were confident a new bill would clear both chambers and have the support of renewable energy proponents, industry representatives had yet to sign off on a plan.

“Discussions on Senate Bill 377 are on-going and we hope to reach a final agreement with legislators soon,” Peter Ledford, General Counsel for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, wrote in an email to Coastal Review Online.

Nancy Thompson, manager of public affairs for Weyerhauser, said the company, one of the state’s largest landowners, is mainly concerned with any attempt impose another moratorium.

She said that whether it’s for 18 months like legislation passed at the end of the 2017 short session or three years like the one in the current bill, a moratorium is unfair to property owners.

Thompson said the first version of this year’s bill was so strictly worded it would have created a “permanent moratorium.”

Bell said he’s looking forward to reaching a deal that can finally settle the long-running wind energy debate in eastern North Carolina.

“Hopefully once this is done, we won’t be having this issue come up again,” he said, “but then this is the General Assembly so anything can happen.”

RALEIGH – Long-term efforts to expand shellfish leasing in North Carolina waters cleared another legislative hurdle this week, an indication that, unlike last year’s bill, this one is on its way to becoming law.

The new bill, hammered out in a yearlong stakeholder process after the failure of last year’s legislation, is drawn in part from a strategic plan developed last year by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill-based North Carolina Policy Collaboratory.

The plan calls for a shift away from policies similar to those of other states, such as Louisiana and Virginia, that use large-scale leases. Instead, there’s a focus on smaller lease sizes with higher yields, like the approach used in Massachusetts and Maryland. Increasing the yield per acre, the report said, would also lessen the chance for potential conflicts with other users.

Last year’s legislation ran aground over opening Pamlico Sound to large-scale shellfish leasing. That plan started with the prospect of leases of up to 2,000 acres and although it was scaled back to 200 acres, even that size worried local producers that larger out-of-state companies could control the market.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said the major change this year was the recognition that there are multiple uses for the state’s public trust waters.

“There are a lot of user groups out there, there are boaters, there are fishermen, there are duck hunters,” McElraft said. “We have to make sure these things are placed in the proper way so we don’t have these conflicts.”

McElraft and others said the stakeholder process used to develop the bill language was critical to finding a way to expand the industry without creating more conflicts with other groups.

Todd Miller, director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review Online and facilitated the dozens of stakeholder meetings during the past 18 months, said the discussions included hundreds of people who support expanding the shellfish farming industry as long as it is compatible with existing fishing practices, public trust uses and coastal environmental and economic needs.

“The strategic plan they devised promotes a major new economic industry along our coast that must have clean and productive coastal waters,” Miller said. “The federation is honored to have helped diverse stakeholders work together so they could forge this strategy. It’s a good beginning. Passage of this legislation means there’s much hard work that remains to be done.”

Enterprise Areas, Moratoriums, Studies

The new plan authorizes the state Division of Marine Fisheries to set up one or more shellfish enterprise areas and a streamlined permitting and leasing process for them. It also launches a large-scale pilot program in Pamlico Sound, but limits it to three, 50-acre leases. In addition, no one company would be allowed to own all three of the leases.

The legislation also calls for a moratorium in New Hanover County and Bogue Sound in Carteret County on new shellfish cultivation and water column leases. In New Hanover County, the moratorium would be for waters from the Wrightsville Beach Bridge through Masonboro Inlet to the waters off Peden Point, and in Bogue Sound in Carteret County from the U.S. 70 high-rise bridge in Morehead City to the Emerald Isle bridge. The moratorium would take effect July 1, 2021.

Several studies are mandated in the bill, including a look at ways to reduce use conflicts, the potential for a crop insurance program for shellfish, a low-interest loan program and a review of penalties for shellfish violations.

‘Commerce for North Carolina’

One part of the bill that has drawn criticism from growers is the new production requirements, which proponents say are necessary to make sure the waters are being used to their full potential. McElraft said the requirements had to be part of any expanded leasing program.

“I think it’s important that they do have a production level. This isn’t something for just personal use, this is commerce for North Carolina,” she said.

Jerry Schill, director of government relations for the North Carolina Fisheries Association, told legislators that although there are some concerns about the production requirements, the bill was a good step forward. But he did caution against trying to discourage larger companies.

“This isn’t a panacea. It takes a lot of money to get into this business,” Schill said. “The big boys better get involved because they’re the ones with the cash.”

The aquaculture bill is paired with elements of budget legislation approved last month by the House and likely to be part of the final round of budget negotiations.

The House budgeted $300,000 in the first year to the Division of Marine Fisheries as startup funding for the new leasing program and $150,000 a year after that for a district manager and fisheries technician assigned to it.

The Senate did not include direct funding for the new program but did budget $1.5 million for each year of the budget for the Jean Preston Oyster Sanctuary Network.

The House this week formally rejected the Senate budget, triggering a conference committee to work out the differences in the plans. Leaders in both chambers said they expected to have an agreement before the close of the fiscal year at the end of this month. Should they fail to do so, a contingency budget mechanism kicks in that would fund departments and agencies at current levels.

Farm Bill, Trust Funds

The North Carolina Farm Act of 2019 passed a key committee and is heading for a final vote as early as this week.

The Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee approved the measure Wednesday. The bill’s supporters rejected an amendment by Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, to initiate a study on dry litter practices in the state’s fast-growing poultry industry. Peterson said the state has almost no oversight of the what happens to the waste and needs the study to better understand the industry.

Bill sponsor Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, said further study wasn’t warranted. He said he had not heard of any problems with how the waste is handled. The amendment was defeated by voice vote.

The House this week was expected to pass a bill to revamp some of the state boards and commissions ruled unconstitutional last year in a court fight between the legislature and the governor over separation of powers.

Senate Bill 381 would amend appointments to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund to give more seats to the governor as required by the court ruling.

It also adds hazard mitigation grants to one of the possible uses for the grants by the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and adds basin-wide and regional water management planning to its list of grant criteria.

Co-published with Carolina Public Press

RALEIGH — Senate and House budget proposals contrast sharply with the governor’s on how each deals with emerging contaminants.

In the years since the 2017 revelations about GenX in the Cape Fear River, legislators as a group are far more familiar with the challenges of understanding the health effects and, ultimately, regulating the growing class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

But in policies and on the bottom line, plans by the House, Senate and governor are very different.

In Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget request this year, he asked for additional money for personnel and new equipment for emerging contaminant testing and monitoring programs. Cooper said the Department of Environmental Quality needs the additional staff in order to conduct in-house and mobile analysis of emerging contaminants. The department had to shift dozens of experts from other duties to deal with the GenX and emerging contaminant research and monitoring, he said.

The governor’s total ask was about $12.5 million for the next two years to cover equipment costs and 37 new staff positions.

The lynchpin for both the emerging contaminants programs and DEQ’s budget request overall is a $30 million upgrade and renovation at the department’s main laboratory complex on Reedy Creek Road in Raleigh, where most of DEQ’s air and water quality testing is conducted.

House budget writers greatly dialed back the governor’s request for more staffing, but they included the governor’s full request for the Reedy Creek labs.

The Senate did not. Its plan includes no additional funding and focuses solely on a provision extending the studies of a PFAS testing network set up through the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at University North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Relying on the Collaboratory

The Collaboratory, which was set up via a Senate initiative in the 2016 budget, would get an additional $1 million to complete its work and file a report with the legislature’s Environmental Review Commission by Dec. 1, 2020. The main effort of the testing network has been to expand PFAS and emerging contaminant testing statewide to include all 191 public drinking water intakes and 149 water systems that use groundwater wells. Researchers say the plan is partly to establish a baseline of the extent of the compounds in areas, but they also expect to find areas with elevated levels of certain compounds.

At the initial hearing on the Senate’s budget plan in the Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, the committee chairman, said the decision was made to withhold funding until the Collaboratory presents its report.

“That is correct, there is no funding while we wait for this report from the Collaboratory,” Wells told Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, after Peterson said he was surprised to see no additional funds for DEQ and the Department of Health and Human Services on emerging contaminants. Wells said the report comes first and it would be used to assist legislators to determine what to fund after that.

“I’m pretty shocked by the lack of interest and concern by the Senate in this budget recommendation,” Peterson said afterward. “I don’t think anybody denies we have an emerging contaminant crisis, not just in my district, in the lower Cape Fear River basin but throughout the state.”

He said that, in addition to the Collaboratory studies, work needed to continue at the departments. “We have a health issue. That is paramount. Public health comes first. We want to know what’s in the water.”

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, an early advocate of tighter PFAS regulations said she was frustrated by the Senate’s decision, calling it “wrongheaded” and “a step backwards” in dealing with emerging contaminants.

“We learned last year that DEQ had pulled 31 people off of other roles to cover the PFAS issue, so we’ve got a funding gap right now,” she said. “The reality is that we’ve got PFAS contamination all over the state and I don’t know how we can ignore that and I don’t know how we cannot fund the regulatory agency protecting our water, how we can’t fund them adequately to do their job to enforce, monitor and let us know when we’ve got a contamination issue.”

She said she supports the Collaboratory’s work, but their research can’t be used in enforcement actions.

DEQ officials have said that if the Collaboratory finds PFAS hotspots or other indications of contamination, the department will still have to do its own analysis in order to craft an enforcement response.

DEQ spokesperson Sharon Martin said the lack of funding could have a big impact.

“The delay puts our ability to do this vital work on hold. DEQ’s priority is the health and safety of North Carolinians and we need additional resources to protect the people of our state from the threats posed by unregulated emerging compounds,” Martin said Thursday in an email response.

The move by the Senate to lean on the work of the Collaboratory is similar to a strategy it adopted in 2018, which allocated an initial $5 million to the Collaboratory for the research project after rejecting a request by the department for more funding.

The Senate’s strategy, put together by then-Sen. Michael Lee, a New Hanover County Republican, was criticized at the time for hampering DEQ’s PFAS response. The department initially asked for $8 million, but ultimately only received $1.5 million. Lee’s plan also included a limit on the type of high-resolution mass spectrometer that the department could purchase to do the analysis.

Peterson, who unseated Lee in an election that highlighted the legislature’s response to emerging contaminants, said the message in the budget to his constituents is that the state Senate doesn’t care about their health. He said that, in addition to PFAS, the Cape Fear River has high levels of 1,4 Dioxane, Bromide and other contaminants.

“This will come back to haunt the Senate,” he said. “They’ve got their priorities upside down.”

RALEIGH — The three-way negotiation between the House, Senate and Cooper administration hits another milestone this week, with the Senate prepared to vote out its version of the $24 billion, two-year spending plan.

The Senate bill, which was released Tuesday, includes significant differences in funding for environmental programs and Department of Environmental Quality spending plus a number of policy proposals not in either previous plan.

Among the top differences is spending on research and testing on emerging contaminants, upgrades and additions to DEQ’s main laboratories and several new special provisions, including a review of the recent process for adopting new general permit requirements for animal waste management systems that would delay for a year the implementation of tighter controls for swine, poultry and cattle operations.

DEQ Secretary Michael Regan said the animal waste permit changes in the budget provision delays were not new rules or regulations. He said they are part of the permit-writing process that’s within DEQ’s authority and that the changes, which were the result of discussions with numerous stakeholders and a review of more than 6,500 public comments, would provide more certainty to farmers and communities.

“The Senate’s budget provision, unlike our permit process or even a proposed bill, lacks transparency and justification,” he said.

The Senate also would put on hold policy changes on emerging contaminants along with any increases in spending for DEQ proposed in both the House and governor’s budgets.

At a hearing on the budget Tuesday, Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, said the Senate wants to hold off while the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory completes a statewide study on emerging contaminants.

Researchers had requested an additional year to compile a report to the legislature. The Senate budget has an additional $1 million for the study, which includes testing of all of the state’s public water supplies for GenX and other emerging contaminants.

A DEQ representative said the Senate is ignoring pressing needs to improve environmental and public health protections.

“Budget are about priorities,” DEQ spokesperson Sharon Martin said in a response to Coastal Review Online. “The Senate budget again does not fund critical needs to protect water quality, public health and the environment.”

Another major policy provision is a rewrite of a bill proposed this year in both the House and Senate to set up a carrot and stick approach to encourage struggling, economically unsustainable water wastewater to merge with larger systems. The budget includes a $17.5 million appropriation for a new Viable Utility Reserve.

Coastal Projects

Oyster sanctuaries, two major land purchases and additional funds for storm repairs are among the coastal items in the Senate plan.

The Jean Preston Oyster Sanctuary Network would receive $1.5 million in funding each year and the North Carolina Coastal Federation would receive $50,000 to conduct a shellfish marketing study.

The plan also includes a transfer of $20 million to the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund and an additional $50,000 for the state’s Division of Coastal Management to study locations in state waters for dredge spoils.

The state also is providing Audubon Society $4 million in a directed grant for the purchase of Lea Island, one of the state’s only undeveloped barrier islands, located between Figure Eight Island and Topsail Island.

Like the House, the Senate plan also includes $3.3 million for the Bogue Sound Project, a partnership between the Coastal Federation, Carteret County and the U.S. Marine Corps to secure 74 acres on N.C. 24, including 20 acres of undeveloped waterfront on Bogue Sound near the Marine Corps Auxiliary Landing Field Bogue, also known as Bogue Field.

The funding is drawn from a special budget section on disaster funding although, in general, the Senate and House budgets differed widely on disaster spending.

The House budget plan would spend $84.7 million, most of the remaining money set aside last year for hurricane relief, with the bulk of the funds going to grants to local governments for water and sewer infrastructure and an array of resilience programs including some buyout projects.

But at a press conference Tuesday, Senate budget writers said they didn’t want to commit that much of the remaining funds and instead are allocating $47 million mainly for matches for federal recovery grants.

The total includes $1.5 million for stream debris removal, $2 million for a resiliency study, $5 million for repairs at the North Carolina Aquarium At Fort Fisher and $68,000 for the renovation and dredging of Pelletier Creek in Morehead City.

The two chambers are in agreement on funding for the state ports and the Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division.

Both budget plans set aside $11 million to raise the power lines over the Cape Fear River near the Port of Wilmington to accommodate larger vessels; allocate more money for ferry maintenance; and $1 million to lease the M/V Martha’s Vineyard Express passenger ferry for the Hatteras-Ocracoke route because the long-planned new state ferry has had construction delays and won’t be ready until later in the year.

RALEIGH — The Senate will take another look at a controversial bill that would make wind energy development nearly impossible in much of eastern North Carolina, according to the bill’s main sponsor.

Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, said he plans to bring back Senate Bill 377, the Military Base Protections Act, which did not pass ahead of this month’s crossover deadline. Brown, one of the Senate’s main budget writers, said he plans to get the legislation back before the Senate as early as this week, but would not do so through the budget process, as some observers had speculated.

Opposition to the bill in the Senate includes Sen. Erica Smith, D-Northampton, whose district lost out on a wind farm project due to the state-imposed 18-month moratorium that expired in December, and Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, whose district includes the wind farm in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties commissioned by Amazon, which started operation in 2017.

Smith and Brown sparred two years ago over the wind energy moratorium that Brown championed. Brown said the state needed the time to work on maps of potential conflicts with military training and operations. Smith called the maps an unnecessary intervention in the process, but Brown, the Senate Majority Leader, succeeded in getting the moratorium through the House and Senate.

The map connected to the new bill, titled “Vertical Obstruction Impact on the NC Military Mission,” was released earlier this year. In eastern North Carolina, it designates all but a sizable chunk in the state’s far southeastern region and small sections near the coast of Pender and Currituck counties as “significant,” meaning a high risk of conflicts with Department of Defense safety and training operations. Brown’s legislation would put any area designated as significant off limits to wind energy facilities.

Opponents of the legislation say the map is far too restrictive given that wind energy projects already require a rigorous review process run by the Defense Department’s Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse.

In an interview last week, Brown said he’s determined to push the legislation forward as soon as this week. Brown said he was considering changes to the bill, but didn’t spell them out.

“We’re looking at some things,” Brown said. “The reason I slowed it down is I knew there was a lot of bad information being tossed around, most of it dealing with the clearinghouse.”

He said the key point he’s trying to make to Senate and House members is that an OK by the clearinghouse isn’t a guarantee that wind energy project conflicts won’t be detrimental in a future round of military base realignment and closures, or BRAC, process.

“I think we need to make it clear that what the clearinghouse decides to do still doesn’t protect you from a BRAC,” Brown said. “I think we’ve got the information we can share next week that will verify that’s the case.”

Meanwhile, Steinburg and others have been making the case against the use of the new map.

In an op-ed published May 14 in the Elizabeth City Daily Advance, Steinburg writes that the bill would prevent many of the state’s most economically distressed counties from taking advantage of a potential major boost in their economies. He notes the bill as written violates private property rights and overrides a strict state permitting process and Defense Department reviews.

“Fortunately, there are protocols in place by the U.S. Department of Defense Clearing House that will make opposing Senate Bill 377 a no brainer for me,” Steinburg writes in his op-ed, “the military’s mission will be protected, personal property rights assured and free markets will continue to flourish in a part of the state in desperate need of further economic development.”

In another op-ed published earlier this month by the Fayetteville Observer, David Kelly, senior manager of North Carolina political affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund, said Senate Bill 377 was misguided and would hurt poorer counties. He noted that Pasquotank and Perquimans counties had benefited greatly from the Amazon wind farm, which is the largest taxpayer in each county, by far.

“No elected official or piece of state legislation can guarantee our bases won’t ever be subject to review. That’s a fact of life our military communities face. But we can rest assured that wind energy has not and will not cause a base to be put at risk. The proposed wind ban, on the other hand, does guarantee that communities across eastern North Carolina will be deprived of the opportunity for substantial new economic investment,” Kelly writes.

The bill’s supporters say they also intend to press their case.

Last week, Sen. Jim Perry, R-Lenoir, announced that he had confirmation from clearinghouse director Ronald Tickle, that clearinghouse approval does not protect a base from closure.

A statement Perry released quotes Tickle as saying “Our Clearinghouse reviews do not explicitly address a potential future (base closure proceeding). We assess proposed wind farms based on current and reasonably foreseeable missions. Therefore, your statement is correct.”

Perry, whom Brown said, would take the lead on the wind energy legislation while he is in budget talks, said he stood by the map.

“The military is more likely to close bases in areas where training is more dangerous. The study using data provided by the military installations confirms that there are areas where wind turbines pose a ‘significant risk,’” Perry said in a statement.

New Information

The online risk maps themselves have taken a somewhat mysterious route, posted first on the state’s Department of Commerce website, then made accessible only with a special password and then finally moved to the website of the Legislative Services Office at the North Carolina General Assembly, which posted a version late last month.

The map site now has additional features, including a breakdown of the criteria used to determine the risk of conflicts.

It also now comes with a guide and an extensive disclaimer that states in part, “The geographic mapping data utilized in this mapping product was collected from a variety of sources, is subject to change, and is offered without any warranty. This product is not issued with any professional seal and is not a final product of any licensed land surveyor or engineer.”

It bases the assessment of risk on “The threat of physical damage and personal harm, degraded radio communications/electromagnetic uses, interference with Doppler coverage, and increased degradation of radar due to reflectivity.”

The document defines as “Significant,” those areas where construction of tall structures above 249 feet above ground would a pose “significantly high” impact to safety and training. The “Moderate” designation refers to those areas where there is a “moderately high” impact to safety and training and suggests further review for proposed tall structures that are 500 feet above ground level.

At their highest point, the blades of the 104 turbines generating power for Amazon in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties reach about 500 feet.

RALEIGH – Act II of the 2019 North Carolina General Assembly session begins this week with the Senate finalizing its version of the budget and both chambers taking up bills that passed last week’s crossover threshold.

To remain viable for the session, most types of nonbudget-related bills must be passed by at least one chamber before the crossover deadline.

Among the bills that did make it to the other side and are being closely monitored by environmental groups is a proposed change in utility commission laws that would allow large utilities, primarily Duke Energy Corp., to apply for multi-year rate increases.

Cassie Gavin, director of government affairs with the North Carolina Sierra Club, said Senate Bill 559 means the commission could go as long as five years between rate cases. That’s important, she said, because the rate increase hearings are when environmental organizations are given an opportunity to make their case on major issues on the record.

“That’s where we weigh in to try and get better environmental outcomes from Duke Energy,” Gavin said, adding that it’s when groups push for things like closing coal plants and not making ratepayers cover the cost of coal ash cleanup. “We could see our chances to weigh in reduced to twice a decade,” she said.

The bill passed the Senate earlier this month 27-21.

Gavin said other key bills she’s watching are House Bill 645, which would scale back local authority over billboards, and House Bill 823, which encourages reductions in the use of single-use plastic and calls on the Environmental Review Commission to conduct a related study. H823 passed the House last week by a vote of 115-1, with Rep. Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort, casting the lone “no” vote.

Also clearing crossover was House Bill 812, Nutrient Offset Amendments, a bill that would extend the areas developers could use for nutrient offset projects.

The Division of Water Resources allows developers and operators of wastewater treatment facilities to buy nutrient offset credits as a way to meet some of their pollution-reduction requirements. Credits are generated when the state or private mitigation firms restore or enhance shorelines within the watershed. The bill strikes language that requires mitigation projects to be in the same hydrologic area where the increased nutrient loading happens.

Proponents of the legislation say it would allow mitigation closer to the state’s estuary systems. Those opposed say it would degrade water quality in upstream areas and let developers use cheaper land for offset projects.

Oysters, Fisheries

Also clearing the crossover deadline last week were bills making sweeping changes to aquaculture and marine fisheries management.

Senate Bill 554, Marine Fisheries Reforms, and Senate Bill 648, Support Shellfish Aquaculture, sailed through the Senate last week drawing only one “no” vote between them. Sen. John Alexander, R-Franklin, voted against the fisheries bill.

The aquaculture bill is similar to a shellfish leasing bill introduced earlier in the House by Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret. It sets up new leasing enterprise areas, rules to prevent conflicts with other public trust waters uses and enacts moratoriums on new leases in New Hanover County and Bogue Sound.

The marine fisheries bill restructures the state’s Marine Fisheries Commission, adding two more scientists, and shifts more authority on management plans and their timing to the Division of Marine Fisheries.

McElraft said the House will begin its review of both bills this week.

Dead, Undead Bills

Although bills that don’t meet the deadline are considered dead for the rest of the biennial session, it’s important to remember the legislature has a few well-worn procedures for getting around that.

Among the environmental policy bills that didn’t meet the crossover deadline was a controversial wind energy bill sponsored Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, that would have effectively put much of eastern North Carolina off limits to wind energy generation projects. Brown’s measure, Senate Bill 377, the Military Base Protection Act, would delineate broad areas Brown says are in conflict with military training, despite the Defense Department’s existing process for clearing wind energy sites. The bill narrowly passed a Senate committee on May 2, but did not advance to a floor vote.

Grady McCallie, policy director for the North Carolina Conservation Network, said he would continue to keep an eye out for the language in the bill surfacing elsewhere. A moratorium on wind projects Brown pushed two years ago took a similar route, was inserted into another bill at the end of a session and passed into law.

“The Senate wind bill didn’t make crossover, but, of course, nothing ever goes away forever,” McCallie said Monday in an interview. “So, we’re going to watch to see if that or concepts like that show up elsewhere.”

McCallie said that in addition to bills that passed crossover, there are two others to watch that had revenue-related provisions and didn’t have to meet the deadline.

They include House Bill 560, introduced by Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, which would ban the use of firefighting foam that includes per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, during training. Although the bill falls short of an outright ban that was included in an earlier version, it would, if passed, be the first PFAS prohibition passed by the legislature.

Another bill that’s still awaiting action with versions in both chambers would provide state funds for consolidation of struggling wastewater and water systems, create more interlocal agreements and change the rules on interbasin transfers. Such transfers include situations where a system draws raw water from one river basin and discharges treated wastewater into other river basins.

Both McCallie and Gavin said this year there are noticeably fewer major environmental policy bills and far less policy in the budget that in prior years.

That could change as the Senate writes its version of the budget, Gavin said.

“One thing I’m pleased to see, for the environment at least, is that the budget doesn’t contain a lot of unrelated environmental provisions like we’ve seen in the past,” she said. “We’ll see what happens in the Senate.”

Fighting environmental provisions embedded in the budget bill is more difficult than in standalone bills, she said. “So, I’m really happy to see that.”

McCallie agreed that the budget doesn’t have the same kind of policy proposals seen in years past. Part of that may be a result of the different relationship between the governor and House and Senate leaders who no longer control supermajorities and can easily override a veto. Still, he said, for whatever reason the difference is noticeable.

“More broadly, this budget feels like the second year in a biennium,” he said. “There’s a lot fewer big ideas in it.”

RALEIGH — The House passed its version of the state budget last week, including in it another substantial round of spending on disaster relief and recovery.

The disaster recovery program was one of the last sections to be added to the House budget. It now heads to the Senate, which is working on its own version of the two-year spending plan.

While there are differences between each chamber’s budgets, House Speaker Tim Moore said last week there’d been ongoing cooperation on budget targets.

The disaster recovery section of the bill draws $84.7 million from the Hurricane Florence Disaster Recovery Reserve, which was set up in the wake of last year’s devastating storm. The largest pool of money in the recovery plan is $26.5 million, to be disbursed through the Golden LEAF Foundation as grants to local governments and to water and sewer authorities for water, wastewater and stormwater repairs and upgrades. The bill also authorizes Golden LEAF funds to be used for hazard mitigation programs.

Among other appropriations are a range of resiliency programs, most of which are set up under the Department of Public Safety’s new Office of Resiliency and Recovery. The office was set up last year to coordinate and consolidate ongoing disaster recovery programs from 2016’s Hurricane Matthew and last year’s storms, Florence and Michael.

The resiliency plans focus on several buyout and mitigation programs, including $13 million for the new State Acquisition and Relocation Fund to expedite 214 home acquisitions in areas that repeatedly flood and provide gap funding to help residents who accept a buyout to purchase new homes. Another $10 million would go for relocation and buyout assistance for local governments and $10 million more would go for the repair, reconstruction or purchase of 100 residences deemed ineligible under Federal Emergency Management Agency and Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery grants.

Local governments would also be eligible for an additional $13 million in grants to improve disaster recovery capabilities and cash-flow loans for communities awaiting federal reimbursements.

Also in the budget is $2 million a year for two years for a flood insurance pilot program that would provide subsidies for about 1,667 residential properties in high-risk areas.

Volunteer programs helping homeowners with repairs would receive $2 million under the plan.

Bridget Munger, a spokesperson for the Office of Recovery and Resiliency, said many of the properties under consideration for buyouts and repairs had already been identified, but others were awaiting a final set of guidelines from federal agencies that would determine the areas where federal appropriations would be targeted.

In addition to the DPS funding, the Department of Environmental Quality would receive $13 million for infrastructure and environmental cleanup needs and $100,000 for the Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project, a project led by the North Carolina Coastal Federation to remove lost crab pots that create hazards to navigation and marine life in the state’s sounds.

The Division of Marine Fisheries would receive an additional $1.5 million for resiliency projects and $1 million would go to the Wildlife Resources Commission for derelict vessel removal.

Conservation Partnership

The House’s plan also sets aside $3.3 million for land acquisition as part of the Bogue Sound Project. The project involves 74 acres that include 20 acres of undeveloped waterfront on Bogue Sound, land the Marine Corps had sought for more than 10 years to prevent residential development near its auxiliary airfield.

The Coastal Federation is partnering with Carteret County and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point on the planned purchase with part of the property to be used for a public boat ramp and nature park area.

Cherry Point is applying for half of the total $7.47 million purchase price, or about $3.74 million, through a Defense Department program, Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration. REPI funds cooperative agreements with landowners to keep land uses compatible with nearby military operations.

Once purchased, ownership of most of the property would transfer to the county under an agreement with the federation allowing its environmental education programming on the preserved areas of the land and involvement in the boat ramp’s design to incorporate features to protect the designated outstanding resource and open shellfishing waters from polluted stormwater runoff. The federation plans to purchase 5 or more acres as a future site for its headquarters and a coastal nature center.

About 60 acres, including nearly the entire shoreline and 18 acres of wetlands, is to be set aside permanently for conservation. The Marine Corps plans to place an easement over the entire property preventing residential construction in the encroachment zone for Bogue Field.

The partnership also involves the Onslow Bight Conservation Forum, which in addition to Cherry Point includes representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina Department of Cultural and Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The group has conserved more than 71,000 acres since 2001.

DEQ Lab, Emerging Contaminants

One area where House and Senate plans have differed widely in the past several budget cycles is in spending for DEQ.

The House budget proposes increases for the department this year for work on emerging contaminants and an extensive $30 million renovation and upgrade to the department’s water and air quality laboratories at its Reedy Creek facility in Raleigh.

DEQ’s lab request was fully funded, but an additional $6 million and 37 positions requested to handle the growing volume of work on GenX and other emerging contaminants was trimmed to $600,000 and seven new positions.

DEQ spokesperson Megan Thorpe said this week that the funding provided for emerging contaminants was a disappointment.

“While other states made multi-million-dollar commitments to water quality monitoring equipment and staff when facing similar threats to the water supply, the House budget instead neglects DEQ’s resource gaps and sets aside gluttonous earmarks for pet projects.”

The House also didn’t provide an additional $1.5 million requested by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill-based North Carolina Policy Collaboratory to continue its statewide work on emerging contaminant testing, but did agree to extend its work another year with a special provision extending the Collaboratory’s work testing waters around all public water intakes and wells used for public water systems for another year.

That funding is likely to be included in the budget developed by the Senate, which pushed for the creation of the Collaboratory in 2016 and has included funding for it in each budget since.

Other coastal items in the budget include the following:

• Carteret Community College Aquaculture Program – $125,000 each year for a Shellfish Aquaculture Demonstration Center, to be set up through a collaboration between North Carolina Sea Grant and Carteret Community College.
• Fort Fisher Historical Site Visitor Center – Provides $8 million for another round of funding for a $20.9 million upgrade to the visitor center.
• Water Resources Development Projects – Provides $11 million for the nonfederal share of navigation, water management, flood mitigation and beach renourishment projects.
• Passenger Ferry Lease – Authorizes up to $1 million for the state Ferry Division to fund leasing a passenger ferry for the Ocracoke passenger service while the state ferry under construction is completed.
• Ferry Maintenance – Provides an additional $8.5 million over two years for increased projected operations and maintenance expenditures.
• Cape Fear Utility Lines – Provides $11 million to the State Ports Authority over two years to elevate by 41 feet the power lines across the Cape Fear River near the Wilmington port to allow an overall clearance of 212 feet to accommodate larger ships.
• Wind Study – Authorizes $300,000 for the ports authority to conduct a study of state ports and transportation infrastructure for potential to support the supply chain for offshore wind industries.

RALEIGH – Bills to establish a new shellfish leasing program and extensive changes to the state’s marine fisheries oversight began moving through the Senate this week.

Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, introduced both measures Wednesday morning in a review-only session of the Senate’s Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources Committee.

Sanderson said Senate Bill 554, Marine Fisheries Reforms, represents the most significant set of changes to the way the state handles fisheries issues since the landmark 1997 legislation that created the current system.

“It’s time that we stop playing politics with a natural resource that belongs to all the citizens of this state.”

Sen. Norm Sanderson

The new bill changes the appointments to the nine-member Marine Fisheries Commission, replacing two at-large members with two additional scientists with expertise in areas such as marine estuarine ecology, water quality, habitat protection, fisheries biology or habitat protection.

It would also change the rules how the commission can call for meetings and shifts more authority on fisheries plans to the director of the Division of Marine Fisheries, specifically designating the director as the sole source of proposals for time periods in fisheries management plans.

Last month, state Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Michael Regan criticized the current Marine Fisheries Commission for calling an emergency meeting to override a Division of Marine Fisheries decision on the flounder fisheries plan.

Sanderson said the changes are needed to bring to an end near-constant battles between commercial and recreational fishing interests.

In addition to Sanderson, the chief sponsors of the bill are Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, and Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick.

“This is my ninth year in the General Assembly and every year I’ve been here we’ve had issues with fisheries management plans, with the Division of Marine Fisheries, with recreational fishermen and with commercial fishermen,” Sanderson said. “It’s time that we stop playing politics with a natural resource that belongs to all the citizens of this state.”

He said the change in the composition would balance the Marine Fisheries Commission, making it three commercial fishing representatives, two recreational fishing representatives and three scientists. Eliminating the two at-large seats prevents one set of interests from dominating the commission.

“I think because of the nature of this resource and the value of this resource that we should settle this once and for all and make our plans based on scientific evidence and not political pandering,” Sanderson said, calling the bill a “giant step” in the right direction. “I think if we manage these resources correctly there will be enough resources for everybody.”

Representatives of commercial and recreational fishing disagreed on the bill.

Jerry Schill, director of government relations for the North Carolina Fisheries Association, said most of the commercial fishing concerns had been addressed and the organization is in agreement with the bill. “I’ve been doing this for 32 years and it’s the most positive I’ve felt in a long, long time,” he said.

His counterpart in the recreational fishing industry, David Sneed, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association, said that while there are some good ideas in the bill, he wanted to see a more comprehensive approach to fisheries.

“We have no problem with more scientific-based management, however there’s very little in the bill that would actually serve to protect or enhance our public trust fisheries resources. It’s an attempt to shift policy making authority for coastal fisheries resources management from the MFC to the division and DEQ,” Sneed said.

That’s the opposite of how the state’s wildlife resources are handled. Sneed said the state needs to change its definition of sustainable harvest.

Sen. John Alexander, R-Wake, said that as the bill moves forward, he would like to see some of the concerns raised by Sneed and others addressed.

A committee vote on the bill is expected this month.

Shellfish Enterprise Areas

Also heard, but not voted on Wednesday, was the Senate version of a shellfish aquaculture plan that would create new shellfish enterprise areas and encourage greater productivity in the existing leases.

The new legislation, Senate Bill 648, sponsored by Sanderson and Rabon, is similar to a bill introduced earlier this session in the House by Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret.

It gives the DEQ secretary authority to establish one or more aquaculture enterprise areas and for the Marine Fisheries Commission to establish rules for shellfish bottom leases. The leases would be non-transferable and would revert to the state if relinquished or terminated.

The bill also sets up a pilot project for three larger-scale leases in Pamlico Sound of 50 acres each, up from the current state limit of 10 acres. It prohibits any one company or shellfish operation from holding more than 100 acres. The pilot areas, which would be established by DEQ and DMF, would require setbacks of 250 yards from the shoreline or from other leases, up from the current 100 yards now required.

The legislation, which follows a failed attempt by legislators last year to expand the leasing program, also would set productivity requirements to help maximize output from existing leases and require leaseholders to reach those goals or risk having their leases terminated.

It establishes a moratorium on new shellfish cultivation and water column leases in New Hanover County waters from the Wrightsville Beach Bridge through Masonboro Inlet to the waters off Peden Point and in Bogue Sound in Carteret County from the U.S. 70 high-rise bridge in Morehead City to the Emerald Isle bridge. The moratorium would take effect July 1, 2021.

Sanderson said the troubles with last year’s legislation was that it tried to do too much too fast.

He said the new legislation was a more measured approach and includes a number of studies to help flesh out the right direction for growing the industry.

“We want to do this step by step by step so that we don’t make any mistakes,” he said.

Among the studies are a look at reducing conflicts between shellfish leases and other uses for the areas; a study of penalties and violations on unlawfully taking shellfish; a review by the North Carolina Coastal Federation of ways to set up a low-interest loan program for startups; and a study by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services of crop insurance for shellfish growers and other loss-mitigation and protection programs.

RALEIGH – With legislative deadlines for initial passage less than a month away, the push is on for environmental policy bills, including a tightening of emerging contaminant regulation.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said she expected to win support for a first step in further regulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, with a bill banning their use in fire-retardant foams used for training. Harrison said she’s working on a universal ban on the use of the compounds in all firefighting foams, but she was still meeting resistance over whether there were adequate substitutes able to handle large industrial fires.

The bill, which would ban the use of the substances in training facilities, also has the support of the Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics Association of North Carolina.

Harrison said she was hopeful that the bill would pass this year, but the pushback underlines how difficult it is for a state to regulate the rapidly growing PFAS universe, which includes compounds used in numerous industrial processes and household products.

“It’s really hard to get a handle on how to contain this, but where we have known sources, we ought to be able to limit that,” she said.

Last week, the House Environment Committee heard from representatives of the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at UNC Chapel Hill and the new PFAS Testing Network, which the collaboratory set up to study the spread and effects of PFAS and related compounds statewide.

This week, officials with the state Department of Environmental Quality were expected to testify on the department’s PFAS work and a request for additional help improving the department’s laboratories and testing equipment.

Harrison said DEQ and the state Department of Health and Human Services had been stymied in their efforts to deal with PFAS by a lack of funding to handle the staffing requirements, laboratory space and necessary equipment upgrades.

DEQ would get stronger enforcement powers in broader legislation filled in both the House and Senate. The legislation would require the state to follow the precautionary principal of full disclosure in discharge permits and prohibit the discharge of unauthorized and undisclosed compounds. The bill, parts of which Harrison filed last session in the House in the wake of the GenX revelations in Wilmington, would also repeal the so-called Hardison Amendment that prohibits the state from enacting laws that are more stringent than the federal government’s.

Harrison said while the bill’s chances were slim, it’s important to continue the conversation. Harrison also said she wants it to be clear that the state has the funds and the authority to regulate PFAS compounds like GenX, which have no federal standards. She said that although DEQ officials have said they believe they have the authority to regulate the compounds, repealing the Hardison Amendment would remove all doubt. The bill would appropriate $6 million in recurring funds for 37 positions at the department and another $336,441 for a mobile drinking water testing lab to respond to hurricanes and algal blooms.

In addition to Harrison’s bill, Sens. Kirk deViere, D-Cumberland, and Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, who campaigned on the need for tighter PFAS protections for the Cape Fear watershed, have filed legislation to set up a PFAS task force to assist with research identifying the scope the problem in the watershed and the development of alternative drinking water supplies for affected areas.

Boards, Commissions

Legislation has also been moving in the Senate to address a recent court ruling that found certain state boards and commissions were unconstitutional because they fulfilled executive branch functions but did not give the governor an adequate number of appointments.

Senate Bill 381, filed by Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, would include more appointments for the governor to the boards of the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and Parks and Recreation Trust Fund. It would also eliminate the CWMTF Advisory Council and revise the criteria used in selecting projects.

A competing bill filed in the House earlier in the session would add the new seats for the governor to the trust fund boards, but the measure does not include the criteria changes and it maintains the CWMTF advisory council.

Other Environmental Bills

Other environmental policy bills this session include the following:

• House Bill 545/Senate Bill 517 Offshore drilling ban — includes a policy statement in opposition to seismic airgun testing as well any offshore exploration for oil and gas in federal waters off the North Carolina coast. Also includes a ban of any exploration of offshore oil and gas in state waters and requires development of a state oil spill action plan.
• House Bill 572 and House Bill 567 Coal ash disposal — H572 would require that the remaining large coal ash compounds be excavated as part of remediation plans. H567 would prevent power companies from passing the cost of coal ash disposal on to ratepayers.
• House Bill 738 State Science Advisory Board — would write into law the composition and duties of the 11-member Science Advisory Board, which provides input and review on science, environmental impacts and health effects for DEQ and DHHS.
• House Bill 592 Check-Off Donation for Land Trusts — would create an option on state tax forms allowing taxpayers to donate a portion of their refunds to the state’s Conservation Grant Fund.
• House Bill 559/Senate Bill 496 Pollinator Protection Act — seeks to increase control over the use neonicotinoid insecticides to prevent damage to honeybees and other pollinators.
• House Bill 479 Solar Decommissioning Requirements — would study the effects and proper disposal methods and potential for recycling of large-scale solar facilities.

RALEIGH – After two years of hearings, heated debates and special legislation, work at the North Carolina General Assembly on GenX and other, newly emerging contaminants in the Cape Fear and other watersheds has all but halted.

While still a focus for many legislators in the regions most affected by the revelations of high concentrations of GenX in the Cape Fear River, the main focus for committee work on GenX ended last year when the House Committee on North Carolina River Quality wrapped up and issued its final report in late April, just prior to the General Assembly’s short session.

Since then, Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, who chaired the committee, and other House members have said they want to see the committee, or at least its work, continue. Early in the session, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said rather than extend the life of the river quality committee or set up a new one, the work would likely be done by one of the standing House committees.

“I can tell you I’m committed and most of our members are committed to make sure we are investing in the work that we’ve done,” he said.

But so far, except for a brief oversight hearing in January, further examination of the issue of emerging contaminants has yet to be taken up by any other committee in either chamber.

Last week, Davis said he was continuing to work with other House leaders on a way to follow on the work of the committee he led.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, who chairs the House Environment Committee and served also on the river quality committee, said there is a possibility that some educational meetings can still be held this session.

Molly Diggins, state director of the North Carolina Sierra Club, said the pause in the legislature is unfortunate.

“There doesn’t seem to be an appetite to face this major new challenge,” she said. “Without question, the legislature owes it to their constituents to address the problem.”

One reason for the delay, she said, was the hope that the federal government would implement tighter regulation of other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. But this month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a long-awaited PFAS action plan that did not set specific requirements for drinking water, opting instead to continue to set health advisory levels, which do not have the same regulatory muscle.

“If things were moving forward at a better pace nationally, states would not have to resort to sorting it out for themselves,” she said.

Diggins said much of the policy debate is likely to play out in this year’s budget process.

In his budget proposal released early this month, Gov. Roy Cooper asks for $12.5 million to go toward new equipment, additional personnel and a mobile testing lab for analysis of PFAS compounds such as GenX.

In preliminary discussions on the budget there’s already been some pushback to that, partly because the enforcement actions again GenX manufacturer Chemours have resulted in a sharp reduction of the compound going into the river.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said she worried that with GenX levels reduced, the sense of urgency among her colleagues has started to fade.

“Some of the members think the water is taken care of,” she said. “That’s a problem.”

Diggins agreed. She said even the original research that led to the GenX discoveries in the Cape Fear River also detailed the heavy presence of other compounds as well.

“The focus has been on one narrow set of contaminants as opposed to the others that are being identified,” she said.

Improving state Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, capabilities and other budget items are an important short-term step, Diggins said, but dealing with emerging contaminants over the long term is going to take more than just dollars.

Restarting the ERC

One complication to resuming work on emerging contaminants is a protracted disagreement over the future of the Environmental Review Commission, which in the past took the lead role at the legislature in reviewing and recommending environmental policy changes.

Like the former river quality committee, the ERC is classified as an interim committee and, under the rules, meets only between sessions. But for more than two decades the committee has served as a key forum for environmental policy debates in the legislature.

In the past two years, however, the ERC has seldom convened. Its last meeting was in mid-February 2018 and its one and only review of GenX was during an August 2017 public forum in Wilmington, two months after GenX stories first appeared in the Wilmington StarNews, which broke the story.

Since then, House members have complained that then-Sen. Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, essentially sidelined the committee by refusing to hold additional hearings.

With public pressure over GenX rising, in fall 2017 Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Moore announced the formation of river quality committees in their respective chambers and assigned further investigation of GenX and emerging contaminants to them.

The Senate’s river quality committee, also chaired at the time by Wade, held one meeting in October 2017, but the House river quality committee continued working for more than a year, holding seven lengthy meetings that included briefings from scientists on the latest studies and updates from the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Wade was defeated for re-election last fall, giving hope to some legislators that that the ERC would restart regular meetings and resume its role as the main legislative study group on the environment.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, a longtime member of the ERC, said cooperation between the two chambers on issues like emerging contaminants is important and he hopes the ERC can take up the work started in the river quality committee.

“My hope is that ERC will now be tasked with working on the issue of emerging contaminants,” McGrady wrote in an email response to Coastal Review Online. “We need both the House and the Senate to be working together.”

Harrison said she was optimistic that the ERC will be “operational” again. She said the river quality committee accumulated a lot of knowledge and data on the emerging contaminants issue that could help the ERC hit the ground running.

In the meantime, Harrison, who now serves as vice-chair of the Environment Committee, is working on PFAS legislation for the current session and said she expects to introduce two bills soon.

This story was updated Thursday at 9:25 a.m.

RALEIGH – Legislators at the helm of key House and Senate committees said they will try again to reach a broad agreement on the path forward for the state’s mariculture industry.

A bill that would have established a new leasing program and new rules to encourage mariculture in state waters failed in the final days of last year’s session of the North Carolina General Assembly over concerns that it could close off too much of the coast to other uses.

The new bill in draft form includes potentially controversial moratoriums on shellfish leasing in Bogue Sound in Carteret County and in waters between the Wrightsville Beach bridge and Peden Point near the Masonboro Island Reserve in New Hanover County. It would also allow permitted shellfish nursery operators to, under certain times and conditions, transplant seed oysters and seed clams from areas where harvesting is otherwise prohibited or restricted.

Speaking Tuesday at the annual North Carolina Oyster Summit in Raleigh, Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, and Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, said they plan to introduce new legislation that addresses concerns from a variety of groups about the size and extent of the leasing program.

“Yes, we saw with the last shellfish bill that there were lots of conflicts,” McElraft told summit attendees. “There were conflicts from the tourism industry, from the boating industry. There were conflicts coming from the duck hunters. There were conflicts from commercial and recreational fishermen,” McElraft said. “So, we kind of stepped back and said we need to get input from all these stakeholder groups and find out what the conflicts are and how we can address those.”

McElraft said other coastal states had the same conflicts when they began to address shellfish issues and had to address them. North Carolina is no different, she said.

“We do not want a fight between our shellfish growers and our tourism industry and others. We want everybody to support the shellfish industry,” she said.

McElraft said the new bill had been sent to stakeholders in draft form and that there were already suggestions for changes.

She said the new bill would include Shellfish Enterprise Areas, or SEAs, to establish areas that would be optimal for shellfish growers and don’t present conflicts with other users. Those areas would be set up and “ready to go” for shellfish growers. Other areas, where there could be conflicts, would go through a stricter permitting process that would provide for public comment and feedback from other users.

“We want everybody to be happy with our oyster industry.” – @mcelraft_pat #OysterSummit2019 #ncoysters

— NC Oysters (@nc_oysters) March 12, 2019

Sanderson acknowledged the headwinds encountered last year and the difficulty of working on a solution, but said he was committed to making new legislation happen.

“The reason I am willing to go after this again is because of its potential for North Carolina,” Sanderson said. The benefits, he said, would ripple through the economy beyond just improving opportunities for shellfish growers.

“[The oyster industry] is important enough to do whatever it takes…it is great economically, environmentally, for commercial fishermen, and recreational fishermen.” – @normsanderson #ncoysters #OysterSummit2019 @NCCoastalFed #ncpol

— NC Oysters (@nc_oysters) March 12, 2019

“Things don’t flow as smooth as silk all the time, especially when you’re dealing with a piece of legislation that crosses a whole lot of different entities,” Sanderson said. “You have a lot of moving parts and you have to take the time to do it right.”

But he warned that this is a key session for the shellfish industry. If a bill doesn’t move this year, he said, it would likely be two years before another one could be considered.

Sanderson said he was optimistic that a bill can be drafted to resolve the conflicts. Anytime you can get commercial and recreational fishermen together on a piece of legislation “you’ve done something remarkable,” he said.

The new bill, he said, is heading in the right direction, based on initial feedback.

“I think this year is going to be different,” Sanderson said. The new bill, he said, is needed to help lay the necessary groundwork to guide the growth of the industry.

“After that, this industry can grow at a pace where it just doesn’t overwhelm everybody and gets out of control from the very start.”

McElraft and Sanderson were joined by Sen. Rick Gunn, R-Alamance, who chairs both the Senate Commerce Committee and an appropriation subcommittee that oversees spending on agriculture, natural resource and environmental programs.

Gunn said that as a consumer of oysters he often wondered why he could get Virginia and Chesapeake oysters but couldn’t get North Carolina oysters at his favorite seafood spot near Lake Norman. He said the state has an enormous opportunity to grow a native industry.

Gunn said it’s more than growing the oysters and harvesting them. The state also has to assist with building markets inland and leveraging the tourism appeal of a unique oyster industry.

Last year’s bill, championed by former Sen. Bill Cook of Beaufort County, initially envisioned of up to 2,000 acres that were designed to draw large-scale operations. As negotiations wore on, the size of the leases was reduced, and a final compromise plan capped the total leases at 200. But opposition to the bill wasn’t limited to the size of the leases, and the compromise broke down over concerns about how quickly leases would proliferate, as well as the permitting process itself.

In the interim, the legislature turned to work underway at the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on a broader study of the state’s oyster programs and the economic and policy challenges to expansion.

The collaboratory’s report, which included a strategic plan for growing the shellfish industry over the next 10 years, took an in-depth look at the goals the state was setting and the strategy for obtaining them. One key finding was in how the state modeled its strategy. The report found that, given the conflicts with multiple uses of public trust waters, large-scale operations such as those in Virginia and Louisiana would not work in North Carolina. Researchers turned to a strategy based on keeping the sizes of leased areas smaller and concentrating on increasing productivity.

RALEIGH – For coastal North Carolina, where many communities are still reeling from the effects of last year’s storms, the top local requests for help from the General Assembly so far fall in two interrelated categories: sand and money.

With the cost estimates for beach repairs, inlet dredging and infrastructure upgrades far outstripping state and federal resources, local governments are looking at ways to raise more money on their own.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, said there’s a growing worry about the economic impact of damaged beaches and out-of-commission vacation properties going into this year’s tourist season.

“There are some coastal issues, some beach issues we’ve got to take a look at, especially as it relates to tourism, because some of those beaches got beat up pretty bad,” Brown said Thursday in an interview with Coastal Review Online. He said it’s a concern for all coastal counties because of the tax revenue that could be lost.

Brown said the last hurricane-relief bill, which passed in December, included $18.5 million in state funds for beach and coastal infrastructure repairs, and this year there will be a need for additional money to keep rebuilding efforts going.

“There’s a lot of work being done down there, but there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said.

Brown added that he was hopeful that disaster-relief legislation introduced last week in the U.S. Senate can move quickly to free up additional federal assistance.

Sales Tax Measures

Meanwhile, there are two local bills and potentially more on the way aimed at helping coastal communities raise revenue to move forward on needed work.

In a bill introduced Tuesday by Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, Carteret County would have the option of once again asking voters to adopt a countywide quarter-cent sales and use tax to cover the costs of inlet and waterway dredging and maintenance.

County voters rejected a similar effort in 2016 with 58 percent voting against the additional sales tax. Assistant County Manager Dee Meshaw said that in the 2016 referendum the county also intended to use the funds for inlet and waterway needs, but existing law didn’t allow the ballot question to state that specifically.

“We have a tremendous amount of waterways that need dredging,” Meshaw said Tuesday.

The bill mirrors legislation introduced by Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, that passed the House by a wide margin in 2017 but was never taken up by the Senate.

The new legislation, which would only apply to Carteret County, would allow the funds to be used only for inlet and waterway dredging and maintenance and require the ballot question to indicate that.

In Brunswick County, officials are looking to a meals tax to raise funds for beach and infrastructure work.

Rep. Frank Iler, R-Brunswick, said in a recent interview that he expected at least two and as many as five Brunswick County communities to take advantage of a bill he introduced early in the session to allow the county’s municipalities to adopt a half-cent meals tax. The additional tax would require approval through a referendum that could be held as early as this year.

Iler said there was a lot of work to be done on the Brunswick County coast, and the idea is to give local governments another way to fund repairs and improvements. He said Southport and Oak Island had asked for the legislation, but other communities could also take advantage of the option.

Southport Town Manager Bruce Oakley said Monday that he didn’t have a firm estimate of what a new meals tax would bring in if approved. The money would go to infrastructure repairs and improvements, he said.

While some measures to address the extensive list of coastal repairs and beach restoration work may figure into the next round of hurricane-relief legislation and this year’s state budget, legislation introduced last week would help fund Department of Environmental Quality oversight and management of the projects.

In legislation introduced last week by Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, the Division of Coastal Management would be able to use up to 2 percent of the fund annually to cover two positions: a beach and inlet project manager to oversee all activities related to beaches and inlets, and a manager to oversee financial management of water resources grants. The bill would also direct some of the fund be used to develop and maintain a database of all dredge material disposal sites in the state.

More Coastal Bills in the Que

Although it’s been a slower-than-usual start to the session, bill filing has begun to pick up.

Last week, McElraft introduced legislation that would give local control to Beaufort for the navigable waters around the unincorporated region of the Rachel Carson Reserve and extend local authority over anchoring of boats and operations of boats and vessels in navigable waters to the towns of Atlantic Beach, Bogue, Cape Carteret, Cedar Point, Emerald Isle, Indian Beach, Morehead City, Newport, Peletier and Pine Knoll Shores.

The following bills have also been introduced this session:

• H169 would adopt the loggerhead turtle as the state’s official saltwater reptile.
• H52 would clarify easement rights along the oceanfront properties to allow the town to build looped waterlines to improve water quality.
• H44  would allocate $7.5 million for the completion of renovations at Fort Fisher and allocate $500,000 to plan facilities for the state’s Underwater Archeology Branch of the Office of State Archaeology to be located at the fort.
• H245 includes a provision that would extend from 15 to 30 days the amount of time the Coastal Resources Commission has to respond to contested cases petitions.

RALEIGH – For the past few years, inside and outside the walls of the state legislature, there’s been a noticeable shift in the conversation about climate change and its impact in North Carolina.

It’s a change driven in part by a renewed political debate, but according to recent studies and surveys, it’s mainly the result of personal experience.

A new study by the Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication found that nationwide there’s been a jump in the number of people in the United States who believe they have experienced global warming’s effects.

The study, Climate Change in the American Mind, which was released in December, found that 46 percent of those surveyed said they had personally experienced the effects of global warming, two-thirds said global warming is affecting weather in the United States and more than half said warming has made natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes worse.

That change is evident in North Carolina, where record rainfalls statewide and the devastating effects of natural disasters, especially the repeated inundation of eastern North Carolina from hurricanes, has helped change the dialogue from one of questioning whether climate change is happening to what can be done about it.

The close succession of Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 and Hurricane Florence in September 2018 appears to have accelerated the change in public perception here.

An Elon University Poll conducted in October 2018, a month after Hurricane Florence made landfall here, found that for the first time a majority of North Carolinians, 53 percent, think it is very likely that the state’s coastal communities will be negatively affected by climate change during the next 50 years, an increase of 8 percent compared to a similar poll a year and a half earlier.

In the North Carolina General Assembly, the idea that public policy must take into consideration a changing climate has received greater attention as the legislature reviews recovery plans in the wake of Hurricane Florence.

Now, with a series of policy and budget choices ahead, legislative committees will begin sifting through the options.

They’ll be pushed by Gov. Roy Cooper, who has stepped up pressure on legislators to commit to programs aimed at addressing climate change, including support for cleaner energy production and an array of resiliency initiatives that would move infrastructure, agriculture operations and people out of flood-prone areas.

Cooper, who testified Wednesday morning on climate change before the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee, wields far more negotiating power as a result of the 2018 election, which ended the long-held Republican supermajorities in each chamber.

.@NC_Governor: “We can’t afford not to take urgent action to fight climate change. It is not too late, but it soon may be.” pic.twitter.com/7k0GuUx7tw

— Natural Resources (@NRDems) February 6, 2019

Cooper on Oct. 29, 2018, ordered greenhouse gas reductions in operations of all state agencies and required them to build consideration of climate effects into planning and regulatory functions. But to move the needle beyond the executive branch, the governor will need the backing of the legislature, where many members remain unconvinced of the science, the need for sweeping policy changes or both.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, a veteran legislator who is co-chair of the House Environment Committee and the appropriations subcommittee that drafts the environmental and natural resources budget, said she remains skeptical about the cause of climate change and taking policies too far in response.

“I’m convinced that the climate changes. I’m not convinced that man has that big a part in it,” she said in a recent interview with Coastal Review Online. “I’m sure there is a small amount, but when you start looking at changing everything in America, when the Chinese haven’t changed anything, and other countries haven’t changed anything …”

McElraft said she does support preventive measures, which have helped in coastal areas, but she isn’t convinced the state needs to start elevating roads. She said the emphasis should instead be on clearing debris from waterways. The state’s beach areas fared far better in terms of rising water than inland communities, she said.

“I think we in North Carolina already have prepared and are pretty resilient. I think our issues are 30 inches of rain and river flooding and we need to do something about cleaning out the creeks and rivers. That should be our focus,” McElraft said.

For Rep. Ray Russell, a Democrat who won in a Republican-leaning district in North Carolina’s northwest mountains, the state will have to do far more.

Russell, a computer science professor at Appalachian State University and a web entrepreneur who founded a respected weather site, said climate change and effects of global warming on North Carolina is one area where most residents are ahead of the legislature.

“They’re understanding climate change now, unlike five to 10 years ago. They feel it,” Russell said. Climate change deniers continue the same “mumbo-jumbo,” he said, “but no legitimate scientist has any question about (global) warming.”

Russell said that for years he’s been advising businesses to prepare for changes, and it’s inevitable that the state will also have to start to shift.

“It’s only a matter of time before it works its way to this body,” he said in a recent interview at the Legislative Building. “There are going to be fundamental changes to how we do business here, but a little bit at a time.”

The model for transportation funding, “will be turned on its head,” he said. “In 30 years, we’re not going to be able to rely on a gas tax to get that done.”

Right now, some of the biggest recurring economic effects are seen in agriculture, Russell said. In the state’s mountain regions, climate change has already shortened the growing season, and wet weather and early- to late-season temperature swings have taken a toll on berry and apple farmers.

Russell said some farmers are facing the loss of crop insurance coverage because the climate is no longer viable for orchards.

“Insurance companies are paying attention and are starting to reduce liability,” he said.

Concerns about apple orchards are also on the mind of Rep. Chuck McGrady, a Republican who is both a key House budget co-chair and an environmentalist with no qualms about the scientific consensus on climate change.

McGrady, whose district in Henderson County is in the heart of the state’s apple-growing region, said that to move forward, those pushing for policy changes will have to take a pragmatic approach. There is still a lot of wariness around the term “climate change,” McGrady said, but there is a consensus around the need for greater resiliency.

“I do think most Republicans are skeptical about climate change and you’re not going to likely see changes in how we address disaster relief by making climate change arguments,” McGrady said. “That said, I think there is more of a focus on resiliency. We have had two major storms within a short period of time, and we’re being asked to build again or fix again a range of the same things we just built or fixed.”

There’s more of a recognition now that there are places where the state should be rebuilding, he said.

The legislature has roughly $100 million budgeted for the next round of disaster relief. That’s where McGrady and others expect the disaster avoidance initiatives to happen.

Since the storm, the legislature has been working with the governor’s office to prioritize spending, working through a menu of options. The early priorities were getting schools open and roads back in service, but now, he said, there’s an understanding that the next part of the recovery plan is building greater resiliency.

“The early priority was on fixing a range of things not on preventing future things,” he said. “Now there is a recognition that since we’ve had two of these massive events that we have to spend money on prevention and avoidance.”

McGrady said he is not discouraged that many of his colleagues do not share his views on climate change. He said late last year the legislature approved a plan advocated by Cooper for a new section of the Division of Emergency Management charged with managing resiliency and recovery efforts. Setting up the new group was an acknowledgement that the state couldn’t manage either on a storm-by-storm basis and needs longer-term programs and strategies.

McGrady said he’s also encouraged because, even though many of his colleagues are still doubtful about climate change, they are now far more willing to discuss doing something about it.

While working on legislation for recovery programs during Hurricane Matthew, McGrady said that raising resilience, prevention and avoidance issues “were more or less laughed at.” The thinking then was that it was a one-time event and the state just needed to fund the recovery.

“There’s none of that thinking now,” McGrady said.

RALEIGH – The legislative session cranks up in earnest at the end of the month, but members putting together bills and budgets on environmental and mariculture initiatives are getting an early start.

The Joint Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources Thursday reviewed proposals to boost the state’s oyster enterprises and compensate growers and businesses for damage from Hurricane Florence. The committee, which has a membership that overlaps with environment and agriculture budget committees, also received updates on the economic toll of last year’s storms and a new statewide testing and monitoring program for GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS.

Several of the proposals are likely to be written into the budget bill, which is due by June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year, or introduced as standalone bills in the months ahead. Some of the proposals involve items left unresolved at the end of the 2018 session, including a plan for resolving shellfish leasing regulations that failed to win passage as last year’s session wound to a close.

Initially, that legislation would have greatly expanded the size of shellfish leases to accommodate companies that want to create large-scale operations, but the bill met opposition from both environmental advocates and shellfish growers.

In a new set of proposals — North Carolina Strategic Plan for Shellfish Mariculture: A Vision to 2030 — issued in tandem with studies mandated by the legislature, researchers and policy experts say the leasing issue has benefited from both a fresh look and better integration with an overall strategy for oyster and other mariculture initiatives.

Joel Fodrie, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City and one of the main researchers for oyster studies coordinated by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said the program proposed benefits from a new, broad review of practices in other states.

He said one key result is that the strategy proposed no longer looks to Virginia and Louisiana as templates for growing operations in North Carolina.

“These are leaders in terms of how much shellfish product they’re putting out. We know that. We’ve been asked to in some ways model our growth after Virginia,” Fodrie told legislators. “However, one thing we found is that they produce this shellfish using a huge amount of leased habitat, and this infringes on public trust resources. They produce at an incredibly low rate of per unit-acre.”

Other states, including Massachusetts and Washington, he said, have much less acreage bound up in leases but still produce a large amount of shellfish product.

“This sort of low footprint on public trust bottom, but high productivity is the model that we think works best for North Carolina and our growers.”

“This sort of low footprint on public trust bottom, but high productivity is the model that we think works best for North Carolina and our growers.”

Joel Fodrie, University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences

The shift in the model, he said, would make sure leaseholders are productive, while helping to mitigate the increasing number of conflicts over putting leases in public trust waters.

Fodrie said the mariculture plan, which includes 21 separate policy proposals, includes expanding the maximum size of a single lease in Pamlico Sound to 50 acres and giving the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries greater flexibility in determining size limits for leasing areas in other waters. Initially, last year’s legislation would have allowed for leases of up to 200 acres.

Overall, the plan sets a target of producing $33 million annually within 10 years, a size that would support roughly 1,000 jobs, Fodrie said. The 10-year cost of the initiatives in the plan would be about $13 million, he added.

Many of the recommendations in the plan would require legislative changes to existing law, including establishing the new water column leasing rules, setting up enterprise areas where leases could be expedited, authorizing a crop insurance plan for producers and setting higher production requirements for existing leases.

Fodrie said the strategic plan seeks to link existing programs and initiatives as well, from marketing programs like the proposed Oyster Trail to more funding for work by the Division of Water Resources and Division of Marine Fisheries.

If the legislature approves new leasing and other programs, DMF has to have the resources to grow along with the industry. It also means working to strengthen the business side of the operations.

“These men and women are really good at growing oysters, but they often don’t come from a business background. They need help understanding a loan program or research opportunities or insurance options,” he said.

Legislators also reviewed a program to assist commercial fishing operations damaged in Hurricane Florence.

Steve Murphey, director of the Division of Marine Fisheries, said the division is compiling trip tickets to determine damage totals for producers, who do not qualify for traditional crop insurance programs.

Murphey said the division has contacted 1,782 commercial license holders with an initial round of damage estimates and received 769 responses, so far. Checks for losses in September are expected to be mailed out by February and payments for loses for October and November will follow later this spring.

In the hurricane-response legislation passed last year, the state set aside $11.35 million to assist commercial fishing and shellfish businesses.

GenX, PFAS Network Update

Committee members also got an update on a Collaboratory effort that grew out of the contentious debate over developing policies to address PFAS and other emerging contaminants, including GenX, which are potentially harmful, but for which little research has been done to determine their effects on humans and the environment.

Last year, after a three-way debate among the House, Senate and governor’s office over how to move forward on drafting policies to monitor and regulate emerging contaminants, $5 million was earmarked for a Collaboratory-sponsored initiative to create a statewide network of researchers engaged in studies around emerging contaminants and to sponsor new research to fill in gaps needed to draft new policies.

The Per- and Polyfluroalkyl Substances Testing Network currently includes researchers at six UNC system schools and Duke University.

Lee Ferguson, a Duke researcher who specializes in the detection of PFAS compounds, said that in about two weeks, teams will conduct initial round of sampling and over the next year test waters for PFAS compounds near 191 municipal surface water intakes and all 149 municipal drinking water systems using groundwater. The first round of analysis for those initial samples should be completed in late spring.

Ferguson said the group will use targeted testing to search for 55 known PFAS compounds that are more commonly used in industrial processes and a broader testing plan for the roughly 5,000 other known PFAS compounds.

Ferguson said it’s important to get an idea of the types of PFAS compounds and their concentrations throughout the state. He said the revelations in 2017 about GenX and other compounds in the Cape Fear River may have triggered the need for more research, but there is enough evidence of the presence of PFAS compounds elsewhere in the state to warrant a comprehensive look.

“This is not just a Cape Fear problem,” he said, referring to the Wilmington area’s drinking water contamination that helped raise awareness of GenX and similar substances in North Carolina. “We are finding legacy PFAS as well as emerging PFAS compounds at variable but in some cases high levels in the drinking water supply around the Haw River watershed.”

Although the findings could not be used for enforcement actions by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, Jeffery Warren, the Collaboratory’s research director, said the information could provide DEQ with information on areas where there are potential “hot spots” for PFAS.

Although this year started with a continued focus on the GenX story that broke the year before, the two biggest news events of 2018 came much later in the year.

On Sept. 14, Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach and began its slow, devastating journey through the state and into the history books as North Carolina’s worst natural disaster.

Seven weeks later, in a usually sleepy blue moon election cycle, voters turned out in record numbers to unseat enough GOP incumbents in the state House and Senate to end supermajorities in both chambers.

The consequences of those two events at the end of the year will drive the public policy debates in the year ahead.

Beyond the turnout, the election was remarkable because of a slew of constitutional amendments added to the ballot and last-minute court cases that included challenges to their wording on the ballot.

Opposition to some of the changes included the five former governors, two Republicans and three Democrats, who held a joint press conference at the North Carolina State Capitol, to denounce two amendments as a power grab by the General Assembly.

After losing in court, the legislature went into special session to revise the amendments.

Florence, the second major storm in two years to devastate eastern North Carolina, reset the dialogue about climate change and the need for resilience.

What that looks like, however, has yet to be worked out. The three rounds of hurricane relief funding have largely avoided areas where the governor and legislative leaders disagree on direction.

In the year ahead, what resilience looks like in areas like buyout programs, environmental oversight and infrastructure investments will begin to be worked out.

Gov. Roy Cooper goes into the year in a stronger position to negotiate since veto overrides are no longer certain.

The  governor’s recent moves to set up a climate change advisory group, the North Carolina Climate Change Interagency Council, and require greater energy savings and renewable use in state agencies are an indication of where he wants to go.

But they are also a reminder that the governor can only go so far and to make major changes in policy, create and enforce new laws and provide the funds for buyouts and oversight, takes a majority vote in the House and Senate as well.

In the next budget cycle, the negotiation over how best to set up, staff and pay for efforts on emerging contaminants like GenX will continue, but without three senators who played key roles in it this year.

Sen Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, who chaired the chamber’s environmental committees and Sens. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, and Wesley Meredith, R-Cumberland, who led the Senate negotiations on GenX legislation, all lost their bids for re-election.

The following is a list of the major coastal and environmental stories from this year as they happened.

January

• Coastal advocates announce an all-out effort to fight any attempt to open the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced a new offshore leasing program that includes the mid and south-Atlantic.
• Marine Biologist Steve Murphey, who managed large-scale habitat restoration and enhancement programs for the Division of Marine Fisheries, is picked as the new division director.
• A state House committee set up to study GenX and other river quality issues approved legislation calling for a group of new studies, but the bill included no funding, the result of an ongoing disagreement with the Senate over DEQ appropriations.
• The second annual crab pot cleanup program began, employing 76 commercial watermen to remove fishing gear and pots from sounds.
• A brief, three-day session of the General Assembly ended after the state Senate adjourned before taking up a House-backed GenX bill that would have included additional funding for DEQ.
• New test results shows spikes in GenX levels after heavy rains in December 2017. In public hearings, DEQ officials detailed testing of air emissions and private drinking wells near the Bladen County plant.
• A legislative study that looked at ways to cut costs in the state Ferry Division sparked outrage over a proposal to drop dozens of off-season crossings and hike fares for heavily traveled routes.

February

• Conservation groups filed a legal challenge to plans by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, to delay application of the Waters of the U.S. rule developed by the Obama Administration.
• Cooper and House and Senate leaders meet separately with Interior Secretary Zinke on offshore drilling plans. Cooper says the state will take the federal government to court to get an exemption.
• A new version of GenX legislation introduced by Lee won approval in the state Senate, but was not taken up by the state House.
• DEQ issued notice to Chemours that it must control air emissions of GenX and other perfluorinated compounds.
• North Carolina and Virginia officials signed off on a new updated management agreement for the Albemarle-Pamlico estuary.
• After going dark for a month while workers repaired damage during winter storms, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse beamed again.
• Hundreds of coastal residents showed up to protest offshore drilling plans during a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management public hearing in Raleigh.

March

• Storms battered the Outer Banks causing severe overwash along N.C. 12 on Ocracoke Island and between Bonner Bridge and Rodanthe.
• The Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and EPA searched for 76 steel cargo containers lost during a storm about 17 miles east of Oregon Inlet.
• The North Carolina Coastal Federation announced that the annual crab pot cleanup program netted 3,496 lost crab pots.
• The state Division of Air Quality announced that fumigation operations at the Tima Capital hardwood plant in Wilmington will end after the company’s permit expires in May. The company had sought to expand its operations.

April

• Holden Beach Commissioners held a public hearing on plans for a $34.5 million terminal groin near the Lockwood Folly Inlet on the east end of town. Several residents argued the project was too risky and costly.
• DMF announced plans for a new artificial fishing reef 8 miles south of Oregon Inlet.
• Concept plans for the future use of a reclaimed Superfund site at Navassa introduced at a public meeting include commercial lots, recreational land and features that celebrate the town’s Gullah history.
• State House members looking into GenX issues toured DEQ testing labs and heard a pitch for better detection equipment.
• A state study recommended that an area of the Black River be turned into a state park. Initial costs, including clearing the river and creating access points would be between $800,000 and $2.7 million.
• Ahead of the legislative short session, Cooper announced a $14.5 million GenX funding request for DEQ and DHHS studies and enforcement work.
• Environmental groups dropped a lawsuit over the Havelock Bypass after the North Carolina Department of Transportation agreed to a habitat protection plan.
• In a unanimous vote, Holden Beach Commissioners withdrew permit applications to the Army Corps of Engineers for a terminal groin, saying the costs outweigh the benefits.
• In a move that bolstered the fast growing wood pellet industry in eastern North Carolina, the EPA announced it would treat biomass as carbon neutral when burned for energy production.
• The Coastal Land Trust purchased roughly 1,000 acres in Bertie County where there is ongoing archaeological research associated with the Lost Colony.
• In a tense hearing in Raleigh, University of North Carolina Wilmington researchers and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority officials defended studies on GenX contamination after angry legislators accused them of fear mongering for political reasons.
• A federal court awards the first in a series of multi-million dollar judgements in nuisance lawsuits against hog operations in eastern North Carolina.

May

• DEQ Secretary Michael Regan announced the appointment of a new 16-member Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board.
• Cape Fear Public Utility Authority began the final review for options for filtering GenX and other compounds.
• As the legislative short session began, a new GenX bill was considered. It included additional funding, but new regulatory language in it raised concerns it could muddy enforcement.
• Ferry Division officials announced a delay to the start of new passenger-only ferry service between Hatteras and Ocracoke until spring of 2019.
• The state Supreme Court sided with Currituck County in a long-running legal battle over development in the four-wheel drive area of Currituck Banks.
• General Assembly budget committees reviewed a proposal for a public-private partnership to purchase a new dredge dedicated to Oregon Inlet and agreed to include it in the budget.
• In its annual prediction at the start of hurricane season, forecasters with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center predicted an active tropical storm season with 10-16 named storms and one to four major hurricanes.

June

• Legislators approve the NC Farm Act of 2018, which included controversial protections to restrict nuisance lawsuits against hog and poultry operations.
• The General Assembly approved the state budget and a flurry of other bills, including a GenX bill with both additional funding and changes sought by the manufacturing industry, additional dredging funds and a loosening of coastal stormwater restrictions.
• As legislators wound up work, an aquaculture bill with new rules on shellfish leasing stalled over House and Senate disagreements. Meanwhile the legislature voted to override vetoes by the governor of regulatory and agriculture bills.
• After delaying its beach renourishment plans for a year, Nags Head commissioners approved a $42.7 million renourishment project.
• A new study put the value of property in North Carolina threatened by sea level rise at $4 billion with most of the properties at risk in the northeastern coastal counties.
• Dwayne Patterson, the chief financial officer for the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, was named director of the state Division of Parks and Recreation, which manages the state parks, recreation and natural areas. He is the first African-American to lead the division.
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers turned down a proposal to extend a beach renourishment project on Bogue Banks mainly over the availability of a hopper dredge.

July

• State officials warned residents not to go near an algal bloom in the Chowan River upstream from Edenton.
• DMF announced a new real-time app that shows when shellfishing waters are open or closed to harvest.
• Cooper made several appointments to the CRC including former CRC chair Bob Emory, former DEQ assistant secretary Robin Smith and Mayor Trace Cooper of Atlantic Beach. Lauren Salter was also appointed as a commercial fishing representative and current chair Renee Cahoon was re-appointed.
• Heavy king tides along the coast carved out beaches in several places and left a 10-foot high cliff near Jennette’s Pier.
• DOT and Hyde County officials cut the ribbon on the new Swan Quarter ferry terminal.
• DEQ’s Division of Air Quality put four pending applications for methyl bromide log fumigation on hold and asked a state science panel to designate the chemical as a state toxic air pollutant.
• The EPA denied an attempt to reclassify a 15-mile stretch of the lower Cape Fear as swamp water, ending a multi-year fight over a move to ease environmental enforcement due to low dissolved oxygen levels in the river.

August

• State officials issued another warning about algal bloom in the Chowan River.
• In an unprecedented show of unity, five former governors joined together to urge voters to reject two constitutional amendments on the fall ballot. One aimed at a governor’s appointment powers was challenged in court by environmental groups who said it would weaken enforcement.
• At an EPA forum in Fayetteville, residents and state officials called on the agency to take stronger action on GenX and other toxic substances.
• Dare County drafted a plan for dredging Rodanthe and Avon harbors and Hatteras Inlet.
• After a lengthy review, the state’s Science Advisory Board recommended that state officials continue to use a health goal for GenX of 140 parts per trillion.
• The last span was put in place for the new bridge over Oregon Inlet.
• Legislators toured N.C. 12 and met with DOT and local officials about ferry and road needs.
• DMF began work on new estuarine artificial reefs in Carteret County near Spooner’s Creek and the mouth of the White Oak River.
• In a special session, the legislature approved changes to two proposed constitutional amendments, including the elimination of a section limiting the appointment powers of the governor.
• Environmental groups filed suit to stop Chemours from discharging PFAS substances.

September

• The National Hurricane Center, tracking a tropical depression near Cape Verde, announced it had strengthened and assigned it the name Florence.
• Negotiations continued as a DEQ deadline for Chemours to cease most air emissions of GenX and other PFAS compounds is reached.
• Wilmington city council agreed to cover a $500,000 local match for a grant to study relocation of the rail line to the other side of the Cape Fear River.
• Evacuations began throughout the coast as Hurricane Florence, moving on a track toward North Carolina, strengthened to a major hurricane.
• Work began on the new 2.4 mile “jug-handle” bridge on N.C. 12.
• Massive, slow-moving Hurricane Florence pounded the North Carolina coast through three tidal cycles, made landfall near Wrightsville Beach and dumped as much as 3 feet of rain as it moved through the state.
• In the wake of the storm, land routes were cut to several cities and towns, including Wilmington. Thousands of rescue operations were conducted as floodwaters rose along the Black, Waccamaw, Cape Fear and Neuse rivers.
• In all, 39 people died in the storm or its aftermath and the estimated damage reached $13 billion, more than that of Hurricane Matthew and Floyd combined.
• Health officials warned against contact with floodwaters in the aftermath of the storm during which dozens of sewage treatment plants and large-scale animal operations were flooded and major breaches were reported at coal ash impoundments near Wilmington and Goldsboro.
• Initial estimates on transportation costs top $266 million. Damage includes a 20-foot deep trench cut through U.S. 421 near the Pender-New Hanover county line.

October

• As hurricane recovery continued, coastal communities struggled to deal with massive amounts of debris.
• the draft plan for restoring Lake Mattamuskeet is released.
• The legislature approved a plan for roughly $400 million in initial disaster relief funding, mostly to provide state matches for Federal Emergency Management Agency grants.
• More than a month after sustaining an estimated $140 million in damages, classes resumed at UNC-Wilmington.
• Dare County agreed to take the lead on dredging Manteo Channel to free up the Elizabeth II, which is stuck at its Roanoke Island mooring.
• Tropical Storm Michael, packing high winds and heavy rain, moved west to east across the state, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and causing significant soundside flooding.
• Officials from Topsail Island’s three towns held a briefing on what to do about the heavily damaged beaches. The storm erased much of the island’s beaches, including almost the entire berm at Surf City.

November

• Citing the impacts of hurricanes Matthew and Florence, Cooper announced a stronger emphasis on climate change, ordering energy use reductions at state agencies and greater use of alternative fueled vehicles.
• A record turnout at the polls reduced the Republican majorities in the state House and Senate. In a close race for a state senate seat in New Hanover County, former Wilmington Mayor Harper Peterson defeated Sen. Michael Lee.
• Legislators received a briefing on the extent of problems with abandoned vessels. Some called for changes to the state’s current system for dealing with derelict boats saying it doesn’t work.
• Blood tests of hundreds of Wilmington residents did not show concentrations of GenX, but showed other PFAS compounds.
• The legislature returned for a second post-hurricane session and approved additional funding, mainly to provide matches to federal grants.
• NCDOT awarded contracts for construction of two new ferries to replace older vessels. They will go into service in 2020.
• Smithfield Foods announced new energy to waste projects as part of a company initiative to address concerns about hog waste.
• Beaufort County commissioners approved a new solar facility ordinance, joining the list of coastal counties imposing new rules on siting, operation and decommissioning of solar facilities.
• DEQ Secretary Regan visited Ocracoke to tour the island’s microgrid energy system, calling it a innovative project that could help other communities.

December

• Legislators approved an additional $18.5 million in funding for damage to beaches and infrastructure in coastal communities. Coastal representatives said they are not hopeful about finding funds to cover the estimated $162 million in state money needed for repairs and sand replacement.
• Citing damage from Hurricane Florence, Duke Energy officials requested more time to complete efforts to excavate coal ash at its Sutton generating plant in New Hanover County.
• House and Senate members offer competing bills on how to deal with boards and commissions ruled unconstitutional. A senate bill would eliminate the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, Parks and Recreation Board and four others. The House bill changes their composition and keeps them in place. Neither bill is passed.
• The new Interagency Council on Climate Change, charged with developing strategies in state departments on energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions, held its inaugural meeting.
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission suspended further construction on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline after a federal court ruled that environmental permits weren’t given a close enough review.
• DOT set the new rates for the passenger-only Ocracoke to Hatteras ferry. A round-trip ticket will cost $15 during peak season and $5 in the off season.
• Environmental groups announced plans to sue the Trump administration over its approval of seismic testing in an area extending from Delaware to Florida.
• In the final session of the year, the state House and Senate voted to override vetoes of an elections bill and omnibus legislation that included controversial changes to stormwater and buffer rules.

RALEIGH – A state Senate bill that would eliminate the oversight boards for the Clean Water Management and Parks and Recreation trust funds and four other boards passed the Senate Thursday.

Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, who last week introduced the measure, Senate Bill 821, said it was necessary due to a recent court ruling that the six boards are unconstitutional because they do not give the governor a majority of appointments.

In addition to Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, or PARTF, and Clean Water Management Trust Fund, or CWMTF, the bill would dissolve the boards of Private Protective Services, Rural Infrastructure Authority, the State Building Commission and the Child Care Commission at the end of the fiscal year on June 29, 2019.

Wells said his main beef was with the parks and clean water boards. “We’ve learned that the parks and recreation funding serves the Raleigh community extremely well,” Wells said during a hearing of the Senate Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources Committee Thursday morning. “Those of us that live in and around Mecklenburg County are at a significant disadvantage.”

CWMTF has a problem with its scoring for projects, he said, because it “favors those areas, particularly in the mountains, that are under no threat of development.”

In an interview Wednesday evening, Wells said he supports the mission of both boards but has concerns with how the funds are being distributed. He said park funds have been too heavily weighted toward projects in the central Piedmont and clean water projects use a scoring system that favors protections for already pristine waters in the mountains, rather than for projects in areas where waters are more threatened.

Wells said he has been trying to work with the parks board to develop a park along the Catawba River, but the lack of progress had been frustrating.

During discussion in Senate committees on the bill Thursday, Sen. Erica Smith, D-Northhampton, pressed Wells on whether the bill was in reaction to the court ruling or out of his frustration about funding from the two programs.

She pointed to legislation introduced late Tuesday by Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, that instead of eliminating the boards would reconfigure the number of appointments to comply with the court ruling.

She said Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive order issued after the court ruling takes care of any legal issues with the boards and gives the legislature time to work out any difficulties with the structure.

“It is not the existence of the boards that is at error here, it is the composition of the appointments,” Smith said. She said Wells’ bill was “unnecessary and unwarranted and seeks to solve a problem that does not exist.”

Wells acknowledged that McGrady’s bill would solve the problem with the composition of the boards, but he said it would not address concerns about the regional disparity in funding or the project scoring for CWMTF.

Wells said neither bill would stop the functions of either organization and that any long-term solution would be worked out during the General Assembly’s 2019 long session.

The court ruling in McCrory v. Berger, a long-running, separation-of-powers case between the executive and legislative branches, affirms the governor’s right to appoint a majority on the boards and commissions that serve executive branch functions.

“Those boards serve an important function,” said Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford. “They offer a variety of expertise in the decision-making process both on land conservation and water quality protections.”

Based on her own experiences serving on the Coastal Resources Commission and other boards, Harrison said it’s important to have the additional layer of review.

“There’s much better decision making when you have all parties at the table and that’s what these boards do.”

McGrady said Wednesday he did not think his bill would move, but that he expected the overall issue “to reach a resolution.” He noted that more than 20 GOP colleagues had signed on to his legislation.

Wells’ bill, which passed the Senate 21-8 on a mostly party-line vote, moved to the House, where it has been sent to the rules committee, the main gatekeeper for legislation during this year’s post-election legislative session.

If it is taken up by the House, the legislature will have little time to reach a compromise as it winds up a session aimed mainly at passing another round of hurricane-relief funding and enacting a Voter ID bill, which was a result of voters’ approval of a constitutional amendment to require photographic identification to vote.

Cooper is expected to veto the Voter ID bill and House and Senate leaders are likely to keep the legislature in session in order to override the veto.

With time growing short for the lame-duck session, Cooper would be able to run out the clock on any bill passed after Dec. 21. State law allows the governor to hold a bill for 10 days before deciding to veto it, sign it or let it become law without his signature.

The two-year legislative session ends Dec. 31. A new legislature is to be sworn in early January.

RALEIGH – Legislators are set to reconvene in Raleigh after Thanksgiving as more details are compiled in steadily increasing estimates of the damage from Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Michael.

The General Assembly, which returns Nov. 27 for a previously scheduled post-election extension of its 2018 regular session, is expected to approve another spending package that would draw from roughly $395 million set aside but not allocated in a one-day session in mid-October. The session could extend into the first week of December.

During the session, the legislature appropriated about $400 million aimed mainly at replenishing state matching funds for federal help, but legislators avoided some of the more controversial and potentially expensive topics under consideration by the legislature and the Cooper administration.

Those include buyout programs for residences, businesses and agriculture operations, moving sewage treatment plants and infrastructure out of floodplains and potentially sweeping changes to waterway debris removal and river basin management.

During a review Tuesday in Raleigh by the Joint Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Natural and Environmental Resources, legislators received an update on estimates for farm damages, stream debris removal, derelict boats and the effects on water and wastewater infrastructure and commercial fishing operations.

In a breakdown of what happened at public water and wastewater facilities, Jim Gregson, deputy director of the Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources, said wastewater system bypasses and sanitary sewer outflows dumped nearly 88 million gallons of untreated wastewater into surface waters in the state.

Gregson stressed that much of that water was heavily diluted by the volume of water from the storms, but the spills put the viability of some systems and their ability to weather storms into sharper focus.

Of the 758 water systems in the 58-county area disaster area, 98 had to rely on backup power to continue to function and 20 ran out of water as Hurricane Florence moved into the area.

A week after the storm, 16 systems were still not producing water, six were without power, 28 were operating on backup power and eight reported pressure problems.

Damage to the 474 wastewater treatment plants in the area left 24 systems only partially operational and 15 non-operational a week after the storm.

There were 516 overflows recorded, with major spills at Jacksonville and High Point, Gregson said.

Gregson said that about 3,000 of the state’s 3,300 wastewater lagoons at large-scale livestock operations were in the affected area. Six operations saw discharges because of either full or partial breaches, 32 lagoons were overtopped by floodwaters and 10 lagoons were inundated.

Rising floodwaters that lasted weeks after the storm left some operations flooded for more than three weeks after the storm, Gregson said.

Some legislators said concerns about animal operations were overblown, given the size of the problem with wastewater failures.

“Why are we having so much focus on animal facilities, why aren’t we having more focus on wastewater treatment plants?” Sen. Andy Wells, R-Alexander, asked during the meeting.

Wells also asked DEQ officials whether they were allowing state funds to be spent on rebuilding any wastewater treatment plants within the 100-year floodplain.

Kim Colson, DEQ’s director of the Division of Water Infrastructure, said that the top priority was rehabilitation and replacement of aging infrastructure.

“In many cases that aging infrastructure, if it is prone to flooding, will be moved either out of the floodplain or better protected,” he said. Most would be protected and not moved, he added, in part because of Federal Emergency Management Agency rules.

In an interview last month with Coastal Review Online, Grady McCallie, senior policy analyst for the North Carolina Conservation Network, said the environmental group would continue to push for moving large-scale animal operations, including the state’s growing number of poultry operations, out of the floodplain.

“It’s time to get all of the swine and poultry operations out of the 100-year floodplain,” he said.

At the same time, the state needs to push for conversion to better methods for dealing with the waste, he said. That should be a part of any plan as well because some of the operations that were damaged and flooded were outside of the floodplain.

Gov. Roy Cooper has also called for an increase in funding for an ongoing buyout program that’s seen little success in recent years due in part to lack of funding.

Cooper and DEQ Secretary Michael Regan have also pushed for additional funding to move wastewater infrastructure out of floodplains.

Gregson also gave legislators an outline of the growing needs assessment for beach re-nourishment, inlet dredging and flood mitigation in coastal regions.

An ongoing compilation of the costs to re-nourish eroded beaches has reached $290 million and channel dredging costs are estimated at $62 million.

Gregson said local governments are continuing to conduct estimates and are working with FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to determine funding options.

Agriculture and Aquaculture Support

One of the largest parts of any future recovery package is reimbursement to farmers to cover agricultural losses. The legislature set up the structure for a payment program in last month’s recovery package but didn’t fund it, instead waiting on state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler to provide additional details on the program.

Troxler told legislators Tuesday that the funds are needed soon, in part to settle with lenders in order to finance next year’s operations. He estimated that the final cost of the recovery package for farmers would be $250 million.

While some of those funds would go to aquaculture operations, coastal legislators on the committee expressed concern that much of the losses in commercial fishing and oyster harvesting won’t be covered.

Steve Murphey, director of the Division of Marine Fisheries, said the division was compiling estimates of the losses to commercial fishing and shellfish operations based on trip tickets, but that’s not likely to capture all the losses.

“The total impact is very hard to put a total figure on, but we know it is going to be significant,” Murphey said.

He said the historic, 2013-17 averages for commercial seafood harvests during September was around $10 million. The impact for shellfish leaseholders in public trust waters was roughly $3.5 million.

There’s also a lot of damage to infrastructure, he said.

“There’s a lot of seafood houses out there missing docks. They couldn’t service the boats even if they did go fishing,” Murphey said.

The damage didn’t end after the storm subsided, he added. There’s damage both to the fishing infrastructure and a significant impact on the ecosystems that support the fisheries.

“What we see when this amount of fresh water hits an ecosystem is that it displaces a lot of fish,” Murphey said. “So, if you’re a crabber in Craven County on the Neuse River, you’re not going to have a very good fall because those crabs are already down in the sound somewhere.”

Experience shows that the storms’ effects on fisheries continue into the following years, he said.

Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, said he would like to see more money allocated for the shellfish industry.

The state has so far allocated $1.6 million for losses to both commercial fishing operations and shellfish harvesters. Cook noted that the amount would be split between the two groups when the loss to the shellfish harvesters alone is estimated at $3.5 million.

“Oysters have had a devastating year,” he said. “Many of these guys lost the whole kit and kaboodle. Is there any way we can adjust this?”

Murphey said if more money is appropriated the funding could be easily “scaled up,” but he agreed that the amount allocated so far would only cover a fraction of the cost.

“Basically $1.6 million would cover the week that they took off to prepare for the storm,” he said.

RALEIGH – The General Assembly returned Monday for part two of its Hurricane Florence recovery session, unanimously passing about $400 million in new appropriations, but the bill fell short of what the administration and environmental advocates say is needed in water quality and resilience improvements.

The bulk of the money in the bill, Senate Bill 3, goes for transportation, schools, agriculture and state funding matches for federal grants. The legislature also set aside an additional $395 million to be used for further recovery funding but did not specify where it would be spent.

Funds for the state Department of Environmental Quality were limited to three coastal programs, including $2 million for the Division of Water Resources to conduct a survey of damage to beaches and channels and to assess disposal areas for dredged materials; $1.6 million for the Division of Marine Fisheries to compensate commercial fishing and shellfish operations for equipment and income losses; and $400,000 to DMF to support the North Carolina Coastal Federation-sponsored marine debris cleanup program. The federation is the publisher of Coastal Review Online.

A policy provision in the bill directs the Coastal Resources Commission to adopt new temporary rules that would streamline permitting for living shorelines. Division of Coastal Management director Braxton Davis told an oversight committee last week that after a post-storm assessment, living shoreline projects proved their worth.

Another $20 million in the bill is earmarked for the state’s Golden LEAF Foundation to distribute grants to local governments and nonprofits for repair and replacement of storm-damaged water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure. The foundation is a nonprofit set up to use part of North Carolina’s share from the 1998 settlement agreement with cigarette manufacturers to increase economic opportunity in North Carolina’s rural and tobacco-dependent communities.

In a statement issued shortly after signing the bill, Gov. Roy Cooper said he appreciated the legislature’s quick response and set out the next steps in the recovery.

“I appreciate legislators responding quickly and taking this initial step to help North Carolinians recover from this devastating storm, particularly in the areas of education and the federal match,” Cooper said. “However, we must continue to work together to provide more for affordable housing and farmers as well as to make real investments to ensure clean water and to lessen the impacts of future storms on our homes, roads, businesses and water infrastructure.”

In a response to Coastal Review Tuesday, Cooper spokesperson Ford Porter said the governor will continue to push for more DEQ resources.

“The governor appreciates the quick legislative action for hurricane recovery. He also wants to lessen the damage from future storms and to protect water supplies. That means building more resilient wastewater systems and keeping pollution sources out of the floodplains and making sure DEQ has the resources to do its job,” Porter said. “These needs are a priority and the governor will continue to urge legislators to address them.”

Legislators said the bill was another step in a long process.

Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, the House Appropriations Committee chair, told legislators the first strategy was to use the roughly $400 million in this round of recovery funding to address immediate needs. The rest of the funds set aside would be available for use once legislators return in November. Dollar said he expects appropriations for the recovery to also be a part of the next year’s budget process.

Cassie Gavin, director of government affairs for the North Carolina Sierra Club, said there were positives in the bill, but it failed to address some of the more pressing environmental needs, including a proposal by Cooper to fund $25 million in grants through the Clean Water Management Trust Fund for flood abatement and surface water protection and $13 million for DEQ to support additional testing and monitoring and assistance programs for local government water quality and system resilience projects.

“We appreciate the funds dedicated to coastal debris cleanup and the support for living shorelines expressed in the bill. We also support the creation of the Office of Recovery and Resiliency and hope that this represents a new commitment by the legislature to help North Carolina address the impacts of storms and climate change,” Gavin said Tuesday. “We call on legislative leaders to fund hog farm buyouts, the Clean Water Management Trust Fund’s flood abatement and water quality protection efforts and flood mapping and planning in the next hurricane relief bill.”

Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said she was disappointed to see that the bill failed to include the CWMTF and resiliency funding.

“I feel like it’s a lost opportunity,” Harrison said. “We do not want to keep rebuilding in harm’s way. It’s dangerous and it’s expensive.”

Harrison said it’s a fair assessment that legislative leaders steered away from issues that would have been controversial ahead of this year’s elections, but she’s worried that rebuilding could go forward without a new strategy in place.

“It makes zero sense for us to be pouring money into wastewater infrastructure in the floodplain or repairing hog lagoons that are in the floodplain,” she said. The kind of flooding from Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence is “becoming the new normal,’ she said. “We need to be more thoughtful about how we rebuild.”

She did not expect the policy changes to take place quickly, however, saying the coming lame duck session, scheduled to start Nov. 27, is likely to be “less congenial” than the two recent recovery sessions. Harrison said a deeper look at policy changes and the prospect of additional funding is more likely to take place next year after a new General Assembly takes office.

During debate on the bill in the House, Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said the state will need to develop a long-term strategy for riverine flooding. She said she wants to see more debris removal in the rivers and streams as well as a look at whether dredging the rivers is an appropriate route. She said she supported setting up the new resiliency office to help policy makers get a better understanding of the problem and potential solutions.

“It’s not a short-term fix,” she said. “That’s exactly why we need this Office of Resiliency, to prepare and prevent the flooding.”

McElraft said the new recovery bill was just the start and a major shift in policy and funding won’t come easy.

“It’ll take a lot money, a lot of study and we’ve got to get it done,” McElraft said.

Rep. Robert Muller, R-Pender, told his colleagues that he appreciated the new round of funding, but is reminded every time he travels in his district of the enormity of the task ahead. He said the debris removal alone is daunting, especially on Topsail Island, where there was flooding from the storm surge and hundreds of roofs damaged by powerful winds.

“In the area I live, I was lucky,” Mueller said during House debate. “All I have is limbs and twigs and trees blown down in my yard. When you go down my street you see 5-foot-high piles of debris the full length of the street – trees and limbs. When you go onto the island you don’t see trees piled up, you see mattresses, sofas, couches, kitchen appliances, people’s lives on the road.”

Further inland near the low-lying areas along the Northeast Cape Fear and Black rivers you see the same thing, he said.

The bill, which was approved unanimously in both chambers and signed into law by the governor Monday night reserves $849,430,477 for the recovery effort and appropriates $398,430,477 to the Hurricane Florence Disaster Recover Fund. The unspent portion would be held in reserve for the next round of funding, which legislators expect to take up when they return to Raleigh in November.

To cover the total, the legislation draws $700 million from the state’s Savings Reserve, sometimes called the Rainy Day Fund; $65 million from the state Highway Fund; $25 million from the Education Lottery Reserve account; $2 million from the Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund; and $930,000 from unused funds allocated to the Department of Insurance under a Hurricane Matthew relief fund.

Legislators opted not to pull money from the state’s unappropriated fund balance, which was a key source of funds for the governor’s plan. The governor’s plan called for a total of $1.5 billion with an initial “down payment” of $750 million. It used the same $25 million from the lottery reserve and $65 million from the Highway Fund as the General Assembly plan, but split the remaining cost of the down payment, about $662 million between the unappropriated fund balance and the savings reserve drawing $331 million from each.

At a recent briefing, State Budget Director Charlie Perusse said the state’s current unappropriated fund balance is about $650 million.

Spending Breakdown

The largest chunk of money in Senate Bill 3 goes to the Department of Public Safety, which will get $100 million to be used mainly for additional state matching funds for Federal Emergency Management Agency grants and to set up an Office of Resiliency and Recovery, which was requested by the governor to manage the long-term recovery effort as well as projects and studies aimed at improving resiliency.

Fifteen employees at the Department of Emergency Management who are already working on recovery projects would move to the new office and hiring would start for an additional 15 employees.

The new office will take over distribution of a $23 million fund for home repairs and renovations and a buyout and relocation program to move families out of floodplains. Another program under the office would distribute $8 million in financial aid to non-profits that provide shelters, housing repairs and other disaster recovery services.

The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services would receive an initial $70 million with $50 earmarked for hay relief, pasture renovation, reforestation, non-field road repair and to cover the state matching requirements for federal Department of Agriculture grants.

About $20 million is set aside for the state match for federal farmer assistance grants. Another $1,121,629 goes to the Soil and Water Conservation Division for stream debris removal, stream restoration, sediment removal and drainage repairs.

The bill sets up the structure for a larger farmer recovery program requested by both Cooper and Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler but does not appropriate $200 million in funding requested. In a hearing earlier this month, legislators said they wanted to see the way the program would work before putting up the funds. The program, which Cooper said could also include an expanded conversion and buyout program for waste systems at large swine operations, is expected to be one of the items up for discussion when the legislature returns after the elections.

Other funding in the bill includes:

• Transportation/ Debris Removal – The Department of Transportation’s $65 million appropriation covers the state’s 25 percent match requirement for FEMA grants for road repair and debris removal.
• Education/Higher Education – Local school systems would get $60 million in funds for repairs and $30 million is allocated for repair and renovations to damages facilities at University of North Carolina Wilmington, UNC-Pembroke and Fayetteville State University. UNC system and community college students from counties affected by the disaster would also receive individual assistance to cover tuition and expenses that would might cause them to withdraw from school.
• Department of Health and Human Services – Funds in the bill include $5 million for mental health services, $500,000 for assistance for unaffiliated hospitals in the disaster area, $3.5 million for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, assistance, $1 million for an emergency prescription program and $2 million toward an estimated $7.6 million in costs to local health departments for mosquito abatement.
• Housing – The state’s Housing Finance Agency receives $10 million to assist with development of affordable housing and repair single family homes and existing HFA properties in affected counties.
• Volunteer Fire Departments – A total of $930,477 for volunteer departments for repairs and damages not covered by federal assistance or insurance policies.

RALEIGH – With a deadline for printing ballots for the 2018 elections fast approaching, court challenges and high-level opposition are putting a focus on proposed constitutional amendments that could shift a considerable amount of power from the Office of Governor to the North Carolina General Assembly.

During a joint press conference Monday at the North Carolina State Capitol, the state’s five living former governors, two Republicans and three Democrats, came out strongly against two amendments they say would undermine the power of the executive branch.

The unprecedented rebuke of the legislature’s moves comes as legal efforts against the amendments continue.

Last week, the Southern Environmental Law Center joined the legal fight against the amendments, filing a case on behalf of Clean Air North Carolina and the state NAACP that challenges four of the six proposed amendments.

The General Assembly passed the amendments during the last week of June at the end of this year’s short session. Legislators returned last month to write the ballot language for the amendments and returned again a week later to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of those bills.

Cooper launched his own legal battle against the amendments shortly after they were approved by the legislature. Bills relating to constitutional amendments are one of the categories of legislation not subject to a gubernatorial veto.

The five former governors late Tuesday filed an amicus brief joining Cooper’s lawsuit against the legislature.

In an interview Tuesday with Coastal Review Online, Kym Hunter, the Southern Environmental Law Center’s lead attorney for the case, said she expected a ruling on a temporary restraining order as early as Wednesday. Legislative leaders challenged the plaintiffs’ standing, and plaintiffs responded that lawmakers misstated key facts. A three-judge panel is scheduled to hold its first hearing in the case at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday in Wake County Superior Court.

Hunter said that, of the four amendments, the greatest potential impact for the state’s environment could come from passage of an amendment that would give the legislature sole authority to appoint members of state boards and commissions, including those with direct authority over implementing environmental policy and rule-making.

In the lawsuit, nonprofit Clean Air North Carolina joined with the NAACP to also fight a proposed voter ID amendment that will allow the legislature greater authority in drafting new voter ID laws to replace one that was struck down as unconstitutional after a federal appeals court ruled it targeted African-American voters.

Hunter said that while it may not seem like an environmental issue, the disproportionate effects on African-Americans in environmental disasters and, as the recent industrial hog farm cases illustrated, disproportional impact in dealing with day-to-day pollution make fair representation a priority.

“It’s really important that everyone in this state gets a vote,” Hunter said. “It’s important that our state representatives are representing all the people.”

The lawsuit also challenges a proposed amendment for a tax cap that could limit the state’s response to environmental challenges, she said. And a judicial appointments amendment would give the legislature control over candidates to fill judicial vacancies, a change Hunter said threatens judicial branch independence.

“Environmental groups use the court system to challenge things like illegally issued permits. It’s really important that we have an independent judiciary,” Hunter said. “We’re concerned about that shift in power.”

The proposed amendment also contains a section that Hunter and others say could allow for a judicial appointments bill, which also cannot be vetoed, to become a vehicle for other legislation that would otherwise be rejected by the governor.

Hunter said while she expected a ruling soon on the temporary restraining order, the case will likely be appealed regardless of the outcome. But time is running short to finalize the fall ballot.

State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement officials said the board will need to send ballot data to vendors on Friday to meet a deadline to have absentee ballots ready by Sept. 7, or 60 days before the election, as required by law.

Patrick Gannon, public information officer for the state board, said the court can reduce that threshold to 45 days before the election, but that absentee by-mail ballots must be available by Sept. 22 under federal law. Early voting starts Oct. 17 and Election Day is Nov. 6.

The legislature is scheduled to return Nov. 26 to take up enabling legislation for any constitutional amendments approved by the voters.

Governors versus Legislators

The current lawsuits are just a precursor to what will come if the two amendments aimed at the powers of the governor pass, according to former Gov. Jim Martin, a Republican who served in the office from 1985 to 1993.

During a Monday press conference from the well of the House at the old State Capitol, Martin said the language of the amendments is so unclear that it would trigger litigation that could hamstring state government for years.

Martin said that, as evidenced by the unprecedented solidarity of the five former governors, the issue is not a partisan one. “You see, this is not about partisan politics, this is about power politics,” he said, “and it must be stopped.”

Martin said the amendments would interfere with both the constitution’s requirement for separation of powers as well as the governor’s role to faithfully execute the laws. He called the language in the judicial appointments amendment that could be used to avoid a veto for other matters a “trojan horse” and said that, far from clarifying the definitions of the amendments for the ballot, the recent ballot language bills passed by the legislature did more to obscure the real intent.

Martin was joined by former Govs. Mike Easley, Jim Hunt, Pat McCrory and Beverly Perdue, who all roundly criticized the effort as a legislative power grab.

McCrory, who had successfully sued legislative leaders over appointments legislation during his 2013-17 term, called the amendments “deceitful and misleading.”

Easley, who served as governor from 2001 to 2009, said boards and commissions such as the Coastal Resources Commission were part of the executive branch and shouldn’t be under control of the legislature.

“I think it’s important to understand that the power of the executive is in those boards and commissions,” Easley said. “That’s where you get your permits. That’s where you get your regulations.”

Legislative leaders pushed back against the former governors. House and Senate elections committee chairs Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, and Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, sent out a scathing email titled “Greatest Hits on Ethics and Appointments From Previous Governors” that detailed “Just how far off the rails North Carolina’s governors went without a balanced, bipartisan elections and ethics enforcement board and a merit-based judicial selection process.”

A joint statement following the press conference from House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger read: “While it’s not surprising former governors oppose checks and balances on the unilateral authority of their office, we are confident the people will support a more accountable approach to filling judicial vacancies and approve a bipartisan balance on critical boards like the state’s ethics and elections commission over a system of purely political control.”

If Amendments Pass, Then What?

Robin Smith, a former state assistant environmental secretary and a recent Cooper appointee to the Coastal Resources Commission, said what’s being contemplated would be a significant change in the balance of power in the state.

In an interview Tuesday, Smith said she agreed with former Gov. Martin’s assessment that the amendments would interfere with the governor’s ability to do the job the constitution requires.

“It’s the governor’s duty to make sure the laws are faithfully executed, and the governor can’t do that if he has no control either over either the appointment of those commission members or their removal,” said Smith.

“It’s the governor’s duty to make sure the laws are faithfully executed, and the governor can’t do that if he has no control either over either the appointment of those commission members or their removal.”

Robin Smith, former assistant environmental secretary, Coastal Resources Commission appointee

She said it would be hard to predict how commissions made up of legislative appointees would interact with their respective departments, which are under the governor’s control.

“It’s certainly sets up a political division that doesn’t exist in quite this way now,” she said. “If they were all legislative appointees they would presumably be more responsive to legislative concerns versus the staff.”

Smith said legislators have always had the ability to amend statutes if they disagree with how a department or commission interprets policy or carries out the laws, but it’s unclear how having more direct control over the rule-making boards will play out.

“I’m not sure anyone really knows exactly what it would look like because we’ve never done this before.”

Smith said she expected more litigation, should the amendments pass, saying there would likely be action around conflicts among various sections of the constitution.

The amendment asserting legislative control over appointments powers doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen, she said, given that it only adds language to the constitution’s separation of powers section and doesn’t eliminate it.

“It’s not clear to me that this amendment would even resolve that issue, because the language is still going to be in the constitution that talks about executive, legislative and judicial powers being fully separate, she said. “(The legislature’s) intent is likely for that new language to mean they can appoint all or a majority of the members, but I think that’s going to set up another round of litigation over whether in fact that language can do that given the requirement for separation of powers and the governor’s duty for the laws to be faithfully executed.”

Smith said that should the amendments pass, the required enabling legislation could also face legal challenges.

“Constitutional amendments don’t just limit state agencies, they limit the legislature’s authority, too,” Smith said. “So, you’re going to have to look at that enabling legislation with an eye toward whether it’s truly consistent with not just amendments but the constitution as a whole.”

RALEIGH — Environmental advocates are warning that a constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall will dramatically shift implementation of environmental policies, allowing for greater direct control by the legislature.

Last week, in the closing days of this year’s short session, legislators approved six constitutional amendments for the November ballot, among them a revision to the constitution’s separation of powers section in its Declaration of Rights, which has remained virtually unchanged since the state’s first constitution adopted in 1776.

The amendment would add a new section that reads “The legislative powers of the State government shall control the powers, duties, responsibilities, appointments, and terms of office of any board or commission prescribed by general law.”

Although proponents describe the bill as a move to clarify the legislature’s appointment authority, the change would undo legal precedents going back decades that spell out roles of the executive and legislative branch when it comes to appointments to state boards and commissions.

“It’s not a clarification, it’s an entire rewrite of state government,” Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said in an interview after the session adjourned Friday.

Rather than clarify the roles of each branch, she said, the legislature is asking for approval to expand its powers beyond policymaking and the creation of boards and commissions to full control over how the executive branch executes the law, a role that major constitutional court cases, including most recently McCrory v. Berger, have said is unconstitutional.

“The legislative, executive, and supreme judicial powers of the State government shall be forever separate and distinct from each other.”

North Carolina Constitution, Article I, Section 6, Separation of Powers

“They want to undo McCrory v. Berger and make it clear that the legislature is the ultimate authority,” she said. The worst-case scenario, she said, which would be constitutional if the amendment is approved, would be a sweeping restructuring that undoes all commissions and oversight boards.

In explaining the legislation, backers acknowledge that the legislation would allow them broad power to alter the membership and composition of all state boards but have no plans to do so. Still, major changes in the composition of the boards is not unprecedented.

In 2013 after Pat McCrory’s election, a provision in the state budget ended the terms of all members of the Environmental Management Commission, the Coastal Resources Advisory Council and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and all but four members of Coastal Resources Commission, allowing the new governor and the legislature to appoint its own slate of members.

Harrison said it’s important to understand that changes in state law would be required under the amendment legislation. Under the General Assembly’s adjournment resolution passed last week, the legislature is scheduled to return Nov. 27 to enact required legislation for amendments approved by voters.

The separation of powers changes, which amend sections of the Declaration of Rights in Article I, the duties of the governor in Article III and the powers of the General Assembly in Article II, are among those that become effective upon certification of the election results and require enacting legislation.

Harrison said that those changes and similar sections in proposed amendments on voter ID and judicial appointments were written to give the current legislature’s veto-proof majority an opportunity to restructure state government.

During last week’s often acrimonious debate on the amendments, House and Senate leaders rebuffed several attempts to delay new laws until the next legislature takes office in January.

At one point, Sen. Paul Lowe, D-Forsyth, was so frustrated that he introduced an amendment to the bill that “strips all power from the administration and transfers power to the General Assembly.” Lowe called on his GOP counterparts to at least be honest about what they were doing. It failed 43-3.

Derb Carter, state director of the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the separation of powers amendment is clearly a move by the legislature to overturn a ruling that went against it and gain control over executive authority.

“It’s just a raw power grab on the part of a legislature that knows and expects they’re going to lose their supermajority and this is their last chance to shoot for the moon,” Carter said.

Carter said there are discussions about a potential legal challenge, but he expects the focus to be on an all-out effort to educate voters on the consequences of such a change in the constitution. He said the ballot question is misleading and doesn’t say there would be a change in the separation of powers requirement.

“It doesn’t even mention the fundamental amendment of the state constitution to do away with what has been the longstanding separation of powers and the checks and balances that you learn are important in the eighth grade, he said. “This is a very big deal and it’s going to be important that citizens understand that, even though (the legislature) attempted to mislead them already.”

Harrison said she also expects to see an effort aimed at voting down the amendments, but she acknowledged the difficultly ahead in getting the message across that government is being fundamentally changed.

“We have a steep hill to climb to explain to voters what they’re actually doing by voting for these amendments,” she said.

Environmental Boards Focus of Fight

The state has more than 300 boards and commission, but only a few dozen have a substantial hand in carrying out policies. The state’s rule making boards and commissions like the Environmental Management Commission and the Coastal Resources Commission are given the job of translating legislative language into often highly detailed technical standards and practices. The system is designed to give the public an assurance of safety and the industries affected regulatory certainty about what they can and can’t do.

Striking a balance between the two when it comes to environmental issues has been at the heart of many of the legal struggles in North Carolina separation of powers cases.

One key case, Wallace v. Bone, settled whether legislators could appoint themselves to rule-making executive branch bodies, when the state Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that an attempt by the legislature to take control of the Environmental Management Commission violated the separation of powers requirement.

The EMC, which writes rules for implementation of nearly all of the state’s environmental statues, was entirely appointed by the governor prior to 1979. But as the state took on the enforcement responsibilities for new federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act, legislative leaders sought greater control over the rules and appointed two representatives and two senators to what was then a 13-member commission.

In its decision in Bone, the Supreme Court underlined the fundamental nature of separation of powers noting “There should be no doubt that the principle of separation of powers is a cornerstone of our state and federal governments.”

The court said the legislature had no part to play in the day-to-day operations of the environmental regulators.

“It is crystal clear to us that the duties of the EMC are administrative or executive in character and have no relation to the function of the legislative branch of government, which is to make laws,” the decision reads, adding that “the legislature cannot constitutionally create a special instrumentality of government to implement specific legislation and then retain some control over the process of implementation by appointing legislators to the governing body of the instrumentality.”

The court permitted legislators to remain on advisory boards, but as a result of the ruling, legislators were removed from 32 rule-making boards and commissions including the EMC, the Wildlife Resources Commission and the Board of Transportation.

The ruling in Bone did not, however, challenge the legislature’s power to create boards and appoint them. The limits to that power were put to the test two years ago when the state Supreme Court took up McCrory v. Berger, in which then-Gov. McCrory, joined by his predecessors Jim Hunt and James Martin, challenged the legislature’s appointments to the newly created Oil and Gas Commission, Mining Commission and the Coal Ash Management Commission assembled to investigate and implement solutions in the wake of the 2014 Dan River coal ash spill.

While the Supreme Court found that the legislature overstepped its authority in making a majority of the boards appointments, the ruling spelled out the difficulty in establishing a legal guideline that would apply to every case.

“We cannot adopt a categorical rule that would resolve every separation of powers challenge to the legislative appointment of executive officers,” the court wrote. “Because each statutory scheme will vary the degree of control that legislative appointment provisions confer on the General Assembly, we must resolve each challenge by carefully examining its specific factual and legal context. While the General Assembly’s ability to appoint an officer obviously does not give it the power to control what that officer does, we must examine the degree of control that the challenged legislation allows the General Assembly to exert over the execution of the laws.”

More recently, the ongoing tension between the executive and legislative branches turned into an open partisan conflict after Democrat Roy Cooper’s defeat of McCrory, a Republican.

Cooper almost immediately filed a challenge to changes to the elections board and other appointment powers made in late December 2016 and has filed subsequent challenges to other restructuring plans.

In floor debate last week on the constitutional amendment to change the separation of power section, Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, said the lawsuits had raised a lot of questions. The proposed amendment, he said, is an attempt to answer those questions.

RALEIGH – Dozens of coastal provisions were approved last week as the North Carolina General Assembly pushed through more than a hundred bills in an attempt to wrap up its 2018 short session by month’s end.

The week began with a House override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget and ended with approval of controversial coastal stormwater changes, a stalemate over legislation to expand the shellfish industry and the rejection of a plan to allow beer and wine sales on the planned passenger-only ferry run between Ocracoke and Hatteras Island.

This week, the legislature is expected to take action on a series of constitutional amendments to put before the voters in November, including giving the General Assembly more authority in drafting voter identification laws, a cap on income taxes and a constitutional right to hunt and fish.

Shellfish Bill in Limbo

Also this week, House and Senate negotiators will try again to reach agreement on a shellfish aquaculture bill, sponsored by Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort.

Cook’s original measure was Senate Bill 738, but on Friday House Bill 361, became the new vehicle for the legislation. The measure, Support Shellfish Industry, would create an expanded shellfish leasing program, but the size and scope of the operations and the potential for out-of-state companies to hold large leases in North Carolina waters has been a constant sticking point.

A conference committee that had been working on an agreement to get the bill through the House appeared to reach agreement on new language Thursday night.

Then on Friday, the Senate passed the new version, which reduced the individual lease size maximum from 300 to 200 acres, but the House leadership later pulled the bill from its calendar and sent it to the House Rules Committee, which did not take up the bill during its final meeting of the week.

During debate in the Senate earlier on Friday, Cook said he believed the two chambers had reached a deal after agreeing to reduce the size of the leases and limit them to Pamlico Sound.

In a text message to Coastal Review Online Saturday, Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said she wouldn’t know the bill’s fate for certain until this week.

“Not sure,” she wrote, “could be dead for the session.”

If so, the outcome would be a major setback for Virginia-based Cooke Seafood USA Inc., the corporation that acquired Wanchese Fish Co. in 2015 and lobbied successfully last year to allow out-of-state corporations to build up to 1,500-acre aquaculture operations in state waters.

That bill, also sponsored by Cook, was signed by the governor in late July 2017 with little public debate. However, it was later determined not to apply to shellfish farms, so Cooke USA has continued to seek permission to operate large shellfish farms in North Carolina.

The new bill also includes siting criteria and administrative reviews for bottom and water column leasing programs and a set of shellfish enterprise zones to help efforts to market the state’s oyster industry. Cook had asked the North Carolina Coastal Federation to review the parts of his bill that established procedures for siting leases.

“We offered ideas to try to reduce conflicts with traditional uses of coastal waters but were not asked to weigh in on lease sizes and residency requirements,” said Todd Miller, executive director of the federation.

When the bill was introduced, size and out-of-state residency changes supported by Cooke Seafood immediately generated intense public opposition by shellfish growers and other fishermen.

Although chances are slim that further compromise could be reached in the remaining days of the session, efforts to rebuild the state’s oyster population and market aquaculture continue. Any new legislation next year is likely to build on a report due late this year on an overall strategy. In 2016, as part of its initial round of studies, the legislature directed the new North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to convene a group of stakeholders to work on the ecological and economic stability of the state’s shellfish industry.

“This controversial bill has generated a lot more interest in this study by fishermen and shellfish growers,” said Miller. “That’s good, because the study needs diverse and expanded stakeholder involvement to make sure it reflects the concerns and needs of our coastal communities.”

The report is due at the end of December.

Alcohol Provision Jettisoned

It came down to the wire, but a plan to allow beer and wine sales on the new Ocracoke-Hatteras passenger ferry when it begins service was eliminated after a last-minute vote in the House approved a rewrite of the omnibus transportation act that left it out of the bill.

Earlier in the week, prospects were favorable for the provision, which would have applied to passenger-only ferries, since it was included in must-pass transportation legislation. A close, 56-57 vote Thursday to take out the provision failed, but likely because it would have also rescinded existing alcohol service on trains. A group of conservative House members refused to budge and Friday, House leaders granted another up-or-down vote on just the ferry section.

Those opposed to alcohol sales including McElraft, argued that inebriated passengers could create security issues on the ferry and the state shouldn’t be involved in serving drinks.

Proponents of the plan said there would be security to assure safety on the run and that the alcohol sales are part of the economic model the partnership backing the new ferry used to make it feasible. Drinks on the ferry, they argued, would be served by a private contractor and not a state employee.

Coastal representatives voting to take the alcohol provision out of the final version of the bill were George Cleveland, R-Onslow, Phil Shepard, R-Onslow, and Bob Steinberg, R-Chowan.

Voting against removing the alcohol sales provision were Reps. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, Holly Grange, R-New Hanover, Robert Muller, R-Pender, and Michael Speciale, R-Craven.

Reps. McElraft, Beverly Boswell, R-Dare, and Frank Iler, R-Brunswick, were absent and did not vote.

Regulatory Changes

Also clearing the legislature on the last day of a hectic week was this year’s edition in a series of “regulatory reform” bills. The latest measure, like its predecessors, also featured numerous environmental rule and policy changes.

Among the most controversial changes this year is a provision introduced and pushed for last year by Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, aimed at giving property owners in a New Hanover County subdivision relief in a case that involves overbuilding of impervious areas.

Environmental organizations have opposed the provision, saying it has wider applications and amounts to a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for developers who ignore or bypass stormwater requirements.

In hearings last year, Department of Environmental Quality officials said they had reached an agreement with homeowners and the change was unnecessary. They warned that the provision was written in a way that could apply to at least 150 other coastal subdivisions.

In House floor debate Friday, Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, said that while the idea is to help residents in an older subdivision who were not informed of the violations by the developer, the provision sets a dangerous precedent.

“While I think the intention is probably pretty good, it’s so broadly drawn that we don’t have any idea how many subdivisions we are unwittingly encouraging to not take care of their stormwater plans,” she said.

Butler said the legislature should revisit the provision next session to better understand the consequences and make changes.

Also in the regulatory omnibus is an exemption on rules for temporary erosion structures that appears to greenlight a more permanent solution to a decades-old fight over a sandbag wall at The Riggings, a condominium complex in Kure Beach.

The provision modifies state law on erosion control structures to give the Coastal Resources Commission authority to issue a permit for either repair or a permanent replacement of the current temporary sandbag wall that was originally granted in 1995.

The new language specifies that to qualify for use of a permanent structure, the area must be “adjacent to an intertidal marine rock outcropping designated by the State as a Natural Heritage Area,” which describes the coquina rock outcropping near Fort Fisher, a unique geological feature on the North Carolina coast that was designated a Natural Heritage Area in 1982.

Under federal law, the outcropping area may not be covered during beach re-nourishment projects.

Other sections of the Regulatory Reform Act of 2018 include the following:

• Extend operations at landfills after local governments close them by requiring local government to allow contractors to continue operating until the landfill’s life-of-site permit expires.
• Limit the governor’s appointment powers for the state utility commission when the General Assembly is not in session.
• Expand the geographic range for importation of American eels to the Chesapeake Bay by adding Maryland to Virginia and South Carolina as the states exempt from permit requirements under the Marine and Estuarine Organisms Rule.

“It’s disappointing that the legislature  includes rollbacks to our state environmental protections as a part of nearly every regulatory reform bill,” said Cassie Gavin, director of government relations with the Sierra Club’s North Carolina chapter. “It’s time to end giveaways to favored industries and, instead, shore up our state air and water protections as North Carolina grows.”

Budget Passes, So Do Revisions

The 2018 budget adjustment legislation became law last week with the General Assembly’s final override vote of Cooper’s veto on Tuesday.

Although that bill remains the same, the legislature followed up quickly with a technical corrections bill that changed a section related to DEQ enforcement of GenX and other per and poly- fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, that specifically adds air emissions of PFAS to actions covered under the section. The change in language was requested by DEQ because the legislature changed state law in 2012 to specify that air emissions are not a discharge of waste under the federal Clean Water Act. DEQ is pursuing legal action against GenX producer Chemours contending that air emissions from the plant have contaminated surface water and groundwater near the Bladen County facility.

The technical corrections bill also directs that $300,000 of the $2,219,000 in funds carried forward for maintenance of the Manteo Old House Channel be allocated to the North Carolina Wildlife Habitat Foundation for the Oyster Highway project on the New River in Onslow County.

The remaining $1,919,000 for the Old House Channel project is shifted to maintenance dredging of Ranges 1 to 4 of the Manteo Channel. The bill also removes a match requirement for use of those funds.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

North Carolina legislators once again have moved to reduce this state’s pork industry exposure to nuisance lawsuits.

House members on Thursday approved the NC Farm Act of 2018, which includes provisions that would tightly restrict when neighboring property owners can file nuisance lawsuits against farms producing odors or other noxious conditions.

The bill passed in the Senate late Thursday without debate, despite claims by opponents on both sides of the aisle in recent days that it improperly weakened the property rights of state residents.

“I read this provision to actually be protective of private property rights not to harm private rights,” Rep. Kelly Hastings, R-Cherryville, said Thursday, expressing support before the 65-42 affirmative House vote.

Led by Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Warsaw, and Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Autryville, supporters said more limits on the nuisance suits are imperative after hog farm neighbors in Bladen County in April won the first of 26 nuisance cases pending against Murphy-Brown LLC, the hog-farming division of Smithfield Foods.

Those cases allege that Smithfield, now owned by WH Group of China, has not invested in waste management upgrades on more than 1,000 farms that raise its hogs in eastern North Carolina. That’s despite neighbors’ decades-long complaints about odors and other impacts from their open-lagoon and field-spraying systems.

No one was more passionate in opposition Thursday than Rep. John Blust, R-Greensboro. A lawyer who is retiring from the General Assembly this year, Blust spoke at length, urging fellow legislators to take more time to assess whether the measure was necessary and fair.

“We’re taking a side in a dispute, saying we, we in the legislature … know better than the court. We know better than the facts. We know better than the law,” Blust said. “We’re going to protect one litigant, and we’re going to say to the other: ‘You don’t matter. You don’t count.’”

“It’s because the one side has the ear of the powers that run this institution,” he added.

House speaker Tim Moore, R-Kings Mountain, fired back, noting that all legislative rules were followed in the hearing of the bill, which was heard in Senate and House committees before votes in each chamber.

Vigorously supported by Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, the nuisance limits in the bill build on a law passed last year that strictly capped payments in such lawsuits. The new measure would prohibit a plaintiff from obtaining punitive damages in court unless a farm was implicated in criminal convictions or government enforcement actions.

In addition, only people living within half a mile of a farm can file such lawsuits. And they must act within a year of a farming operation starting or undergoing a “fundamental” change.

Existing state right-to-farm law says changes in ownership, size or what’s produced on a farm do not qualify as fundamental changes.

Thursday’s vote came as a second hog-farm nuisance trial is underway just a few blocks away from the General Assembly in Raleigh. Among witnesses questioned in U.S. District Court under oath there this week was Gregg Schmidt, Smithfield’s hog product division president.

In a May letter from Schmidt to North Carolina growers that Smithfield hires to raise its hogs, the executive described the successful lawsuit as a massive threat, according to a federal court filing.

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a website covering health and environmental news in North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with North Carolina Health News to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

RALEIGH – Final votes are expected this week on a $23.9 billion budget adjustment bill that includes several coastal projects, including a dredge dedicated to Oregon Inlet, and a special provision that largely mirrors recently introduced legislation responding to GenX and emerging contaminants.

The resulting conference report cannot be amended and requires only an up or down vote for passage. Democrats objected to the use of a conference report, a deviation from a more open committee process with amendments that has been in place for decades.

Initial debate was scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday and a final vote was expected Friday.

Final Call on GenX Plans

General Assembly leaders spent the week before the release rolling out chunks of the budget, with the GenX and other special provisions among the last pieces decided.

While the GenX provision closely tracks a House and Senate compromise bill introduced earlier this month, there are some differences. A section on the governor’s enforcement authority is spelled out in more detail but remains a major point of disagreement in the provision.

Mary Maclean Asbill, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill office, said the budget provision still directs the bulk of funding to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill-based North Carolina Policy Collaboratory instead of the Department of Environmental Quality.

“The specifics of this closed-door budget do not provide relief to the 250,000 people who have been exposed to GenX and similar compounds in their air, groundwater, surface waters, and drinking water for decades,” Asbill said in a statement Tuesday. “In fact, the budget seems more calculated to shield polluters, instead of protecting the people of North Carolina.”

The bill sends a little more than $5 million to the collaboratory to identify and coordinate public and private university researchers to conduct non-targeted testing for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including GenX, at an unspecified number of public water systems intakes from surface water and groundwater to develop baseline standards for the compounds and create a system for periodic testing.

The collaboratory is also tasked with conducting research on GenX and PFAS private well contamination, air emissions and deposition and setting water sampling standards and mitigation methods.

DEQ would receive an additional $1.3 million for PFAS work from unused funds for an algaecide project at Jordan Lake that was rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The department would also receive $537,000 for a specific type of high-resolution mass spectrometer. During initial budget presentations on Tuesday, budget writers said the intent was to limit use of the machine to PFAS and GenX. DEQ officials have asked for greater flexibility in using the funds as the technology and types of machines available change.

During discussion on the bill Tuesday Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, explained that the limitation on the spectrometer represented a compromise during House and Senate negotiations. The thinking, he said, was “not wanting the department to expand into a range of emerging compounds of whatever nature, but target specifically whatever is being regulated,” under the provision.

The broader look into emerging contaminants, he said, would be handled by the university researchers.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, cited it as another example of limiting DEQ.

“What we heard in the River Quality Committee is that there are a lot of emerging compounds we’re not familiar with that are in our water and that it makes sense to have the regulatory agency with the authority to oversee our water quality have the tools it needs,” she said.

Funds Settle Sunset Beach Dispute

The budget includes $2.5 million for the state to purchase property for addition to the Bird Island Coastal Reserve in Brunswick County. The funds follow a memorandum of agreement signed last fall in which the state agreed to purchase land at the western edge of Sunset Beach that was the subject of a protracted legal battle between a local developer and the town.

The state’s two main trust funds also received a boost in funding with $4 million in non-recurring funds going to the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. The additional funds bring the total next year for the CWMTF to $18.3 million and PARTF to $20.2 million.

Conservation groups called the additional money significant.

“We appreciate the legislature’s support of these critical conservation trust funds,” Bill Holman, chairman of the Land for Tomorrow Legislative Committee, said Wednesday in a statement. “We look forward to working with the legislature in future years to continue to increase funding for these trust funds.”

Cultch Fund Redistributed

Legislators took close to $700,000 that was left in a pool of funds for cultch planting and distributed it to aquaculture-related projects, including re-establishing a northern shellfish lab in Dare County. The budget directs $272,844 for opening a new lab with two technicians in the Manteo-Nags Head-Kitty Hawk region.

Other funding from the cultch funds include the following:

• $125,000 for a shellfish pathologist position at North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology in Morehead City.
• $75,000 for a North Carolina Sea Grant and Carteret Community College aquaculture project in Morehead City.
• $125,000 for continuation of the state Department of Transportation ferry-based water quality monitoring program known as FerryMon.
• $100,000 for the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s crab pot cleanup program.

New Dredge, Inlet and Beach Funding

The budget sets aside $15 million from the Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund as the state’s part of a new public-private partnership to acquire a $30 million hopper dredge dedicated to keeping Oregon Inlet clear.

A private company would eventually own the dredge, after paying back the state through discounted dredging costs. The dredge would also be used as needed along other parts of the coast but under the agreement would only be allowed to operate in North Carolina waters.

Local governments seeking money for beach re-nourishment and storm damage projects will be able to tap in the state’s new $5 million Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund, which was set up last year but not funded at the time. The $5 million is to be transferred from an unused balance in the state’s Industrial Development Utility Account. The money, which requires a dollar-for-dollar match, can be used for beach re-nourishment, building artificial dunes and other projects “to mitigate or remediate coastal storm damage to the ocean beaches and dune systems of the State.”

The funding, however, is directed to a grant for Winston-Salem-based Resource Institute Inc., a nonprofit organization that specializes in coordinating stream restoration, dam removal and other water quality projects. The funds are to be used for an unspecified “locally-sponsored project,” according to the provision.

The organization is also “to work with local governments and engineering firms on the coast to explore opportunities for the development and implementation of emerging techniques that can extend the useful life of beach nourishment projects.”

In committee discussions on Tuesday, Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, said the group had been successful with stream restoration work in western North Carolina and legislators wanted to give them an opportunity to work in the eastern part of the state.

The only coastal projects mentioned on the organization’s website were in a 2017 story on artificial reefs at the Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site in Brunswick County and the Bonner Bridge in Dare County. The organization was working to find additional public funding for similar projects, according to its website.

Learn More

• Bill Text
• Committee Report

RALEIGH – Compromise legislation emerged from a monthslong back and forth between the House and Senate Thursday, but legal experts say that rather than dealing with GenX contamination, the new law could make it more difficult to enforce environmental laws.

Tandem bills were filed in the House and Senate Thursday afternoon after leaders in both chambers signed off on new legislation to address per‑ and poly‑fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, such as GenX .

The bills specifically authorize the governor to “to require a facility to cease all operations and activities in the State that result in the production of a pollutant,” if the facility is found to have had unauthorized discharges of per and poly-fluoroalkyl substances and the situation meets a number of other specific criteria that appear to align closely with the state’s case against Chemours, whose Bladen County plant near Fayetteville is the source of of GenX discharges.

Robin Smith, a former state deputy environmental secretary who now runs an environmental consulting firm, told Coastal Review Online the way the law is drafted could muddy the waters in enforcement.

“Any time you have a brand-new provision like this that is completely disconnected from existing law so that you really can’t understand how it all works together, it’s going to raise a lot of questions about whether this was intended to be the way to go after sources of compounds like GenX, or whether it’s one more tool and how it will affect any existing enforcement actions.”

Either way, Smith said, the work of gathering data and building a case against a polluter is the same.

“The bottom line is there’s no magic bullet that lets you avoid the step of pulling together all the data that would show a connection between, for example, the air contamination and surface (water) and groundwater contamination or that show the connection between on the ground sources near Chemours and groundwater contamination,” she said. “That work has to be done and you have to do it at one point or another and there’s no magic order the governor can issue to avoid that step.”

Smith said the new process could lead to a longer shutdown process. Right now, the state can take its case against polluters directly to Superior Court, which DEQ and the Department of Justice did in Bladen County in response to Chemours.

Under the new law, any action would start in administrative court, but any ruling in administrative court could be appealed to the Superior Court and then move through the appeals process currently in place. That would not only add more time to reach a resolution, but require two sets of proceedings.

“You’ve got a better chance of resolving it at one go instead of having to go through two proceedings,” Smith said.

Earlier this year during discussion in the House River Quality Committee on legislation, Ted Davis R-New Hanover, told committee members that any new law requiring or authorizing a shutdown would be subject to the same kind of appeal process.

“It’s not just a simple process where you go into a plant and say ‘you’re shut down,’” Davis said at the March 24 meeting.

Smith, who spelled out her concerns in a blog post Friday, said legislators could clear this up as the bill goes through the committee process.

“I think it would be helpful to add language to explain how this kind of order fits in with DEQ’s normal enforcement,” she said. “Is this intended to be the only type of enforcement action in these situations or is it just another option.”

Smith said another part of the bill that overlaps with existing law is the establishment of procedures and responsibility for providing alternative water to private well owners whose wells are contaminated. State law already requires polluters to provide alternative water sources in the case of contaminated wells.

The new bill spells out new procedures and responsibilities and allocates $2 million to the Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure to set up a fund to assist local governments with hookups to public water system. In a statement released after the bill was filed, its sponsors said that money would eventually be paid back by Chemours.

DEQ would also receive $1.3 million reallocated from an algaecide research project for Fall and Jordan lakes that was rejected last year by the Army Corps of Engineers. The money would go for new testing positions, reducing permitting backlogs, air sampling and analysis and sampling by the Division of Waste Management related to per‑ and poly‑fluoroalkyl substances. DEQ would also see another $479,736 to assist the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory in testing efforts and $537,000 to purchase a high-resolution mass spectrometer for emerging contaminant work.

The legislation includes $8 million funding to be distributed by the Collaboratory to set up statewide monitoring and testing for GenX and related substances.

The Department of Health and Human Services would get $530,839 to establish a new Water Health and Safety Unit in the Division of Public Health for the assessment of toxicity and impacts on human health from per‑ and poly‑fluoroalkyl substances.

Additional funding for both DEQ and DHHS has been one of the main disagreements between the House and Senate and has been a key priority for Gov. Roy Cooper, who last month proposed adding $14.5 million for GenX response and emerging contaminants testing in next year’s budget.

Cooper spokesperson Ford Porter said the administration is reviewing the legislation.

“DEQ is holding Chemours accountable and Governor Cooper proposed a strong plan to deal with emerging contaminants,” Porter said in a statement Thursday. “It’s shameful that it took legislative Republicans this long just to agree among themselves and that they appear only to be spurred by election year politics.”

The bills were filed in the Senate by Sens. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick and Wesley Meredith, R-Cumberland; and in the House by Reps. Davis, Holly Grange, R-New Hanover, Frank Iler, R-Brunswick and William Brisson, R-Bladen.

A joint statement from the sponsors released Thursday read: “We are pleased the House and Senate worked together to come up with a comprehensive plan that will help stop the pollution of our water supply, provide our families, neighbors and constituents access to clean, safe water and finally hold Chemours responsible for its pollution.

“This plan accomplishes our immediate goal of addressing water quality in southeastern North Carolina and puts the tools in place to help protect North Carolinians from GenX and other emerging compounds going forward.”

Reaction was swift from environmental groups who were critical of both the proposed changes to enforcement and channeling most funds through the collaboratory, a University of North Carolina Chapel Hill organization established in 2016. The research director for the organization is Jeff Warren, former science adviser for Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham.

Derb Carter, director the North Carolina offices of the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the legislature is still playing politics with a serious environmental concern.

“Rather than clarify or enhance state enforcement authority, this bill imposes multiple requirements on the Governor before he can order a facility that is potentially poisoning people to cease all polluting operations and activities — creating unnecessary hurdles to effective action. This is pointless given the Governor’s existing authority, and appears intended to protect the polluter, Chemours.

“It is unconscionable that the legislature would put politics above the safety of drinking water for thousands of North Carolina citizens.”

Carter said funding should have been focused on needs at DEQ rather than for more studies by the collaboratory.

Erin Carey, coastal coordinator for the North Carolina Sierra Club, said the bill could jeopardize DEQ’s progress so far in dealing with the contamination.

“Instead of giving the state better tools and adequate resources to address the problem, the bill may leave the state with weaker enforcement and a university-based research program that is disconnected from the needs of an underfunded state water quality program,” Carey said in a statement. “The outcome very well could be that we are in a worse place than we are today to deal with the problems.”

RALEIGH – Last year, the North Carolina General Assembly backed a locally focused strategy in response to revelations about GenX in Wilmington’s water supply.

Last week, several members who supported the plan told researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and officials with the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority they didn’t like what they got.

At a meeting Thursday in Raleigh of the House Committee on North Carolina River Quality, Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, accused UNCW scientists who worked on GenX studies on oysters, rainwater and river sediments of practicing “political science” to get the most ominous results.

He criticized CFPUA executive director Jim Flechtner for including additional per-fluorinated compounds along with GenX in filtering tests and for the report’s cost estimates of new water system filtration.

“I think your presentation to the committee was biased in making the problem look bigger than it is,” he said.

Dixon suggested that lawsuits were driving the science and said CPFUA did not need a new filtration system since levels of GenX in the water supply have stayed below the 140 parts per trillion health goal since Chemours stopped discharging GenX in wastewater.

“The water’s clean, folks,” Dixon said. “The raw water is safe, it’s below the 140.”

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, also was critical of the reports, saying the findings on oyster mortality were written in a way that would frighten the public. She said tests at extremely high levels of GenX should not have been conducted because levels would not get that high. The public, she said, will focus on the mortality results at those levels.

“To me, it’s a scare tactic,” she said.

Committee members also were concerned the reports had already been made public.

The release of both reports was a requirement under last year’s GenX provision in House Bill 56, which set an April 1, 2018, due date for the reports to be sent to the legislature’s Environmental Review Commission. Both reports, which have been available on the ERC’s website since then, are public records.

On Friday, UNCW and CFPUA each issued statements standing by their work.

“Our scientists have no agenda, political or otherwise, beyond following standard scientific protocols and performing the research requested of them via HB56,” university spokeswoman Janine Iamunno, said in an email response to Coastal Review Online.

Iamunno confirmed that researchers intend to continue the next phases of the oyster and sedimentation studies.

In a tersely worded statement to Coastal Review Online Friday, CFPUA executive director Jim Flechtner said the utility also stands by its report.

“CFPUA presented yesterday at the request of the legislators. The information was shared accurately and correctly. We stand by what we said,” Flechtner said.

He said the utility authority has been clear all along that it would seek to recover its costs if a new filtration system were needed.

“From the onset, CFPUA has stated our position that compounds should be stopped at the source. We believe that our customers should not have to bear the costs associated with removing unregulated chemicals from our drinking water,” he said.

The tense discussion with researchers came as the committee wraps up work ahead of this year’s short session.

Last fall, after the passage of House Bill 56, House and Senate leaders set up committees on river quality in each chamber and to hold hearings and work on GenX and emerging contaminant legislation.

Since then, however, both sides have failed to reach agreement on a new round of proposed legislation that would expand research and testing capabilities. In a special session in February, House and Senate negotiators failed to find a compromise on House Bill 189 because of a funding impasse after the Senate rejected a Department of Environmental Quality funding request backed by the House.

On Thursday, the House River Quality Committee approved a restart of House Bill 189 as part of its report to the House ahead of the General Assembly session, which starts May 16.

River Quality Committee chair Rep. Ted. Davis, R-New Hanover, told committee members that he continues to work with a group of senators on what’s possible in what is expected to be a shorter-than-usual short session.

“I am presently working with members of the Senate on a compromise bill,” Davis said, adding that one thing he is insisting on is consideration of the DEQ funding request.

Davis said that in addition to provisions already under discussion he’s going over other suggestions sent to the committee with his Senate counterparts to see if any of those might be able to be done this year.

Davis said it is doubtful any controversial suggestions will be taken up, but he expects the committee’s work is likely to be extended beyond its Dec. 31 end date and would work on legislation for the 2019 long session as well.

Learn More

• View a Cape Fear Public Utility Authority slideshow on its study results

RALEIGH — A last-minute amendment Friday to the Senate’s version of a bill to expand state efforts on GenX and emerging contaminants gave House negotiators some of what they wanted.

But as the House readies for a potential vote on the measure Tuesday, the question is whether what the Senate offered is enough.

House Bill 189, now titled the Water Safety Act, passed the Senate on Friday afternoon by 27-13 vote that fell mostly along party lines.

House leaders had said Thursday that the bill, as drafted, would not pass the House and asked the Senate to revise certain sections. One in particular was a $2.4 million allocation to the Department of Environmental Quality they said too tightly controlled how DEQ could use the funds.

One amendment approved Friday allows DEQ more flexibility in how it uses about a third of the money it’s allocated. Another amendment expands the scope of new university-led research to include the spread of contaminants through air emissions.

Although the final outcome of the proposal was still up in the air over the weekend, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said last week that the House plans a voting session on Tuesday.

The House was scheduled for only a skeleton session Monday.

Not Enough

Initial reaction to the Senate changes indicate they likely didn’t go far enough. Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, a key House budget writer, said he did not expect the House to take action on the bill as returned by the Senate.

“While I haven’t had a chance to consult with my colleagues whose constituents are most directly affecting by GenX, I doubt the amendments are enough to get the House to take up the bill,” McGrady said in an email response. “I expect the House will either not concur with the Senate’s changes to the bill or will send the bill to a committee for a hearing.

“If we do not take action next week, it is likely action will have to wait until the short session in May.”

Environmental groups also blasted the bill, saying it fell short of what was needed and that it’s another move to diminish DEQ’s authority.

In a statement issued after Friday’s vote, North Carolina Sierra Club Director Molly Diggins said the Senate continues to avoid giving DEQ the resources it needs as a regulator.

“The public expects the legislature to address the dangers of chemical contamination in drinking water, but the Senate still seems more interested in restricting the Department of Environmental Quality than taking steps to help,” Diggins said. “The Senate today continued its gamesmanship by seeming to providing some flexibility for funds to DEQ to work on GenX, but limiting how these funds may be used to such a degree that the agency would be challenged to address the current GenX crisis and to prevent another such debacle.”

EPA Responds

Answers to some of the questions raised by Senate members in a recent letter to the Environmental Protection Agency over DEQ’s permitting work arrived last week in a reply from EPA Region 4 administrator Trey Glenn.

Last month, Sens. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, and Andy Wells, R-Catawba, sent a letter to Glenn asking among other things for an EPA audit of the state’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permitting program and for specific guidance on whether the federal Clean Water Act gives DEQ the authority to regulate emerging contaminants and chemicals with no existing state or federal standards.

Glenn responded in a letter dated Feb. 6, saying the state does indeed have that authority.

“Yes, under the CWA, compounds without a federal standard, such as perfluoroalkyl acids, or PFSAs, are regulated as ‘pollutants,’ and a discharge of any pollutant into waters of the United States is prohibited unless authorized by a permit,” Glenn wrote.

He also confirmed that the EPA conducts regular audits of state NPDES permitting programs. North Carolina’s last review was in 2015 and met the federal requirements for timeliness, completeness and monitoring. Another EPA audit of the state’s Public Water System Supervision program, which was also requested by the senators, was also completed in 2015 and the agency found that the state was effectively implementing the program, Glenn wrote.

EPA reviews of both programs are scheduled every five years.

Long and Winding Road

Initially, disagreement over how to respond to the discovery of GenX and other emerging contaminants in the Cape Fear River went back and forth between the Republican-controlled legislature and Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. In the past few months, however, the bigger contrast in approaches was between the two chambers in the legislature and focused on whether funding should flow to DEQ.

The House in January unanimously passed its version of House Bill 189, which sent $2.3 million in additional funds to DEQ. In a short session similar to the one scheduled to adjourn Tuesday, the Senate opted not to take up the bill.

Last week, Sen. Mike Lee, R-New Hanover, introduced a new version of H189, which Lee said he drafted to hopefully move the bill forward.

As originally drafted, the bill would have sent $2.4 million to DEQ, but limited the use of the funds to only items required of the department in the bill. The department was required to work on outreach and coordinate with neighboring states on emerging contaminants and complete an extensive audit of its NPDES permitting program spanning 43 years.

The major research funded in the bill would go to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill-based North Carolina Policy Collaboratory, which was allocated an additional $2 million for a range of reports, including a review of the potential for using mass spectrometers already in use in the UNC system to conduct tests and research on emerging contaminants.

During its sole committee hearing on Wednesday evening, Lee sharply defended the bill, accusing critics of again playing politics with GenX. He said the bill is intended to be an interim fix to move forward and show the public that the legislature is committed to the issue.

“They just mistrust us all,” Lee said. “I get a lot of political flak over this from both sides of the aisle, but I think this is the best plan at this time that we can implement as we move forward.”

He said in the regular session, which starts in May, the legislature can review a more global plan.

Sen. Angela Bryant, D-Nash, accused Lee and Senate leaders of a bait and switch, saying they were again handcuffing regulators and pointing out the department’s repeated requests for funding help to reduce its permitting backlog.

“It bothers me that we are allocating $2.4 million to DEQ to do paperwork when they got a 40 percent backlog,” Brant said.

The exchange at times grew tense.

Sen. Erica Smith, D-Northampton, questioned why the bulk of research dollars were flowing to the Collaboratory instead of DEQ. She asked Lee if he would be open to an amendment to allow DEQ to purchase its own high-resolution mass spectrometer for testing, noting that the legislature had approved one recently for the state agriculture labs to test animal feed. Funding in the House version of the bill passed last month would have staffed a new testing program with new equipment within the department.

Lee said the bill is aimed instead at tapping the expertise in the university system.

“I know you’re saying this for political reasons,” Lee said, “But this is to make sure we can accomplish this within the UNC system. If you don’t think the UNC system is competent enough to do this, then let’s have a discussion about that.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Smith shot back before Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who was presiding over the meeting, called the question, ending debate.

Learn More

• House Bill 189

This story has been updated.

RALEIGH — When test results show high levels of GenX or any of the other emerging contaminants not regulated by the federal government, does North Carolina have the authority to step in and regulate it?

The state’s ability to fill in the gaps in the federal clean water safety net has become one of the central points of contention as policymakers debate a way forward both in response to the GenX issue and in finding a way to regulate other emerging contaminants not covered under federal standards.

Last week, in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency’s top regional administrator, four members of the Senate Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality Committee requested an audit of the state’s pollution discharge permitting and public water supply programs, as well as a clear ruling on whether the state has the authority to regulate emerging contaminants.

Sens. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, and Andy Wells, R-Catawba, sent a letter Jan. 23 to EPA Region 4 Administrator Trey Glenn saying the regulatory response by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality had raised questions, including the following:

• Does the Clean Water Act allow regulation of these compounds when there are no federal standards?
• What are the specific disclosure obligations of permit holders?
• What is the appropriate level of public involvement in settlement agreements regarding enforcement actions under the Clean Water Act?

The letter spells out specific guidance requested from the audits of the state’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permitting program, including whether it gives North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality the authority to regulate emerging contaminants and chemicals not covered by existing state or federal standards. The senators also asked that the state’s Public Water Supply Program be audited to determine if it is meeting the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act and requests EPA guidance on emerging contaminants.

Law Center Responds

The senators’ letter prompted a response Tuesday from Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Geoff Gisler, who copied EPA Region 4 and DEQ officials, saying that burdening DEQ with an audit at this point would hurt the department’s ability to deal with water pollution and contamination. The department has experienced years of cuts in water quality positions, Gisler noted, and he called for passage of a House bill approved unanimously last month that was not taken up in the Senate.

The bill would have increased DEQ’s budget to cover GenX and emerging contaminant testing and studies. In his letter, Gisler disagreed with the senators’ position, pointing to a backlog that has reduced the turnaround time for NPDES permits to as much as two years.

“The understaffed agency needs additional funding to address the protection of water quality, in particular, the backlog of existing water quality (“NPDES”) permits and the contamination of drinking water sources from unstudied chemicals,” Gisler wrote. He also asserted that the state does indeed have the authority to regulate compounds not covered by existing federal standards.

The law center and a coalition of environmental groups have pushed for an array of statutory changes that would clarify state law on the authority to set up regulatory frameworks beyond federal law.

The debate over limits of state environmental regulation has a long history in North Carolina. A comprehensive five-year review of all the state’s roughly 19,000 rules, with a priority on the state’s environmental frameworks, started in 2013 with a key requirement that all state agencies break out rules without any federal analog. Those rules are being subjected to closer scrutiny during the review process.

A year after that program was passed the legislature also approved an updated version of the Hardison amendments, laws that prohibit state regulations from being more stringent than their federal counterparts.

Environmental groups have called for the repeal of the amendments, named for a former senator, Harold Hardison, D-Lenoir, who pushed the original legislation in the 1970s, saying it takes away needed flexibility for state regulators to address pollutants such as GenX and cements in place only minimal levels of protections.

Funding Disputes Unresolved

In addition to policy questions, the legislature will have to settle a dispute over funding for DEQ and as well as for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Last month, the Senate walked away from a House proposal that won unanimous approval. House Bill 189 would have provided DEQ an additional $2.3 million funding with the bulk of the money going for a high-resolution mass spectrometer, an analytic instrument for more timely and cost-effective evaluation of the threat to public health and safety from discharges of GenX and other emerging contaminants, and to hire and train five scientists for a new sampling and testing operation.

Senate leader Phil Berger criticized the proposal at the time, saying the state should be able to continue working with EPA labs for testing and use existing funds for the testing programs.

The most recent House and Senate differences are part of a long-running disagreement between the two chambers on DEQ spending. The two sides went into budget discussions last year with wildly different proposals on cuts to personnel at the department. This year, during the upcoming short session, they will have to come to agreement again on a spending plan with the cost of implementing a strategy on emerging contaminants adding an extra layer complication.

GenX Levels Spike; Lawsuit Announced

Thursday, during a community meeting in Bladen County near the Chemours plant that produces GenX and other compounds, DEQ officials detailed another significant increase in GenX levels in the Cape Fear River from sampling near the plant after a heavy rain.

Testing at the Chemours outfall showed the spike on Dec. 11 sent GenX levels to 2,300 parts per trillion, well over the state’s health goal of 140 ppt. Tests showed levels the next day at the outfall at 68 ppt.

DEQ spokesperson Bridget Munger said studies are being conducted to assess the causes.

“DEQ is looking at all possibilities to determine what may be causing elevated levels of GenX following rain events. As part of the department’s assessment of the entire site, soil samples have been taken. We expect to have the results next week,” Munger said.

On Wednesday a complaint was filed by attorneys in a class action lawsuit charging that Chemours and DuPont hid the dangers of GenX exposure from regulators. The complaint, part of a class action suit that began last fall, also seeks more information of the possibility of air dispersal of GenX. The companies have requested that the suit be dismissed.

Earlier this week, the state Science Advisory Board reviewed the methodology used by DHHS in determining the state’s health goal of 140 ppt. The board agreed last month to take on the review to determine if goal was reasonable given the available science on GenX. At its most recent meeting Monday in Raleigh, the panel moved forward on its review, but took no action.

Recent movement on GenX testing also took place outside the state.  In a Jan. 11 letter from Kate McManus, EPA’s acting director for water quality, Chemours was ordered to begin well water testing around its Washington Works facility in West Virginia. The letter, which concerns about GenX levels revealed in well tests near Chemours plant near Fayetteville, gives the company until March 31 to complete the testing.

DEQ also released a map of the area around the plant with information on prevailing wind currents, part of an effort to determine the extent of GenX that resulted from air releases either of the compound itself or a related compound that becomes GenX when it comes in contact with moisture.

The investigation by DEQ’s Division of Air Quality began when well tests near the site, but upgrade from possible groundwater sources showed high levels of GenX.

The model, known as a “wind rose,” for the Fayetteville area shows a predominate wind direction of southwest to northeast.

According to an update prepared for the meeting Wednesday in Bladen County, there have been 505 wells sampled by DEQ, Chemours or a third-party contractor. Of those,148 showed no detection of GenX, while 151 of the wells tested showed levels of GenX that exceeded the state’s health goal of 140 ppt and 206 wells with levels below the health goal. DEQ is reviewing a proposal by Chemours to install activated charcoal filters for homes with contaminated wells.

Chemours began another round of testing began last week expanding the sampling radius around the plant to 2.5 miles. DEQ is also conducting tests on fish taken from Marshwood Lake, which is roughly a half-mile from the Chemours facility.

As part of the investigation into groundwater concerns, DEQ’s Division of Waste Management has directed Chemours to conduct a full site assessment.

This story has been updated to note that the Environmental Review Commission meeting set for Wednesday is canceled.

RALEIGH – In recent sessions, there have been few House and Senate differences on environmental policy as stark as last week’s failure to pass a proposed short-term response to GenX and other emerging contaminants.

House Bill 189, the result of work this winter by the House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality, was effectively dead in the Senate even before the 116-0 vote to pass the measure in the House late Wednesday.

The bill included provisions that were released in draft form late last month calling for studies and program reviews, but when legislators returned to Raleigh last week, a new section was added that detailed spending for $2.36 million in reallocated funds and additional money for the Department of Environmental Quality.

Despite the full backing of the House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, said Thursday he saw no urgent need for the bill. Nor did the Senate have time to consider the DEQ funding provisions, which Brown said were not available until the morning of the session.

“I think, on the Senate side, we definitely want to fix the problem, but you’ve got to know what the problem is first to know where to put the money,” Brown said. “That’s why we’re taking a slower approach to it, I think, to make sure the money is going in the right place.”

Brown said he didn’t believe delaying any part of H189 would hurt the state’s response.

“I don’t think that bill did anything to hurry anything up at this point,” he said.

Any new legislation, he said, will probably come out of the next regular session, which starts in May. “If we need to come back before that to deal with it, we will.”

Senate leader Phil Berger said in a blistering statement following the session that the bill would “do nothing to prevent GenX from entering the water supply,” adding that the additional DEQ funding places the financial burden on taxpayers rather than the company responsible.

Berger said the first round of studies required by legislation passed last year is due to the legislature this spring and that the Senate plans to take action during the short session.

Brown said that until then, DEQ has enough funding to handle the crisis.

“DEQ’s got a lot of funding already and they’ve got a lot of people in place on the ground that should be taking care of a lot of these issues anyhow,” he said. “If you look at that amount of money (in H189) compared to what they’re already getting, it’s a drop in the bucket.”

Molly Diggins, state director of the North Carolina Sierra Club, said she agreed that the amount proposed was small compared to the overall budget, but that only underlines the “hyper-partisanship” behind the move.

“Given what is at stake, it seems reprehensible that the Senate was unwilling to even consider the interim measure passed by the House,” Diggins said in a statement after the session. “The House bill would start North Carolina toward a program to address the dangers of chemical contamination in drinking water. North Carolinians expect our elected officials to put the safety and well-being of citizens ahead of political gamesmanship.”

Long-Running Fight

The quick end to the bill and the fallout from its failure highlights what has been a long-running fight between the two chambers on environmental issues.

During debate on the proposal, River Quality Committee Chair Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, said the House had provided DEQ with what it had requested and he emphasized the importance of moving ahead with the purchase of a high-resolution mass spectrometer for the analysis of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances such as GenX and other compounds.

Davis said he hoped the Senate would take the bill as seriously as the House. But by then, several senators were already on record as opposed to the bill.

Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, issued a statement critical of additional spending for DEQ, which he said “ignored the problem for decades.”

“What if the problem isn’t money? What if it’s government bungling?”

Sens. Mike Lee, R-New Hanover, and Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, also criticized the process, saying they were not kept in the loop.

Brown said that in order to get to a solution in future legislation, the House will have to do a better job reaching out to senators.

“Rep. Davis should probably have considered having some conversations with Senate members as he was putting that bill together,” Brown said. “If he’d have done that he’d have had more buy-in and more input in that particular bill. I think that has got to happen.”

Davis knew going into the session that the funding measure would be difficult. During its meeting earlier this month to finalize sections of the bill, Davis told members of the River Quality Committee that if the Senate didn’t move on the legislation, the committee would return to working on legislation for the short session.

The Senate wasn’t alone in opposition to the bill, which drew criticism from some environmental groups for failing to tackle some the regulatory difficulties DEQ and the Department of Health and Human Services face in overseeing the growing number of unregulated contaminants.

Last month, the Southern Environmental Law Center released a set of proposals, including lifting the Hardison Amendment, a section of state law that prohibits agencies from enacting any regulation tougher than its federal analog. Critics say the amendment creates a regulatory gray area in the case of emerging contaminants and other compounds for which there is no federal standard.

Rep. Deb Butler, R-New Hanover, during floor debate on H189 offered an amendment to repeal the Hardison Amendment, which was named after former Sen. Harold Hardison, D-Lenoir, who pushed through a series of bills in the 1970s aimed at curtailing state environmental regulation. Most of them were repealed a decade later, but in 2011 returned in modified form.

Butler told her colleagues it was time to take the handcuffs off DEQ. The amendment was defeated 44-71 on a party line vote.

Regular Order

Despite the end of the scheduled special session, the General Assembly remains on standby with potential action required under two federal redistricting lawsuits. Work on a judicial redistricting proposal and constitutional amendments also continue.

Meanwhile, regular order has resumed at least in part with House and Senate policy committees and joint committees of the two chambers meeting to review studies and work out legislation ahead of the short session in May. The studies include one by the Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy, which is reviewing the implementation of sweeping changes to the state solar and alternative energy policies passed last year in House Bill 589.

Last week, commission members heard from Utilities Commission Chairman Edward Finley and Public Staff Executive Director Christopher Ayers about new rules being developed for community solar projects, including the development of a new “Green Source Rider” to allow universities, military bases and other large non-residential users to participate in renewable energy projects, and selecting an independent administrator to review bids for renewable projects.

The commission also reviewed the legal impasse over the state’s Oil and Gas Commission, which was declared unconstitutional in 2016 after a court battle between then-Gov. Pat McCrory and the General Assembly leadership.

The commission, set up by the legislature under the 2014 legislation that lifted a ban on inland oil and gas exploration, was charged with drawing up new rules for hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” and other exploration related operations.

Although, it was put out of business by the state Supreme Court, it was revived and its role further defined in legislation passed in 2016. But the commission remains in limbo in part over legal challenges and in part because a membership dispute.

Energy Policy Commission co-chair Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, urged DEQ, which is required to provide staff and support for the group, to begin setting up the structure.

He said while it is apparent that market forces make it unlikely that exploration in North Carolina would happen anytime soon, without that pressure, the state has an opportunity to take a thoughtful approach drafting new rules.

“Right now, we’re sitting in a place as a state with no economic pressure to drill. It’s just not economically attractive today relative to other parts of the country,” Newton said. “In my opinion there’s no better time to write the rules of the road for oil and gas exploration in our state.”

Also holding interim meetings and working on legislation on solid waste programs is the Environmental Review Commission, which met only once in 2017. The commission met last month to discuss DEQ’s use of solid waste disposal tax funds for cleanup of older landfills built prior to reform legislation passed in the mid-1980s.

The ERC was scheduled to meet again at 1 p.m. Wednesday but the meeting was canceled Tuesday because of expected inclement weather.

DEQ Chief Deputy Secretary John Nicholson said at the meeting that the department stands ready to assist the commission once the membership issues are worked out. Right now, he said, there are only five members of the commission. Last fall, four of the nine members left the commission and two of Gov. Roy Cooper’s picks are still waiting to be confirmed by the legislature.

RALEIGH — A House committee set up to initiate a legislative response to GenX and other emerging contaminants approved a set of provisions Thursday to be introduced at next week’s special session.

Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, who chairs the House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality, said this first round of legislation is aimed at “non-controversial, short-term solutions.”

The bill, he said, “does not have everything that everybody wants, but it’s a starting point that we can subsequently build on and give us momentum as we go into the short session.”

Davis said House Speaker Tim Moore had given him the go-ahead for the bill and he is in communication with Senate counterparts about moving ahead during what will likely be a one- or two-day session starting Wednesday, Jan. 10.

The draft legislation was released this week. It mandates three specific studies and a review of the science for health advisories for unregulated contaminants.

The package, which was approved in a unanimous vote at a meeting Thursday morning, did not include any additional funding for the studies or the ongoing response by state agencies.

Davis said separate funding legislation is being developed, but may not be ready in time for next week’s session. He said the funding plan was “a work in progress” and if not ready in time for next week’s session would be taken up during this year’s short session, which typically starts in May.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Roy Cooper have continually fought over GenX response funding. Cooper called for more funding last August to cover additional testing and monitoring at the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services, but in its only GenX-related appropriation so far the legislature instead sent $435,000 for testing and monitoring to the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority.

Several speakers told the committee the lack of funding for DEQ made it hard to support the legislation.

Mary Maclean Asbill, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the bill continues to put off meaningful action while requiring DEQ to use resources to conduct more studies.

“This bill asks an already strained agency to do more with less and does nothing to help the people who can’t drink their water,” she said.

Former Wilmington mayor and state Senate candidate Harper Peterson said the state needs to appropriate the funds to do the necessary studies.

“Mr. Chairman, it’s been seven months since this story broke. We’ve learned a lot and I think the most important thing we’ve learned is that we don’t know a lot,” he said.

Peterson said he thought the legislation was a good start, but was missing any investment of public dollars. “This is a crisis, this is not a process,” he said.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, one of four co-chairs of the House Appropriations Committee, called the legislation a good step forward, but asked environmental advocates to understand that, when it comes to funding, it is a process. He pointed to long-running differences between the House and Senate on environmental issues and DEQ funding.

“Politics is the art of the possible,” he said. The bill, he said, is the next step. “Is this as big a step as I’d like to see us take? Frankly, not, but I’m not the king here.”

Rep. Frank Iler, R-Brunswick, said he didn’t think some of the comments about funding were productive. “Certainly, this is a process and if you’re familiar at all with legislative process, this is a pretty fast one.”

Bill Breakdown

According to a draft of the bill released this week, the Department of Health and Human Services and the state’s newly revised Science Advisory Board are to work together on the process for developing health goals for contaminants.

During its meeting last month in Wilmington, the board approved a deep dive into the DHHS methodology for setting the health goal and the available science on GenX.

The health goal for GenX has been a focus of concern since last summer, when DHHS dramatically reduced the acceptable levels of GenX from 71,000 parts per trillion to 140 parts per trillion.

Committee member Rep. Scott Stone, R-Mecklenburg, said the focus on the goal is important because although it doesn’t have any legal, regulatory effect, it’s being used as one.

“DEQ and DHHS have been using that health goal as a regulatory number,” Stone said. When the departments sent out a press release saying they were supplying bottled water because drinking water exceeds 140 ppt, “it might as well be a regulatory standard, because everyone in the world thinks it is and if it’s over that number we’re talking about denying permits and so forth,” he said.

The legislation also requires DHHS to notify the chair of the Science Advisory Board prior to issuing a health goal for a contaminant and to submit all their newly issued provisional health goals to the board at its meeting later this month.

The bill requires also three studies.

DEQ would be required to conduct a comprehensive study of the state’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination Program including the adequacy of requirements for disclosure of emerging chemicals, monitoring and analysis, the existing process and internal review procedures. The study is due Dec. 1 with an interim report to the House River Quality Committee and Environmental Review Commission due April 1.

The department is also to conduct a study of public notification and reporting requirements for dischargers of untreated wastewater and untreated waste and for the process for notifying the General Assembly and the commission about emerging chemicals.

The third study in the bill requires the School of Government at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to review the extent of civil liability for public and private water utilities for distribution of “drinking water contaminated by a pollutant without applicable discharge standards established under State or federal law …” That study is due the House and Senate river quality committees and the Environmental Review Commission on April 1.

Another section of the bill requires DEQ to improve information sharing on contaminants in surface water and groundwater with environmental agencies in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Virginia.

Learn More

• Read the bill

Changes in the executive branch for the state and federal government reverberated throughout 2017 and will likely shape much of what happens in environmental policy in 2018 as well.

A close race for governor between incumbent Republican Pat McCrory and Democrat Roy Cooper wasn’t decided until mid-December 2016 and a series of legislative actions that followed during the final days of McCrory’s administration set up the first of many confrontations between the new governor and a legislature in which the GOP has held a supermajority since 2013.

Among the changes, many of which resulted in legal challenges, was a new requirement for Cooper’s cabinet appointments to be confirmed by the Senate.

Ultimately, none of Cooper’s picks were rejected, but the move put the new administration on notice that legislative scrutiny would be stepped up.

Cooper’s choice of Michael Regan, a former EPA official, was one of the last confirmed by the Senate, with a vote that came in April. Wilmington Democratic representative Susi Hamilton, chosen to head up the Department of Cultural and Natural Resources, got her review a few weeks earlier, but received sharp criticism and a few dissenting votes over changes at Tryon Palace.

Two longtime observers of the dynamics at the top of state environmental policy making said every transition to a new administration leads to changes, but that this year the differences were especially stark.

Molly Diggins, executive director of the North Carolina Sierra Club, said the most noticeable change in 2017 was definitely the new governor. Cooper, she said, has been consistently showing leadership on environmental issues, like offshore drilling since taking office.

“Second to that is the end of the reign of terror at the Department of Environmental Quality and the return of staff being able to do their jobs and being able to have transparency and accessibility in their work again,” Diggins said.

The department had become secretive under Regan’s predecessor, Donald van der Vaart, she said, with professional staff reports subject to rewrite to satisfy policy objectives. Regan has done a better job of transparency and outreach, particularly in rural parts of the state.

Grady McCallie, senior policy analyst for the North Carolina Conservation Network, agreed that the change within DEQ’s top ranks has been important.

“We have an administration that cares about good, science-based policy and isn’t trying to smother what their agency scientists are telling them with political overlay,” he said. “Every administration considers politics, but this administration seems to be listening to its civil servants and longtime staff and that’s a huge change.”

McCallie said the difference in the response to coal ash and GenX is a good example.

Legislators had a hard time getting complete information on coal ash and updates on studies from McCrory’s DEQ, McCallie said. “This year, with GenX, the agency has struggled to get in front of the issue, but all the way through they’ve been transparent and talking to legislators about what they are doing and what information they have and they’ve made a real effort to get out and talk to communities about it.”

The sparing between Cooper and legislative leaders continued throughout the state budget process highlighted by the Senate move to cut 45 positions at DEQ, including several top officials appointed by Cooper. That number dropped to 16.5 after House leaders balked at the deep cuts.

The reductions at DEQ continued to be a politically charged issue, especially after revelations about GenX contamination of the drinking water in the Wilmington area.

The state saw other environmental challenges in 2017, as well. One of the biggest hurdles was finding a path forward for energy policy in a sharply divided legislature.

In March, a stakeholder group of solar and renewable energy advocates and representatives of Duke Energy and power cooperatives failed to reach agreement on requirements for renewable energy and allowing greater flexibility in solar power projects. The group, which did not include legislators, had been working on the project for more than a year.

House members, led by Reps. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, and John Szoka, R-Cumberland, picked up the effort. Szoka introduced sweeping legislation. An eventual compromise with the Senate included an 18-month moratorium on wind energy projects pushed by Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, who said the projects would harm the state’s relationship with the military.

Despite the moratorium, the bill was eventually signed by Cooper, who asked state agencies to continue to work with wind developers to get projects ready to go when the moratorium ended.

North Carolina dodged the main storms of the 2017 hurricane season, but the Outer Banks experienced flooding and road overwashes when Hurricane Maria skirted the coast in late September. But, the state was affected by storms elsewhere when damage from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana drained funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and federal payments to cover damage from 2016’s Hurricane Matthew were temporary halted.

The federal government also influenced state environmental policy when it overturned several rules from prior administration, including rescinding new carbon emission standards and the reversal of a decision by the Obama Administration to drop proposed leasing of areas off the Atlantic Coast for oil and gas exploration.

The flip in federal policy came after a change at the state level under Cooper, who came out strongly against oil and gas exploration, which had become a centerpiece of energy policy under the McCrory administration.

The following are the major coastal environmental stories of 2017 by month:

January

• Just after midnight Jan. 1, Roy Cooper was sworn in as the 75th governor of North Carolina.
• Cooper appointed former EPA administrator and Goldsboro native Michael Regan as secretary of the state Department of Environmental Quality and Wilmington Democratic representative Susi Hamilton as secretary of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Under legislation passed in late December 2016, both appointments required confirmation by the state Senate.
• Ten legislators, including State House Speaker Tim Moore and other high-ranking GOP members, sent a letter to the Trump Administration demanding that a massive Amazon wind farm in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties be shut down over concerns about interference with a military radar system. Despite the last-minute effort, the wind farm began operation as planned.
• The North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill created by the legislature in 2016 to provide research and policy ideas, selected a handful of research projects in addition to those mandated by the legislature.

February

• Wilmington attorney Deb Butler was named to replace Susi Hamilton as District 18 representative in the House of Representatives.
• With the change in administration, DEQ announced changes in its top leadership. Former secretary Donald van der Vaart demoted himself to a staff position in the Division of Air Quality.
• At a North Carolina Chamber of Commerce event, DEQ Secretary Michael Regan and other officials pledge more transparency. Regan said one priority will be to reduce a massive backlog of permit applications due in part to a shift of resources to handle coal ash issues.
• In the first round of coastal legislation for the new legislative session, Brown proposed a new state fund for beach renourishment projects and Rep. Beverly Boswell, R-Dare, and Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, began a session-long push for repeal of the plastic bag ban on the Outer Banks.
• Two different design plans were proposed for the addition to Hammocks Beach State Park, one including a controversial boat ramp.
• The state Wildlife Resources Commission recommended turning the Mattamuskeet Lodge over to a private company.

March

• A stakeholder group working on sweeping energy policy changes for solar and other renewables failed to reach agreement, but legislators vowed to continue working on a compromise.
• Ocean Isle Beach received an OK for a terminal groin project from the Army Corps of Engineers.
• Cooper announced his first budget. It included a major increase for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Walter Clark, a longtime coastal law and policy expert with North Carolina Sea Grant and executive director of the Blue Ridge Conservancy was picked to lead the fund.
• Frank Gorham, appointed chair of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission under the McCrory administration, resigned. Cooper named former Nags Head mayor and Dare County Commissioner Renee Cahoon as the new chair of the commission.
• After failing to reach agreement last year, House and Senate committees began crafting new regulatory legislation, which included a loosening of rules on sandbag walls, stream mitigation and the use of shoal sands for beach renourishment projects.
• Tom Reeder, a high-ranking official at the Department of Environmental Quality during the McCrory administration, was hired as policy adviser for Senate leader Phil Berger. He replaced Jeffery Warren, who was hired to run the UNC-based North Carolina Policy Collaboratory.

April

• Local government officials gathered in Nags Head for a conference on how to deal with state and federal funding reductions for beach and inlet management programs.
• Citing the need for more controls on stormwater runoff and large-scale farming operations, conservation group American Rivers added the Cape Fear and Neuse rivers to its annual Top Ten most endangered rivers. The North Carolina Pork Council said the report was “flawed.”
• A state judge threw out a lawsuit challenging Topsail Beach’s repeal of its dune ordinance, clearing the way for development of a disputed project.
• As work at the General Assembly picked up pace, the Senate and House continued a years-long debate over proposed restrictions limiting land available in eastern North Carolina for wind energy projects. Meanwhile, work on expanding options for solar energy, including community solar and third-party leasing, advanced.
• Michael Regan is confirmed by the state Senate as secretary of DEQ.
• The legislature passed the Regulatory Reform Act of 2016-2017, an omnibus bill that mostly included items in agreement between the House and Senate. Cooper later signed the bill, but raised concerns about changes relaxing rules for stream mitigation.

May

• The state Senate approved its version of the budget, which established a moratorium on wind energy projects and the elimination of 45 positions at DEQ, including several top-level positions and 14 regional office positions.
• Dozens of smelly disks of compressed plastic and other waste from U.S. Navy Ships washed up on northern Outer Banks beaches. The Navy later said two sailors from a Virginia Beach-based ship were responsible for violating policy and would be held accountable.
• A U.S. Government Accountability Office report detailed how federal agencies as well state and local governments lack the money and necessary regulations to deal with abandoned vessels.
• The Interior Department announced a reversal of policy, saying it would allow applications for seismic testing for oil and gas exploration off the Atlantic Coast.
• The state House released its budget plan calling for far fewer cuts to DEQ with a total of 6.5 unfilled positions eliminated. The plan also ended funding for the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at UNC, a Senate initiative, shifting studies to state agencies and Sea Grant.

June

• Starting with a long list of differences, House and Senate budget negotiators began work on a compromise two-year state spending plan.
• With seismic testing permits closer to approval, advocates ramped up opposition to a Trump Administration plan to reopen Atlantic waters to oil and gas exploration.
• A report in the Wilmington StarNews cited a new study showing high levels of an unregulated compound known by the trade name GenX in the Cape Fear River and that standard water treatment practices fail to eliminate it. The report and a subsequent series of stories by the newspaper heighten concerns about the safety of the drinking water in the Wilmington region.
• At forums in Wilmington about GenX, residents demanded answers on the safety of the region’s water supply. Scientists at the forums said the issue goes far beyond the single compound and cautioned that it could take years to fully understand the scope of the problem.
• House and Senate negotiators agreed on a $22.9 billion budget and compromise over cuts to DEQ, eliminating 16.5 positions.
• During closing debate on the state budget, Rep. Butler raised the GenX issue and called for more funding for DEQ and state health officials to deal with the contamination concerns.
• House and Senate passed an extensive revamp of policies on solar and renewable energy. Senate negotiators were successful in adding an 18-month moratorium on wind energy projects to the bill.

July

• After passing the budget, the General Assembly adjourned until August, leaving several environmental provisions still on the table, including the proposed repeal of the plastic bag ban. Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said the legislature could take up the bill when it returns later in the summer.
• In a move that rattled residents in the Wilmington region, state health officials dropped the public health goal for GenX levels from 71,000 parts per trillion to 140 ppt.
• New appointees to environmental boards and commissions took office. Among the new members to the Environmental Management Commission were former legislator Mitch Gillespie, who is a policy adviser to House Speaker Tim Moore, and UNC School of Government professor Richard Whisnant, an expert on water issues and natural resource law.
• During a trip to Fort Macon State Park, Cooper said he will fight any attempt to allow oil and gas exploration off the North Carolina coast, a 180-degree shift in policy from the McCrory Administration.
• Heavy downpours caused widespread flooding in Dare County.
• A contractor working on the new bridge over Oregon Inlet severed a main electricity cable to Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, leaving 9,000 homes and businesses in the dark at one of its busiest times of the year. A mandatory evacuation for all visitors was ordered.
• In a series of public hearings, federal officials got an earful from residents concerned about offshore drilling.
• Cooper signed the recently passed energy policy bill, saying most of it is a step forward, but criticizing the wind energy moratorium. He also directed state agencies to continue working with developers on wind energy projects.

August

• Visitors were allowed back on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands after power is restored.
• The Environmental Review Commission, the legislature’s main environmental oversight committee, toured the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s Sweeney Water Treatment Plant and held a hearing on GenX and drinking water safety.
• Hyde County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state’s Wildlife Resources Commission began work on a new watershed restoration plan for Lake Mattamuskeet.
• In a brief return to Raleigh, the legislature passed H56, an extensive set of environmental provisions, 20 in all, including the creation of a new storm damage mitigation fund for beach renourishment, the Outer Banks plastic bag ban repeal and funding for University of North Carolina Wilmington and water authorities in Pender, New Hanover and Brunswick counties for water sampling and testing of GenX filtration technologies.
• House and Senate river quality committees were formed to examine GenX and the state’s response to GenX in the Wilmington and Fayetteville region as well as continued studies on emerging contaminants and potential legislation and required funding.
• Beaufort approved a new watershed protection plan to reduce runoff and flooding.
• After new redistricting plans were announced, Cook announced he would not seek re-election.

September

• Navassa residents learned that the 251-acre Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. site in Brunswick County has steadily shown some areas have higher levels of creosote contamination than others, but that the chemical compound is not spreading.
• Pender County Republican Representative Chris Millis announced he is resigning to spend more time with his family. He left open the possibility of running for office again.
• A Virginia businessman claimed ownership of Shelly Island, a new barrier island off Cape Hatteras, which grew in popularity over the summer of 2017. Scientists said the large sandbar is likely to be temporary.
• The simmering political fight over GenX boiled over after Cooper vetoed H56. The governor, who pushed for $2.6 million in additional resources for DEQ and DHHS called limiting GenX funding for only CFPUA and University of North Carolina Wilmington “cynical legislation.” House and Senate leaders fired back, saying the governor was ignoring a locally-focused solution and putting politics ahead of public safety.
• The Division of Marine Fisheries completed a major addition to a new fishing reef off Oak Island, sinking a barge laden with 1,600 tons of concrete pipe at the site of Artificial Reef 430.
• Groundwater studies near the Bladen County Chemours plant show high levels of GenX and other compounds. The state ordered more testing and Chemours began supplying water to nearby residents that were relying on well water.
• The House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality met in Raleigh. The meeting included briefings from scientists studying emerging contaminants, updates from DEQ and state health officials. Several committee members complained that the issue has become overly politicized and accused the media of fanning public fears.
• Hurricane Maria passed close enough to cause sporadic damage along the North Carolina coast. The storm caused flooding, overwashes and led to the closure of Portsmouth Island to visitors. Beach erosion caused by the storm greatly reduced the size of Shelly Island.
• In the wake of Maria, mines used for training by the Navy and other debris were removed by ordnance crews after washing up on beaches in Hatteras and Corolla.
• Former Pender County Republican Party Chairman Bob Muller was selected to fill the House seat vacated by former Rep. Chris Millis.

October

• The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request that it take up a lawsuit by former Emerald Isle homeowners challenging public access to beaches. The move leaves in place a 2015 Court of Appeals ruling reaffirming the right to access.
• GenX levels spiked in the Cape Fear River after a spill at the Chemours facility. The spill went unreported by the company for more than three weeks.
• Returning for another short session, legislators voted to override Cooper’s veto of H56. The renourishment fund, bag ban repeal and GenX funding provisions take effect.
• Brunswick County’s planning board approved a proposed set of restrictions on solar farms. Among other rules, the plan would limit the maximum size of solar farms to 50 acres.
• A state science panel was appointed to look into concerns about GenX and contamination from coal ash basins.
• The controversy over funding in the state budget for a new aquarium at a private development in Pender County continued to build. Richard Poole, an attorney and chair of the New Hanover County Democratic Party, filed a formal complaint over the deal with state officials.

November

• Legislators from a long-term transportation planning committee toured the Port of Wilmington and discussed plans for capital improvements at the port and transportation and utility crossings over the Cape Fear River.
• Sunset Beach and a local developer settled a long-running dispute over a proposed development at the west end of the island.
• Former Caswell Beach mayor Harry Simmons pleaded guilty to embezzling from a Brunswick County organization that lobbies for beach protections.
• DEQ revoked part of Chemours wastewater discharge permit and said it will issue a civil fine for the company’s failure to report the early October spill at its facility.
• Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, chair of the House River Quality Committee, announced he’s working on legislation for the upcoming January session of the General Assembly.
• Former DEQ secretary Donald van der Vaart resigned, leaving the state’s Division of Air Quality. He and former DEQ counsel John Evans were put on investigative leave after penning an editorial critical of part of the Clean Air Act. The former secretary was appointed to an EPA science panel earlier in the month.

December

• The Science Advisory Panel held a meeting and public forum in Wilmington to hear updates from DEQ and DHHS. The panel agreed to review the public health goal for GenX levels and recommend possible changes.
• Brunswick County commissioners rejected a proposal for limitation on solar farms and sent the idea back to the county planning board for more work.
• State officials met with residents near the Chemours plant to discuss the testing program and response. Further DEQ testing showed additional private well contamination near the Chemours plant.
• Division of Coastal Management officials requested additional materials from four companies seeking permits for seismic testing after new studies show higher potential for damage to marine life.
• Congressman Walter Jones refiled a bill to revise a federal maps that restricted much of North Topsail Beach from federal flood insurance programs.
• The Roanoke Island Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Assistance and Rehabilitation Center took in another 76 cold-stunned sea turtles bringing the total this year to 96.

RALEIGH – Legislators are sorting through a list of potential environmental provisions ahead of the General Assembly’s return in early January, moving up the timetable for further state response to GenX and other emerging contaminants.

Legislative leaders have been planning a brief session starting Jan. 10, 2018, to focus on a set of proposed constitutional amendments to put before the voters in 2018. But during a recent meeting of a House select committee set up to study river water quality, Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, announced that he plans to use the January session to address immediate needs related to GenX and other emerging contaminants.

Davis, along with New Hanover County Republican Rep. Holly Grange and Rep. Frank Iler, R-Brunswick, lead the House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality, which was formed in late August to review the response to GenX and other emerging contaminants and their effect on water quality.

At the committee’s Nov. 30 meeting, Davis said that although the committee’s main charge is to ready legislation for this spring’s regular 2018 session, there’s a need to move ahead sooner.

“In my opinion, based in what we’ve heard so far, I don’t think we can wait until the 2018 session to actually start to do something,” Davis told committee members. “This is an opportunity for us to look at possible short-term solutions and get the ball rolling.”

Davis said he plans to circulate proposed legislation to committee members later this month and hold a committee meeting to review proposals and hear public comment on Jan. 4. Davis said he has been in touch with his Senate counterparts to avoid any surprises during the Jan. 10 session. “I think it’s very important we work together on this.”

Davis told Coastal Review Online last week that he would toward the end of the month have a better idea of what might be proposed. At last month’s meeting he said proposals would also be made available to the public in advance of the meeting.

An outline of ideas generated after a series of stakeholder meetings this fall includes a handful of statutory fixes, along with a call for a study of liability issues for local water providers and startup funding for a state “observatory” to study and monitor emerging contaminants.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said she doesn’t expect to see sweeping changes in January. While she understands why Davis is pushing ahead with some items, Harrison is still counting on a broader effort going forward.

“The emerging contaminant issue is so much bigger than GenX and much bigger than the Cape Fear River Basin,” she said. “It’s a problem all over the state.”

Harrison said she wants to see some of the rollbacks of water quality protections over the last several years reversed and DEQ given the tools and resources it needs. She said the GenX situation is “a wakeup call.”

“I’d like us to be more proactive and thoughtful about finding out what’s in the river, whether it’s harmful and how do you get it out.”

Harrison, one of two Democrats on the 14-member committee, said she had been encouraged that many members are willing to consider a ban on discharging certain groups of compounds such as GenX and other related perfluorinated compounds. “That would go a long way,” she said.

During the meeting last month, both Grange and Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, said the state should consider whether some compounds whose health effects are unknown should be permitted to be discharged.

Sidelined

Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, who has been critical of the legislature’s GenX response, said she’s concerned that the needs of the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services don’t appear to be in the mix of new ideas floated so far. She worried that the agencies are continuing to be sidelined by the legislature.

Butler said some of the ideas the committee has proposed may make sense, but they appear to continue to circumvent DEQ’s role as a regulatory agency.

“The truth is that all these efforts might have merit, but without regulatory authority to put the teeth behind them, they’re worthless,” Butler said.

Butler, a Democrat who first raised GenX concerns during the House budget debate in June, said she had been shut out of the process since. The only House member in the southeast coastal region not serving on the river quality committee, Butler said the legislature has steadily ignored the budget and enforcement needs of the two agencies.

She said that she has concerns about the idea of limiting liability for public water authorities. Butler said the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which supplies drinking water to much of the Wilmington region, could be granted immunity even though the authority withheld information on the GenX discovery from its customers.

The authority said in June that its staff learned of the presence of GenX in water treated by its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant from the initial findings of a North Carolina State University study on May 3, 2016.

DEQ officials say they have not put in any requests for specific legislation for January, but have started a stakeholder process to consider ideas going forward.

Anderson Miller, the department’s director of legislative affairs, said this week that the department would keep a close eye on what’s proposed for the session and provide feedback, but did not a have a list of immediate items outside of those announced by Gov. Roy Cooper in August. Miller said the department has been reaching out to environmental groups, industry representatives and other stakeholders to consider potential changes to statutes.

Cooper asked for $2.58 million in supplemental funding for DEQ and DHHS to cover the cost of additional testing and monitoring.

During its brief September session, legislators instead passed $435,000 in funding for initiatives proposed by the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Cooper vetoed the bill and the legislature returned a month later to override it.

The fight over funding doesn’t appear to be going away. In a review this week by a joint House and Senate oversight committee of DEQ funding reductions in this year’s budget, Assistant Secretary Shelia Holman said the department is still tabulating the costs of dealing with the GenX and emerging contaminant response. In all, 31 staff members in the divisions of Air Quality, Water Resources and Waste Management are engaged in the issue.

Holman told members of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee for Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources that the effort has pulled individuals away from inspections, permit writing and other duties.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, a senior budget writer for the House, said the legislature should expect to address the funding issue again in the upcoming regular session.

Dixon, who chairs the oversight committee, promised an intensive look at the needs, but said he doesn’t want to see the issue come down to another political fight over funding.

“There’s a sentiment out there that is going to make the funding issue one of the premier elements of the campaign for 2018,” Dixon said. “Our job is to try to separate the politics of those kinds of things from the reality of what the people of North Carolina need.”

Harrison said she also doesn’t want to see the funding to turn into a political fight. She said it’s important for DEQ to lay out the costs of the current efforts and costs going forward.

Changes Proposed

One set of legislative proposals not likely to be taken up next month, but that could be in the mix of future discussions, is a series of adjustments to state statues proposed in late November by a coalition of environmental groups.

A statement signed by Cape Fear River Watch, Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation, Haw River Assembly, Mountain True, Sierra Club, Sound Rivers, the Southern Environmental Law Center, American Rivers and the Yadkin Riverkeeper calls for tighter disclosure and transparency requirements, additional funding for DEQ for permitting and enforcement, a ban on the discharge of chemicals without a state or federal health or effluent standards, filtration assistance by industry for downstream municipal treatment systems and a rollback of the so-called Hardison Amendment, which prohibits state agencies from adopting regulation that exceed federal requirements.

In an email response to Coastal Review Online, Geoff Gisler, a senior attorney with SELC, said North Carolina communities deserve to know their water is safe and that agency enforcing the rules is effective.

“The legislature must do two things to begin repairing the damage caused by GenX and similar new pollutants statewide. First, it must make clear that polluters are required to tell the state and the public what’s in their waste —and be shut down if they dump unapproved chemicals,” Gisler said. “Second, the legislature must give the Department of Environmental Quality adequate funding to hire the experts needed to effectively enforce our existing clean water protections and hold companies accountable when they put our families in danger.”

RALEIGH – Although there’s not a dime in it so far, the state has a new fund dedicated to beach re-nourishment and repair projects that supporters say could be the long-term solution to funding projects along the coast.

Earlier this month, when the legislature voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of House Bill 56, the focus of debate was on controversial sections of the bill that funded local GenX testing and the repeal of a longstanding plastic bag ban on the Outer Banks. But among the dozens of provisions in H56 that became law with the override is the establishment of the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund, a new state special fund aimed at filling the gap caused by a steady drop in federal money for beach projects.

“It’s still a work in progress, but we think it’s going to be an important fund, a way to help out these local beach communities,” Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said in an interview Tuesday. McElraft said that along with federal dollars for beach re-nourishment drying up, so have the state matches, and local communities are left shouldering too much of the burden.

This year, McElraft and other members of the coastal delegation have been making the case that maintaining the state’s beaches should be a more broadly shared obligation.

McElraft said the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent denial of an appeal in a case that challenged public access to state beaches underlines that right.

“These are truly public trust beaches, these are our state parks in the east,” she said. “People think beach re-nourishment is just about protecting homes, but it’s more about protecting public trust beaches.”

It is not that different than the state’s funding for firefighting to protect homes and state parks in the west, she said.

According to the law, the new fund, which is to be administered by the Department of Environmental Quality, will be used only for “costs associated with beach nourishment, artificial dunes, and other projects to mitigate or remediate coastal storm damage to the ocean beaches and dune systems of the State.”

Unlike most other special funds, the money for the new beach fund could come from a variety of sources in addition to state appropriations, including “gifts, grants, devises, monies contributed by a non‑State entity for a particular beach nourishment or damage mitigation project or group of projects.”

McElraft said while there was no appropriation for the new fund in this year’s budget, she expects the legislators to seek some kind of dedicated funding source as well as encouraging private contributions to the fund.

One potential source, she said, could come if the legislature reverses its 2013 decision to take away the portion of the deed stamp tax that formerly flowed to state parks. That reversal, which McElraft has lobbied for, could help create a reliable flow of revenue for the beach fund as well.

More Beach, More Money Needed

The idea of a dedicated state fund for beach re-nourishment is not new, but as federal funds ebb, the urgency has increased. During the same time, the amount of actual beachfront has expanded and with that, so have the costs.

According to the most recent update of the state’s Beach and Inlet Management Plan, or BIMP, about 38 miles of the state’s 74.8 miles of historically managed shoreline is the responsibility of state and local government. About 20 more miles of state and locally managed shoreline are planned, but not yet permitted. Along with the increase in miles, the federal share of the cost is expected to drop.

The BIMP update, released in December 2016, states that as a result, the annual cost of re-nourishment is expected to rise from $25 million to at least $40 million during the next few years. To handle the increase, the report recommended establishing a separate state beach re-nourishment fund with an expected annual contribution of $40 million to $60 million.

McElraft said even with a new dedicated funding stream, the amount of state money envisioned in the BIMP is unlikely.

“I don’t think we’ll ever see that kind of money,” she said.

The BIMP included a study of how much potential tax increases in the state’s eight beachfront counties would generate with a new 0.5 percent dedicated sales tax generating about $25 million annually and a new 1 percent meals tax bringing in about $15.1 million.

Unanswered Questions

Although it is now officially law, the new fund is on hold while DEQ officials study how it will be managed and where it will fit in the department’s structure and chain of command.

DEQ spokesperson Sarah Young said the department is still waiting on guidance from the General Assembly.

Also unclear is how the fund will be appropriated and how projects will be chosen.

Grady McCallie, policy analyst for the North Carolina Conservation Network, said since the new fund accepts outside money, it’s hard to find another fund in the state to compare it to. The law is too vague to know how it will ultimately be used.

“It could be used on folly or it could be used on wise adaptation to the future we face,” McCallie said. “There’s nothing in there to make it go one way or the other right now.”

One concern is the effect of private funds.

The law stipulates that the state has a two-year window to use non-state funds contributed for a specific project or group of projects. If the money has not been spent or encumbered by then, the contributor has the right for ask for it back, putting pressure on the state to prioritize projects or lose the private funds.

Also among the unanswered questions are what types of projects would qualify.

Earlier in this year’s regular session, House and Senate negotiators disagreed over whether the funds could be used for a terminal groin or other hardened structures.

A previous version of the provision approved by the House but opposed by the Senate specified that the fund could not be used for terminal groin projects. The new version appears to rule out funding for groins, but is less specific.

Existing state law prevents any use of state funds for groin projects, but in an interview in July during negotiations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, the new fund’s chief sponsor, said it might be possible that non-state money in the fund could be used for a terminal groin as part of damage mitigation or re-nourishment project.

McCallie said the section of the bill on what projects would qualify appears to remove the possibility for now that a groin project could be built with the funds.

The law preventing state funds for terminal groin projects and that would have to be altered to allow the state to use the new fund for such a project, he said.

Learn More

• House Bill 56

RALEIGH – Another short legislative session opens this week with a number of environmental measures on an evolving to-do list, including another round in the ongoing fight between the legislature and Gov. Roy Cooper regarding funding for the response to GenX contamination in the Cape Fear River.

Related: Scientists Push Ahead With GenX Research

Although the session’s main aim is to take up new judicial redistricting legislation, Cooper’s veto last month of House Bill 56 that includes GenX-related funding for the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which supplies drinking water to much of the Wilmington area, is drawing ire among legislative proponents ahead of the session. The governor called the bill “cynical legislation” that ignores the need for a larger, more comprehensive state response. The governor has pushed for additional funding for the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services for testing and public outreach.

“There are political games being played with these issues and it’s about time for the political games to stop,” Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, fumed Thursday during the first meeting of the House Select Committee on River Quality.

Dixon and other members of the committee questioned the need for more funding for DEQ and DHHS. “It’s just amazing to me that some people always think that the first answer is more money or more staffing,” Dixon told DEQ officials.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, questioned DEQ Assistant Secretary Shelia Holman for more than 90 minutes on the department’s plans, the record of its oversight of both DuPont and its 2015 spinoff Chemours and legal and regulatory enforcement actions in the wake of studies showing GenX and a number of other potential harmful compounds present in the river.

Citing the ongoing investigation, Holman and other DEQ officials declined to get into specifics on the legal actions, but acknowledged that the issue involves the level of disclosure by the company. Chemours’ discharge permit required its GenX process to be a closed-loop system, not allowing the compound to be discharged.

Holman acknowledged that one focus is a federal consent order apparently allowing the discharge of GenX as a byproduct of a separate manufacturing process.

The North Carolina Department of Justice filed on Sept. 7 a civil complaint against Chemours in Bladen County asking for an injunction to prevent the company from discharging two newly identified compounds as well as GenX, which it voluntarily agreed to do shortly after revelations about the levels of the compound in the river.

Two days earlier, DEQ filed a 60-day notice of intent to suspend the company’s wastewater discharge permit.

During the legislative meeting last week, Holman and other DEQ officials said they could not discuss the specifics of the case, but urged legislators to consider the Justice Department complaint and the 60-day notice letter as part of the same enforcement action.

Committee members also questioned Zack Moore, chief of the DHHS Epidemiology Section, about the how DHHS lowered the public health goal for GenX. The department in July significantly lowered the safe level from a preliminary assessment a month earlier, from 70,909 parts per trillion, or ppt, to 140 ppt for vulnerable populations.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said she was concerned that the revised goal could have needlessly frightened people.

“I think we need to be more certain before we put these figures out there,” McElraft said.

The House committee took no action Thursday, but Davis said it has the option of recommending new legislation.

A separate Senate Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality meets at 2 p.m. Tuesday. The Senate committee is also expected to receive briefings on the administration’s response, but no agenda had been published.

Although an override of Cooper’s veto of H56 is planned, the vote could prove complicated beyond the GenX debate since the bill includes other controversial environmental provisions, including the repeal of the plastic bag ban for Outer Banks beach communities, looser stormwater controls and an entirely new provision aimed that would strike a law giving counties say over collection of solid waste in their jurisdictions. That provision is opposed by the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners because it would allow waste haulers to cherry pick the most lucrative routes, leaving counties with fewer resources to handle more difficult routes and required recycling programs for tires, electronics and hazardous waste.

More Bills Coming, Going

Legislative leaders have adopted a strategy of dipping in and out of session since the regular session adjourned in July. Unlike last year, when several special sessions were called, this year’s parliamentary term of choice is “rolling adjournments,” which open more options in the types of legislation that can be considered.

For environmental legislation, this has meant the use of conference reports to move the handful of omnibus regulatory bills that were left on the table at the end of the session this summer.

Another conference report, Senate Bill 162, could be included in legislative action this week.

The bill was reviewed Thursday by the House Select Committee on Administrative Procedure. It includes a controversial provision that sets cost limits on rules, limiting rules that have a collective cost of $10 million during a five-year span and prohibiting rules that have a $100 million cost over five years.

Also on the list of bills that could be considered during this week’s session are four measures Cooper vetoed during the summer. That includes another major environmental omnibus bill and a measure that would allow the aerosolizing leachate from landfills as an acceptable mitigation method.

Cooper vetoed the landfill bill, saying science, not the legislature, should determine the right methods.

The omnibus legislation, Senate Bill 16, passed during the brief early August session. It includes a wide range of non-controversial provisions, but Cooper objected to sections that ease some coastal stormwater rules and make it more difficult for counties to close landfills before they reach full capacity.

RALEIGH – Calling it “cynical legislation,” Gov. Roy Cooper on Thursday vetoed House Bill 56, the environmental omnibus passed last month that appropriates only local funding for GenX testing, filtration and research, changes stormwater and solid waste regulations and repeals the Outer Banks’ plastic bag ban. Republican leaders were quick to denounce the governor’s action.

Cooper, a Democrat who has strongly criticized the Republican-led legislature for its lack of response to his $2.6 million request for emergency funding made in August, said recent discoveries of GenX groundwater contamination near Fayetteville underline that the problem is not just in Wilmington.

“The legislation passed by the General Assembly, House Bill 56, provides no resources to the state agencies charged with protecting drinking water and preventing illegal chemicals from being discharged into our rivers,” Cooper wrote in an explanation for the veto posted at Medium.com. “It gives the impression of action while allowing the long-term problem to fester. And it unnecessarily rolls back other environmental protections for landfills, river basins, and our beaches.”

The administration asked for $2.6 million for the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services for additional scientists, engineers and water testing and monitoring, but the legislature instead put together a package that would send $185,000 to the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in Wilmington to help develop filtration methods and continue monitoring and $250,000 to the University of North Carolina Wilmington for further studies on the contamination of the river’s ecosystem and its potential effects.

The local funding provision was added to H56, a multi-part bill introduced last spring that had stalled after House and Senate negotiators failed to reach agreement on key provisions.

The final version of the bill, introduced in the waning hours of last month’s special session on redistricting, passed both chambers mostly along party lines. At the time, Democrats complained that they were shut out of the process and would have supported a standalone bill on the GenX funding, if offered the chance. The bill passed the Senate with enough votes to override the veto, but the margin was closer in the House after three top-ranking members of the Appropriations Committee voted against it.

After Cooper’s announcement Thursday, House and Senate leaders said the governor was playing politics with a serious safety issue.

“Shame on Gov. Cooper for vetoing a local solution, developed by this region’s local representatives, to immediately improve water quality for their constituents, neighbors and own families – simply because it did not achieve his preferred objective of growing a bureaucracy that has thus far failed to resolve this crisis,” Senate leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham), said in a statement released after the governor’s veto.

Both Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore called for colleagues to override the veto when they return in early October.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-New Hanover, the Senate sponsor of the local funding provision, echoed Berger and others’ claim that Cooper was using the crisis to restore staffing at DEQ that the legislature had cut.

“I am troubled that the governor would place politics ahead of public safety, and prioritize bureaucracy over results,” Lee said in a statement. “He is now on record for rejecting the only proposal that will actually help clean our drinking water in the lower Cape Fear region.”

But Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, continued to disagree with other members of the local delegation, saying in a video released on her Facebook page and on Twitter that the governor is right to press for the funding and calling the legislative leadership’s stance pure partisanship.

Butler, who during the budget debate in June first raised the need for additional resources for DEQ because of GenX, said she’s frustrated because the state has ample money available for both the local and state efforts.

“Give the money to UNCW, give some money to Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. Test the sedimentation, find the best filtration, do all that stuff,” she said. “But fund DEQ so our watchdogs can stop the polluters.”

DEQ meanwhile has pressed Chemours, the DuPont spinoff responsible for the discharge of GenX and other compounds, to supply bottled water to households on private wells near its Bladen County facility. The department issued a notice of violation this month when testing showed groundwater contamination near the site.

Moving Forward, Regardless

Officials from both the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and UNCW say they intend to move ahead with plans for testing and monitoring GenX and other potential contaminants regardless of the outcome of the current disagreement in Raleigh.

“Whatever the fate of House Bill 56, CFPUA will continue to seek out the most advanced water treatment technology and build relationships with our local partners in public health and academia to ensure that we are doing everything we can as a public utility to provide the highest quality drinking water possible,” Jim Flechtner, the authority’s executive director said in a statement sent to Coastal Review Online. “It has long been CFPUA’s position that the State of North Carolina needs strong regulatory agenciesto protect and maintain water quality in the Cape Fear River Basin and beyond. The Cape Fear River is the drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, and every possible action must be taken to ensure citizens can feel confident in the safety of their drinking water.”

The funding in H56 is intended to help offset some of the authority’s cost to test filtration systems and monitor water quality.

An outline sent by Flechtner to Sen. Lee last month as bill language was being drafted identified five areas in which the authority expects to incur expenses along with project outlines and preliminary costs. They include:

• $90,000 for engineering, water testing and equipment costs at the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant in Wilmington.
• $300,000 for a partnership with UNCW to identify and quantify other compounds in the river.
• $910,000 in costs related to treating and removing 50 million gallons of treated water contaminated with GenX in the authority’s aquifer storage system.
• $85,000 for ongoing GenX monitoring of treated and untreated water at the Sweeney plant.
• $500,000 in legal fees.

The authority estimated that one-time expenses would run about $1.89 million and, if it adopts the carbon filtration system currently under study, the result could be an additional $2 million in annual expenses, according to the document.

At UNCW, Ron Vetter, associate provost for research, said researchers from several departments will be involved in the university’s efforts.

Vetter said Thursday that after reviewing the UNCW-related provisions in H56, he and others began developing plans to study the presence of GenX and other compounds in the river sediments, how they degrade over time and their potential for bioaccumulation.

One study under consideration, he said, would to work with the school’s marine sciences program to measure whether there are any effects on oyster populations.

Vetter said researchers plan to present their ideas at the inaugural meeting of the newly formed House Select Committee on River Quality. The committee, formed last month to provide additional oversight on GenX and water quality issues, was scheduled to meet Thursday in Raleigh.

Learn More

• House Bill 56
• Read Cooper’s official veto message
• Read Cooper’s essay on Medium

RALEIGH – Each session of the North Carolina General Assembly generates dozens of changes and additions to state environmental policy, but increasingly the debate on high-impact and controversial issues is taking place outside the committees assigned to handle them and outside the public’s view.

Conversations inside the caucuses of both parties in both chambers on renewable energy, waste management, stormwater runoff regulations and other environmental subjects have been described as contentious, but those talks are closed off, taking place in rooms with drawn curtains.

What survives the caucus process is drawn up into legislation through one of several interlocking conference committees, which also hold closed-door meetings. The bills that have emerged tend to be lengthy, with multiple provisions. Unlike most other bills, conference reports cannot be amended, requiring only an up or down vote.

Although it’s a common practice, some of those involved in the process say they’re worried that it has become the main way of doing the people’s business and not the exception.

“I’m not happy with the process, not just with the environmental bills, but particularly with the environmental bills,” Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, a chief House negotiator, said in a recent interview.

McGrady said that in the past year most of the interim committees that work out differences between the House and Senate bills have not met, leading to a less orderly process.

“We just don’t do what we used to do in terms of using committees, doing things between sessions, doing a lot of the work on gleaning the facts,” he said, “It’s more about bullying your way through whatever the issue is.”

Without a more thorough process in place, McGrady said, it’s harder to do the proper vetting for policy proposals.

McGrady and others say one key to restoring a better vetting process for environmental policy would be to reinstate regular meetings of the legislature’s Environmental Review Commission, a 16-member standing committee that has served as the legislature’s main conduit for environmental policy for more than a decade.

Since 2005, the commission has met an average of four times a year, often when the legislature is not in session or during the early weeks of sessions, to review reports and hammer out ahead of time differences between the chambers.

The commission has recommended dozens of major policy changes through the years. In 2014, the commission was the main investigative committee studying the Dan River coal ash spill and began the development of coal ash legislation during the legislature’s 2014 session.

The commission has since met less regularly, but did get together four times in early 2016 ahead of the short session. Prior to convening its public hearing on GenX Aug. 23 in Wilmington, its last meeting was held April 13, 2016.

Grady McCallie, senior policy analyst for the North Carolina Conservation Network, said the legislature has not just changed state environmental policies, but also how new proposals become law.

“The legislature is operating differently,” McCallie said.

Environmental proposals are now more ad hoc, coming from a variety of sources, and don’t seem to have the same kind of review as other proposals. The result, he said, is that some of the more “offbeat” ideas go much farther in the process than they do in other issue areas.

“You don’t see that for education policy or health policy,” he said, where there is a deeper bench of policy expertise among legislators. “To me, that’s a reflection of the bigger failure of the deliberative process.”

McCallie pointed to measures that are introduced to benefit specific industries or even a specific inventor like this year’s measure requiring the Department of Environmental Quality to accept a proposed process of spraying landfill leachate into the air to reduce the tainted water’s toxicity.

“One of the advantages of having the ERC back on track is that, if it’s working properly, you filter out ideas like that,” McCallie said. “It’s in their interest to have the ERC process get back on track, because of the kinds of proposals we’ve seen make the leadership look bad.”

McGrady, one of the House co-chairs of the commission, said last year that he and other House members tried to convince their Senate counterparts to meet to discuss coal ash and other issues, but the Senate leadership declined.

In a press conference held after last month’s session, McGrady and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, both expressed their hope that the commission will resume meeting regularly.

“It takes two to tango,” McGrady said.

In an email response to Coastal Review, Sen. Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, the Senate’s commission chair, said the commission meets when it is necessary.

“Interim committees like the ERC meet on an as-needed basis, when there is a need for legislative oversight,” Wade said. “Certainly, the discovery of the GenX discharge into the Cape Fear River and the administration’s reluctance to answer serious questions about its handling of this issue necessitated legislative oversight.”

“Certainly, the discovery of the GenX discharge into the Cape Fear River and the administration’s reluctance to answer serious questions about its handling of this issue necessitated legislative oversight.”

Sen. Trudy Wade

Even without meetings, the committee continues to play a role in environmental policy. It is, by law, the repository for a series of regular reports from state agencies and regulatory bodies, including the Environmental Management Commission that adopts water and air quality rules.

The number of reports adds up. Since its April 2016 meeting, the commission has received 39 reports from the state DEQ alone.

Many of the reports are annual or quarterly updates, but several are policy related, involving initiatives in aquaculture, energy policy and nutrient strategies. Over the next few years, the commission is also scheduled to be the main recipient of reports and proposals from the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory, which includes a range of studies, including shellfish and mariculture development and water quality strategies.

When the commission will meet again is unclear for now.

Last month in Wilmington, Wade said the commission would meet again in September to discuss Gov. Roy Cooper’s proposal seeking $2.6 million in additional funding for GenX-related testing, monitoring and public outreach.

In her email Tuesday, Wade did not say when the next commission meeting would be held, but noted that the commission assisted in the development of the GenX provisions in House Bill 56, including $435,000 in funding for the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, mainly for GenX filtration testing and the University of North Carolina Wilmington for research, but none of the governor’s requested funding for DEQ.

Wade also credits the measure with pushing DEQ to finally issue on Sept. 5 a notice of violation against GenX producer Chemours.

“Have you asked whether the governor plans to sign it into law?” Wade asked in her email response. “Many of my colleagues and I feel that is a critical first step toward addressing this problem.”

Cooper’s office was contacted regarding the governor’s intent but did not respond in time for this report. In August, Cooper released a statement on House Bill 56, saying that a “sprinkle of local funds hooked to bad environmental legislation doesn’t help.”

Although nothing has been scheduled, there are some indications that interim meetings of joint committees could be coming.

Both Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, announced appointments in recent weeks, including finalization of new appointments to the ERC.

“These committees provide key oversight to help ensure state government is accountable, transparent, and operating as efficiently as possible. They also offer a forum for research and discussion that will help inform lawmakers for the upcoming session,” Berger said in a statement announcing the appointments.

Learn More

• House Bill 56

RALEIGH — A late addition to a conglomerate of environmental provisions the General Assembly passed Thursday spends $435,000 for local efforts on GenX, but the move added fuel to a political fight over funding and responsibility between the administration and the legislature.

Following Senate approval Wednesday evening, the House voted 61-44 in favor of the final version of House Bill 56. Action came just after noon Thursday, before the weeklong session called to deal with a federal court order to redraw state legislative districts adjourned.

Democrats blasted the last-day decision to add the GenX funding to a bill that included disputed provisions.

“If you really want to fix the problem, work with us, but all you’re doing today is passing something so you can say you did something, knowing most likely it will be vetoed for this or a number of other reasons,” House Minority Leader Darren Jackson said.

Jackson and others urged the House to vote the bill down and instead work on a more comprehensive solution.

Republicans called it an important first step in a legislative response to the crisis.

“It’s unfortunate that all this blame game is going on,” Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, said in an interview with Coastal Review after the vote. “I guess the proof in the pudding is we’re here and we are moving forward. I was very disappointed in those who spoke against moving forward and the measure that we have. It’s very political and I’m sorry people put politics above the safety of the public.”

The omnibus legislation, which runs 19 pages and includes 20 separate provisions, has been in limbo since first passed by the House last April. It was modified in May and June by the Senate to include new provisions including a controversial repeal of the plastic bag ban that has been in place for years on beach communities in Dare, Hyde and Currituck counties. It also creates a new coastal storm damage mitigation fund, a priority of Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, that creates a permanent funding mechanism for beach re-nourishment projects.

A similar draft compromise of the bill was circulated during the short legislative session in early August, but never came to a vote.

The latest version of the bill emerged from a House and Senate conference late Wednesday as the General Assembly wrapped up work on the redistricting session.

It includes an extensive provision drafted after a hearing last week on GenX issues in the Wilmington area by the Environmental Review Commission, a joint House and Senate commission that serves as the legislature’s chief environmental oversight body.

Related: River Quality Panels Take Shape

The provision, based on a proposal announced at the hearing by Sen. Mike Lee, R-New Hanover, provides money to the University of North Carolina Wilmington for testing and evaluation of the extent of contamination in the Cape Fear River and its effect on human health. It also directly funds work by the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which supplies drinking water to about 200,000 Wilmington residents, to develop a treatment to remove GenX from the water supply.

A key finding in a study that triggered the alarm in June about water quality in the Cape Fear River was that the current treatment process is unable to remove GenX. Levels found in the river were close to those found in the treated water, the study found.

Although state regulators were able to get Chemours, the Dupont spinoff responsible for GenX, to stop discharging the compound from its Bladen County plant, researchers say there are likely deposits of GenX and other potentially harmful compounds in the river ecosystem.

During House debate Thursday, Rep. Holly Grange, R-New Hanover, argued that it is essential to find a way to remove GenX from the water supply.

“GenX in the water of the Cape Fear region is something that needs to be fixed now,” she said. “As far as I am concerned there is no acceptable level of GenX in the water.”

Grange said the utility authority should receive the funds because it is already moving ahead with testing new filtration systems.

“They have a plan to get the GenX out of the water,” Grange said of the authority. “That is what my constituents want. They are afraid. They’re afraid for their families. They’re afraid for themselves. They’re afraid for their pets.”

New Hanover Democratic Rep. Deb Butler argued against the bill, saying it was too narrowly focused, and called for the legislature to give Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration the resources it needs to beef up enforcement and testing.

Butler said a provision forcing the Department of Environmental Quality to file an official notice of violation is a bad legal strategy, considering the complexity of the case and the recent release by Chemours to DEQ investigators of 50,000 pages of related documents.

“Remember, this chemical and others have been dumped into this river for 37 years. It’s a huge undertaking that must be done with the utmost care,” Butler told colleagues. “You can rest assured that DuPont and Chemours are sparing no expense with attorneys and investigators to mount their defenses. DEQ must be given adequate time to mount an impenetrable case.”

Butler also reiterated a warning she delivered to the Environmental Review Commission during its recent meeting in Wilmington that giving the authority oversight over testing was letting the fox guard the henhouse. She said that the authority had “destroyed public confidence” by not disclosing what they knew about GenX earlier. “The public has no faith in their ability to test and report to the public.”

Grange and Davis disagreed, saying they believe the authority is taking the right steps to win public trust.

In a joint statement Davis, Grange, Reps. Frank Iler, R-Brunswick, and Chris Millis, R-Pender, called the measure “a targeted proposal to determine the scope of the GenX discharge in the Cape Fear River and develop a reliable treatment system to protect the people of Southeastern North Carolina’s drinking water.”

The legislature’s move drew a sharp response from Gov. Cooper, who has not yet announced whether he will veto the bill.

“Clean water that is threatened by chemicals we know little about and requires a strong, united and well-funded statewide response. A sprinkle of local funds hooked to bad environmental legislation doesn’t help,” Cooper said in a statement released by the governor’s press office shortly after the House vote. “I ask Republican legislators to work with us to protect the water all over our state.”

Related: Other Compounds ID’d in Chemours’ Waste

Cooper, who has recently toured water treatment plants in New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties, announced a multi-stage plan last month that included a request for $2.6 million in funding for DEQ and the Department of Health and Human Services for additional testing, research and outreach.

Sen. Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, the Environmental Review Commission Senate chair, said last week that the commission would review the governor’s funding request in September.

In addition to further work proposed for the commission, House and Senate leaders set up separate select committees charged with investigating GenX contamination of the Cape Fear and looking into water quality strategies statewide.

Davis will chair the House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality and Wade will chair the Senate Select Committee on North Carolina River Water Quality.

While legislators argued, DEQ officials were reviewing new information from the Environmental Protection Agency identifying two new compounds of concern coming from the Chemours facility.

DEQ Secretary Michael Regan and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen have scheduled a media briefing on the new EPA report for Friday afternoon.

House Bill 56 Specifics

• The GenX provision in House Bill 56 includes a $100,000 allocation from the state’s Contingency and Emergency Fund for the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority to identify and deploy a water treatment technology to remove GenX from the water supply and $85,000 for additional monitoring. The authority, which is directed to coordinate the effort with other area utilities, is due to report back to the legislature on Dec. 1.
• The bill allocates an additional $250,000 to UNC-Wilmington to “measure the concentration of the chemicals in the sediments of the Cape Fear River, the extent to which the chemical biodegrades over time or bioaccumulates within local ecosystems, and what risk the contaminant poses to human health.” An initial report from the university is also due on Dec. 1.
• The legislation also charges the recently created North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill, with accelerating work on a digital database for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permits.
• Another GenX section of the bill prods the state Department of Environmental Quality over the department’s delay in issuing a notice of violation for the Chemours facility. The bill requires DEQ to either issue a notice by Sept. 8 or file a detailed report to the commission on why no notice was issued.

Learn More

• House Bill 56

RALEIGH – Going into the final day of the 2017 long session Thursday, the fate of dozens of environmental provisions, some in multiple bills, was still an unknown.

So was the fate of an extensive rewrite of state solar energy policy, which had become entangled in Sen. Harry Brown’s, R-Onslow, undaunting effort to impose a moratorium on wind-energy projects, a move he says is necessary to protect the state’s military bases during the next round of base closures and realignments.

Brown and others pushed for a moratorium through 2020, giving time to study the issue and develop a set of maps detailing areas where projects can and can’t be built.

Brown, the Senate majority leader, was adamant going in to final negotiations that a moratorium be included in the final set of legislation.

Although the controversy was similar to last year’s fight over wind energy, the outcome was not.

Compromise legislation that included the solar industry changes and a scaled-back wind project moratorium, which runs through 2018, cleared both chambers early Friday morning.

While that legislation survived, a slate of bills with dozens of environmental provisions was left on the table. The measures include coastal stormwater changes, the creation of a new coastal storm damage mitigation fund to pay for beach re-nourishment, new dredging plans and repeal of the plastic bag ban on the Outer Banks.

Although they didn’t become law during the January-June session, there is still a chance for them to be taken up again. Wary of veto possibilities by Gov. Roy Cooper and with an eye toward a handful of elections and redistricting lawsuits, the legislature included plans in its adjournment resolution to return to Raleigh for sessions in both early August and September.

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said it was clear as the session wound down last week, that there wasn’t enough time to deal with the large mix of provisions left scattered in a half-dozen bills.

In an interview, McElraft said that, for now, it’s likely that the legislature will act on those bill during the September session.

None of the provisions are urgent, McElraft said, but she and Brown are interested in seeing the coastal storm damage mitigation fund in place soon. The fund was part of the Senate budget proposal, but was dropped from the final bill during conference negotiations and the provision added to two bills. Much as he did with the inlet dredging fund, Brown has sought to set up a reliable pool of funds for beach re-nourishment.

McElraft said that, although there are no state funds going into it this year and next year, it’s important to get the fund set up so that it can accept federal dollars and private donations.

“We really want to start getting private money in that fund,” she said.

In addition to private donations, getting the fund set up will be important should there be federal money available for projects, such as a fix for long-term issues keeping the New River Inlet open.

One hitch in committee hearings over the fund was whether any of the money would go toward costs related to terminal groins. State law currently prohibits the use of state funds for authorized terminal groin projects. But earlier this month, Brown asked the House to drop a clause specifically prohibiting the use of the coastal storm damage fund for terminal groins.

McElraft said she supports the move and could see the fund being used in the case of a storm damage to a terminal groin.

“My philosophy is that we’re not asking for any more terminal groins, but if there’s storm damage we can help them,” she said. Should there be more groin projects in the future, she said, the legislature has the option of putting restrictions on their funding then.

In an interview last week, Brown said the fund would be a pool of money from several sources.

“You’ve got to remember this pot of money is not just state dollars, it’s also outside dollars,” Brown said. “So, for the state to dictate how all those outside dollars are to be spent, too, I think is wrong. In some cases when you mitigate, it may mean that a groin is the best solution, but I think it’s the last solution. I don’t think anyone really want to go there unless it’s determined that’s truly what’s needed.”

McElraft said House Bill 469, the omnibus bill with the fund provision, will be among those taken up in September. Last week, while it was still on the House calendar for the last day of the session, there were nine proposed amendments for H469, including one to reinsert the prohibition on terminal groin spending.

Also among the amendments proposed but not yet voted on is a move by Rep. Beverly Boswell, R-Dare, to add a provision to repeal the plastic bag ban in Outer Banks beach communities. Although several versions of the repeal appeared in various bills this session, none made it into law.

In all, there are six key bills with environmental provisions, Senate Bill 16, House Bill 374, Senate Bill 469, House Bill 56, House Bill 434, and Senate Bill 770. Of the group, versions of S16, H56, S770 passed both chambers and conference committees were set up to negotiate the differences. H374, S434 and S469 all reside in the House Rules Committee and could resurface. Some of the bills overlap, sharing provisions deemed important enough to be housed under multiple bills to assure their passage.

Cassie Gavin, director of government relations for the North Carolina Sierra Club, said the stack of bills include provisions of special concern, especially language in H374 that changes how contested cases on environmental permits are handled.

“It would limit public access to the courts for environmental cases,” Gavin said. The plastic bag ban repeal does seem to keep coming back as well, she said. “All of the local governments have come out in favor of keeping it, yet for some reason it’s still being considered.”

Gavin said another area of concern is a mix of rollbacks and exceptions to coastal stormwater controls and buffer rules that remain in the bills.

Wind Moratorium Stalls Energy Compromise

The energy legislation, House Bill 589, was the result of months of negotiations between the solar industry and environmental groups, who wanted to see an expansion of solar through third-party leasing and community solar projects, and power providers, who wanted to see a more favorable set of rules on solar project bidding and contracts.

Duke Energy estimated that the new process for solar projects would save the utility’s ratepayers close to $1 billion during the next several years.

Once announced, the initial version of the bill was hailed as a rare legislative compromise, but after the addition of Brown’s wind energy provision late last week, backers expressed disappointment.

On Friday morning after adjournment, the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, which played a key role in the stakeholder discussion, released a statement expressing its disappointment in what happened to the bill.

“This legislation would have been a bipartisan compromise that was overall good for consumers, industry, and utilities,” said Allison Eckley, communications manager at NCSEA. Instead, she said, the bill was “tarnished” by the wind energy moratorium.

“We are very disappointed with this outcome and are determined to take immediate steps to lessen this blow to our growing and diverse clean energy economy,” Eckley said. “NCSEA is working now to ensure all participants in the stakeholder process leading up to this disappointing vote take action to remedy this reckless adoption of an otherwise strong policy.

Update: Gov. Roy Cooper vowed Monday to veto the budget bill, calling it “short-sighted and small-minded.” Republicans are expected to override Cooper’s veto.

RALEIGH – The state budget conference report, the final agreement between House and Senate negotiators, moved quickly to approval through both chambers last week, but not without some pointed opposition along the way.

When Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, one of the least-senior members of the House minority, began her comments on the budget with a strongly worded explanation on the GenX contamination issue in the Cape Fear River, she was urged by a senior colleague from across the aisle to keep debate to the budget bill.

She obliged, using the water contamination to underline that now is not the time for cuts to the Department of Environmental Quality, saying they come at a time when there is also a backlog of pending permits. There’s a need for more resources at the department not less, she said.

“This budget severely cuts their resources and eliminates personnel to the tune of $3 million dollars,” she said. “It’s grossly poor judgement to under-fund the only watchdog we have to protect our water.”

DEQ and the state Department of Health and Human Services have been investigating the presence of a compound known as GenX in the lower Cape Fear River. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority said earlier this month it was aware of the presence of the chemical in the river water and, because it can’t be filtered with existing treatment methods, the utility’s treated water.

The chemical is a DuPont product used as a component in Teflon. Limited health information is available for the compound but it’s part of a family of chemicals with effects linked to kidney and testicular cancer, impaired fetal development and effects on the liver, thyroid, and immune system. It’s produced by the Chemours Co. at Fayetteville Works on the Cumberland-Bladen county line. The Environmental Protection Agency has no established standards for regulating the chemical in drinking water.

The Chemours Co. announced June 20 that it would begin to capture, remove and dispose of wastewater that contains GenX generated from production at its manufacturing plant in Fayetteville.

DEQ’s Permitting Backlog

Going into the budget conference committee discussions, the DEQ budget was one of the broadest differences between the House and Senate plans. While the House provided for some increases and only a handful of position cuts, the Senate axed 45.5 positions, most of them currently filled, and among them several eastern regional office cuts. Jobs in Washington and Wilmington and senior administrators in Raleigh are among those marked for elimination.

DEQ officials went into the budget season asking for more positions to help clear out the permit applications backlog and to shorten turnaround times, mostly in water resources permitting.

In the final bill, 16.76 positions are cut at DEQ, including at least one administrative position in each of the seven regional offices. There’s also an overall “budget flexibility” cut of $828,000 in the first year and $1 million in the second.

Other cuts include elimination of more than $1.3 million in funding for research at state energy centers and state support for an energy research center at N.C. State University. Three positions at the State Energy Office were also cut. DEQ officials did not provide a comment for this story on the impact of the cuts.

In an interview Thursday, Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, the lead House negotiator for the environment and natural resources portion of the budget, said the final version of the bill was “fairer” to the department than the Senate plan, but he was disappointed in the DEQ cuts and a drop in funding for the state’s conservation trust funds.

FerryMon Hangs On

The budget provides $150,000 in one-time money to fund another year of the ferry-based water quality monitoring program by the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences.

The FerryMon program, founded by the institute’s Hans Paerl and Joe Ramus of the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort in 2000 and a model for water quality monitoring plans in other states, uses equipment installed on state ferries to track water temperature, pH, salinity and algae content along ferry routes. Water intakes for the vessels’ cooling systems are tapped for the on-board monitoring equipment. The program began with support from North Carolina Sea Grant and a state relief fund in the aftermath of flooding from Hurricane Floyd.

Various other state and grant support followed. Money for the program ran out late last year when a two-year, $143,000 grant from the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries’ recreational fishing license revenue was exhausted.

The data collected had been made available to scientists, fisheries managers, classroom teachers and others and the results have led to better understanding of how pollutants from stormwater runoff upriver affect coastal water quality.

Trust Funds Fall Short

The recurring funding for both the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund is lower than the Senate, House and governor’s proposals.

The Clean Water totals are $18.3 million in the first year and $14.3 million in the second.

The Parks and Recreation totals are $14.7 million in the first year and $16.2 million in the second.

Michelle Walker, spokesperson for the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, said the funding drop for the Clean Water fund could have an effect on project funding over the next two years.

“This budget includes a $4.1 million cut to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund from the current fiscal year, plus earmarks $3.2 million, or 17.5 percent of the total appropriation, for specific projects that will bypass the normal competitive grant process,” Walker said. “That means some worthy projects will likely go unfunded during the next grant cycle.”

Walker said the department also was counting on an additional firefighting crew for state parks in the budget that failed to make the final version.

“Last year’s devastating wildfires in the North Carolina mountains highlighted the serious need for an extra fire crew of five full-time employees to respond to wildfires and perform prescribed burns,” she said.

Oyster Sanctuaries Funded

With both House and Senate support for oyster programs established in recent years, the programs continue to build with $500,000 in new recurring spending and $500,000 in additional spending going to the oyster sanctuary program. The total appropriation for the program is $1.4 million in the first year and $850,000 in the second year of the budget.

Shellfish cultch-planting programs also will see a boost in spending of $155,088 in the first year and $157,542 in the second year.

Todd Miller, executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which is working with the state on the oyster projects, said the funding will help continue the effort.

“This significant financial support enables progress to continue in restoring healthy populations of oysters along our entire coast,” Miller said. “It’s nice to see people working together as partners to rebuild our oyster stocks and fishery. The outcome will be a more resilient coastal economy and environment.”

The federation will also see a direct $100,000 grant from the state this year for another crab pot cleanup program.

The North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill will receive $150,000 to support development of a Shellfish Mariculture Plan. The collaboratory, set up in last year’s budget to work on environmental public policy, is already working on a related shellfish study mandated in 2016.

Dredging for Ports, Ferries

The budget also creates a new State Ports Authority Fund for modernization initiatives, authorizing $45 million each year. The budget ends the annual appropriation from the state Highway Fund to the Ports Authority and transfers remaining money in the fund to the new authority fund.

The Ports Authority is also authorized to spend $15 million in the 2017-2018 for the dredging of approaches to state ports.

The state Department of Transportation is required to study the use of its dredge Manteo and its annual costs along with a plan to allow other state agencies to use the dredge. A separate provision in the budget requires the Division of Water Resources to study whether to acquire additional dredges or set up possible shared ownership agreements for dredges with neighboring states or the Army Corps of Engineers.

The budget also changes employment practices in the state DOT’s Ferry Division. It eliminates 12 temporary field positions and converts the remaining 46 to permanent full-time positions.

The budget also allocates $3 million for work on the division’s ramps and gantries at Southport and Fort Fisher.

Other budget items include:

• $5 million for construction of a new visitor center at Fort Fisher.
• $150,000 in one time money to fund another year of the ferry-based water quality monitoring program by the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences.
• Requirement that $545,000 from Clean Water Management Trust Fund and $500,000 from Parks and Recreation Trust Fund be set aside for matching funds for a federal Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration grant to purchase the Archers Creek tract on Bogue Banks.
• Requirement that the Wildlife Resources Commission complete the roof repair and stabilization project at the Lake Mattamuskeet Lodge.
• About $700,000 over two years for the Southport Maritime Museum.
• $253,794 in planning funds for a Scotts Hill satellite aquarium facility at the Blake Farm development near the New Hanover and Pender county line.
• $100,000 for Sturgeon City of Jacksonville to help build an environmental education center and classroom space.

Learn More

• Appropriations Act of 2017

RALEIGH – The state Senate’s budget plan took an ax to the Department of Environmental Quality, while the House dipped in with a scalpel, setting up major differences to bridge when the two sides sit down to negotiate a final spending deal.

The Senate plan, approved earlier this month, eliminates DEQ’s Division of Environmental Assistance and Customer Service, which helps businesses with waste reduction and recycling programs, as well as the department’s environmental education program. It also cuts key positions in administration and two positions in each of DEQ’s seven regional offices. In all, the Senate wants to eliminate a total of 45.5 positions, most of them currently filled.

The House plan retains the assistance and customer service and education programs and only cuts 6.5 positions that are currently vacant.

In dollars, the changes represent a difference between the two chambers of roughly $8 million in annual spending for DEQ.

Bag Ban Repeal, Topsail Dune Rule Advance

What House budget writers did cut is aimed at a handful of programs and special provisions championed by their Senate counterparts, including a provision pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, that would impose a moratorium on new wind energy projects through 2020, a move that has the backing of some House members, but has been strongly opposed by a majority of its members.

The House version of the budget also maintains funding for university energy research centers, which the Senate wanted to eliminate.

The House Appropriations Committee met throughout the day Wednesday, working through more than 60 separate amendments to the $22.9 billion spending package. An initial vote on the plan is expected Thursday and the chamber is likely to take a final vote Friday, setting the stage for negotiations by a conference committee. House and Senate leaders have said they want to see a final budget deal passed by the end of the month.

Early in the session, budget chairs for both chambers said they were “pre-conferencing” sections of the budget to get the two versions better synched up ahead of the final negotiations. But in addition to spending on environmental programs, there are dozens of spending and policy differences in the two versions.

Collaboratory’s Future and Conservation Funds

One stark difference is in what’s envisioned for the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill, which the Senate created in last year’s budget to handle some of the research and development in state environmental policy, including an extensive study of nutrient management and the development of a regulatory framework for shellfish aquaculture. This spring, UNC officials hired Jeffrey Warren, the former science adviser for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, as the collaboratory’s research coordinator.

In its version of the budget, the Senate renewed the collaboratory’s $1 million per year appropriation and extended the deadline for $3.5 million in matching funds for a challenge grant the university was unable to take advantage of last year. It also expanded the collaboratory’s studies, adding $100,000 for water and wastewater infrastructure analysis and $150,000 for a study of how to “ecologically restore and achieve economic stability” of the state’s shellfish industry, including the development of a shellfish mariculture plan. Another provision requires the collaboratory to develop a proposal for digitizing data on   environmental monitoring and natural resource management. Additional language in the Senate budget prevents the UNC system from using any of the collaboratory’s funding as part of mandated system-wide cuts.

The House, meanwhile, would zero out all funding for the collaboratory and instead dedicates $150,000 to North Carolina Sea Grant for the shellfish aquaculture study and gives Sea Grant authority to conduct other aquaculture and mariculture studies that would have been assigned to the collaboratory.

The House also takes aim at a natural gas infrastructure fund set up to provide grants to extend service to large farms, a program that was championed by Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, who drew criticism late last year after it was revealed that his family’s farming operation had applied for a $925,000 grant under the program. Jackson said at the time he would seek a review of the grant request by the legislature’s ethics office and would withdraw the application if told to do so.

The House budget transfers $3,276,032 in the program to the Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund and the remaining $2,176,032 to the state Forest Service for the purchase of a firefighting aircraft.

Overall, the total in grants to the state’s conservation funds varies only slightly for the farmland preservation fund and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.

Although the funding sources are different, both the House and Senate budget $3.6 million this year and $2.6 million next year for the farmland preservation fund.

The Senate budget would spend $16.2 million this year and $13.5 million next year for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund; and $16.2 million each year for the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund.

The House budget would spend $16.5 million this year and $13.5 million for the clean water fund; and $23.4 million this year and $16.4 million next year for the parks and recreation fund.

The House budget also earmarks $545,000 from the clean water fund and $500,000 from parks and recreation fund to be used to help the town of Emerald Isle pay for the required match for a federal grant to purchase the Archers Creek tract on Bogue Banks.

Some House members are pushing for a shift in the revenue stream for the conservation funds.

At a Tuesday budget review, Rep. Julia Howard, R-Davie, told members of the House Finance Committee that she wants to return to using the deed stamp tax proceeds as a dedicated source of funding for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and other conservation programs. The legislature eliminated using the deed stamp tax in 2013, but Howard said going back to using it would reduce some of the annual back and forth over finding money for the conservation funds.

Howard’s proposal, offered as an amendment to the budget bill, was eventually rejected by the committee, but she said she would continue trying to restore the revenue stream.

Oysters and Crab Pots

The Senate plan provides more funding than the House for oyster and aquaculture programs, spending a total of $1.4 million each year on oyster sanctuaries and $1.1 million in the first year and $1.2 million in the second year for shellfish bed rehabilitation. The House budget spends $1.1 million for the shellfish bed rehabilitation program and $900,000 in the first year and $400,000 in the second year for the oyster sanctuaries program.

Both chambers have budgeted $100,000 in the coming year for the crab pot cleanup program managed by the North Carolina Coastal Federation. The House provision requires an audit report on how the money was used and the results of the cleanup.

Learn More

• House Budget
• House Money Report
• Senate Budget
• Senate Money Report

RALEIGH – Omnibus legislation that includes several controversial environmental provisions is a step closer to a final vote in the state Senate.

Wednesday morning the Senate’s Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources Committee approved its version of House Bill 56, an environmental amendments bill that runs roughly 15 pages. The bill was passed by the House on April 24, but senators have since added changes.

Last week, Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, added language that would repeal the ban on plastic bags in the beach areas of Dare, Currituck and Hyde counties, which are also in Cook’s district.

The ban has been in place since 2010 and the move to repeal it has been actively opposed by local governments in all three counties. Cook insists the ban is not working and is costly for businesses. The Retail Merchants Association, which represents major grocery store chains, has made the repeal a top priority for this session.

On Wednesday, senators also approved adding a new provision aimed at resolving a dispute over a dune-protection ordinance in Topsail Beach. The provision requires municipalities and counties that receive funds for inlet dredging, beach re-nourishment and dune construction or maintenance, to prohibit alteration, excavation or removal of sand from a dune system in areas subject to flooding, unless the dune system provides adequate protection to withstand flooding in major storm events. Jurisdictions must provide certification that they have complied with the new requirement before receiving new funds for re-nourishment, dune construction or maintenance and inlet dredging.

The bill also includes a provision aimed at assisting subdivisions that are out of compliance with coastal stormwater rules, allowing a variance for subdivisions that did not receive notice of stormwater-compliance issues after the transfer of a stormwater permit from the original developer to a homeowners’ association.

The provision was aimed at assisting two subdivisions in New Hanover County where residents have exceeded the allowable built upon area. A Department of Environmental Quality official told the committee last week that the department has reached an agreement on a mitigation plan for the subdivision and is opposed to the provision, noting that it could have a much broader application and may apply to as many as 150 developments in the coastal region.

The bill now goes to the Senate Rules Committee and could be voted on next week. Once approved by the Senate, the changes would require approval by the House.

Learn More

• House Bill 56

This story has been updated.

RALEIGH — The elimination of 45 positions at the Department of Environmental Quality and a moratorium on wind-energy projects through 2020 are among items raising concerns among environmental groups following the release Tuesday of the Senate’s two-year budget blueprint.

The wind-energy moratorium could be a sticking point as the House and Senate begin negotiations on a final spending plan.

The $22.9 billion budget, which includes a raise for schoolteachers and state employees and a major reduction in corporate and personal income taxes, was released late Tuesday night and approved on second reading by the Senate Thursday in a 34-15 vote. A final vote came Friday, a little after 3 a.m., with the budget passing 32-15.

The DEQ cuts proposed in the plan include several highly targeted job eliminations, including those held by DEQ Chief Deputy Secretary John Nicholson and senior adviser for Policy and Innovation Mary Penny Kelley. The Senate proposal also eliminates the department’s Environmental Education Program and the Environmental Assistance and Customer Service, or DEACS, program, which leads the department’s waste-reduction and recycling efforts, cutting its more than 32 positions.

To some close observers, the budget is reminiscent of earlier fights between the department and legislators and moves in the opposite direction of Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget proposal. Cooper and DEQ Secretary Michael Regan had asked the legislature for additional help at DEQ, mainly to address a backlog in permit applications.

“We’re disappointed to see the cuts proposed for DEQ programs and DEQ staff,” Grady McCallie, policy director for the North Carolina Conservation Network, told Coastal Review Online. “A lot of that seems to be sort of petty sniping at the administration.”

McCallie said the Senate had failed to address Cooper’s request for help dealing with permit requests, which are steadily increasing as the economy grows.

“We are hopeful that the House will focus on actual program needs and provide the staff for the agency to keep up with permit demand,” McCallie said.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Regan said DEQ has a significant permit backlog that has built up in the past few years as the department shifted resources to deal with stepped-up regulation of coal ash. He asked legislators for additional help in regional offices to deal with the backlog and reduce turnaround times for permits, which now average about two years.

Instead, the Senate budget cuts 14 regional office positions, two each from the seven regional offices.

“We have significant concerns that the Senate’s budget won’t provide the resources needed to balance the protection of North Carolina’s natural resources and economic competitiveness,” DEQ spokesperson Jamie Kritzer responded in an email. “The current proposal eliminates programs in our agency necessary to educate schoolchildren, enable environmental permitting to keep pace with economic development and help the business community navigate the regulatory process. We look forward to making our case to legislators during the budget negotiations.”

A statement issued by the Sierra Club after the budget rollout noted that DEQ’s regional offices have already seen significant cuts in recent years.

Related: Oysters, Aquaculture, Gear Cleanup Funded

The statement said the Senate “appears determined to also eliminate non-regulatory programs that help business and industry reduce waste. Those programs save money, reduce the regulatory burden on businesses and protect the environment.”

The House is expected to begin work next week on its version of the budget and although the two chambers have been coordinating through much of the budget-writing process, House leaders expect to make several changes to the Senate’s plan.

Among the other changes proposed by the Senate are:

• Overall budget reductions of $4.5 million each year, partly to cover costs of litigation with the Environmental Protection Agency over the Waters of United States rule.
• A reduction of $1 million per year in funding for three university energy research centers.
• Elimination of three currently vacant positions with the Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources.
• A $250,000 increase each year for the Dam Safety Program.
• A move of the On-Site Wastewater Program from the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.

Wind Projects Questioned

In addition to the budget cuts, the Senate bill also includes several environmental policy provisions, including a moratorium on wind-energy projects pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow.

In hearings on the budget Wednesday, Brown said a moratorium is needed to prevent projects from being built in areas that would interfere with military training. Proponents of tighter rules on wind projects have said the threat to training increases the likelihood that one or more bases in North Carolina could be shut down under the military’s next round of base realignment and closings.

Brown said the moratorium, which would extend until Dec. 31, 2020, would give mapmakers working the state’s Military Affairs Commission time to complete work on detailed exclusion zones for the projects.

“Those maps will pretty much lay out where wind energy is acceptable and doesn’t interfere with military training,” Brown said. “I think until you do that we will be back every single session arguing on what’s a good place for a wind project to go and what’s not good place for it to go. As soon as those maps are completed and it’s laid out, that argument goes away.”

Brown said having the maps is the only way to solve the long-running debate. “This will get some certainty to it,” he said.

The wind provision is likely to become one of the sticking points between the House and Senate as the budget moves forward. The two chambers have disagreed about the right path for wind energy projects for several years and last year failed to pass a major regulatory package after negotiations broke down over wind energy provisions  pushed by Brown.

Rep. Bob Steinberg, R-Chowan, said the wind projects represent a major opportunity for struggling counties in the northeastern region and it’s unfortunate that a fight over wind and renewables has become a regular occurrence toward the end of every session.

Steinberg said the move by Brown could be just a bargaining chip once the House and Senate being negotiating a final version. The House has already signaled that a moratorium could not pass in a stand-alone bill, he said.

“They couldn’t get a stand-alone bill through so they decided to just put it in the budget,” he said. The provision, he said, could spell trouble if it remains in the budget and the House is faced with a veto override vote.

“I think there are enough members in the House who would hold out on approving the budget if this provision remains in the budget,” he said.

Learn More

• Senate Bill 257: Appropriations Act of 2017

RALEIGH – A House committee gave a tentative nod to new changes in proposed wind energy legislation, while both chambers worked through dozens of bills in an attempt to beat an end-of-week deadline.

Crossover week in the North Carolina General Assembly is generally a marathon followed by a sprint. Any non-appropriations bill that hasn’t been passed by one chamber — and thus crossed over to the other side — can’t be taken up again. Still, legislative language has been known to resurface, added into the budget or into bills passed later in the session.

One example of that this year is an ongoing effort to strike a compromise on wind energy regulations, an increasingly tense debate that has pitted representatives of military base-host communities against the state’s growing wind energy industry.

Last year’s session ended with a hotly contested plan proposed by Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, that would have eliminated large swaths of eastern North Carolina from contention for projects and likely would have stopped a handful of projects in early stages.

Although Brown’s plan did not become law, legislation this year has sought to once again settle the siting issue with a range of bills, including an outright moratorium on new wind projects and a bill clarifying permitting responsibilities that’s supported by the industry.

Early this month, legislation proposed by Rep. Chris Millis, R-Pender, that would have imposed tighter restrictions on wind projects, including setbacks of one mile and a 30-mile exclusion zone around military bases and installations, was voted down by the House Homeland Security, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.

A proposal for a moratorium on new projects through 2020 sponsored by House Majority Leader John Bell, R-Wayne, stalled last week.

The only House measure moving forward for now is an evolving piece of legislation sponsored by Reps. John Szoka, R-Cumberland, and Holly Grange, R-New Hanover.

Although it failed to clear the crossover deadline this week, supporters are confident Szoka’s House Bill 574 still has a good chance of becoming law, despite challenges in crafting a deal that suits the industry, local governments and military base communities.

At a hearing on the latest version of the bill held Wednesday, the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee heard organizations in military communities about continued concerns that the growing number of wind projects in eastern North Carolina could put bases at risk during a future round of the military’s Base Realignment and Closure process. The most recent round of base closures was in 2005.

Havelock City Manager Frank Bottorff, a retired Marine pilot and a member of the state’s Military Affairs Commission, said based on his experience flying in the state, the wind projects already in the pipeline will degrade the training mission.

“‘Adverse impact’ is in the eye of the beholder,” Bottorff, a former commanding officer at Cherry Point, said. As a pilot, he said “what we’re doing will degrade training in North Carolina.”

Bill Moore, a resident of Kure Beach and a representative of the Coastal Carolina Accountability Project, warned that local governments could be taken advantage of.

“County commissioners can easily be blinded by the increase in property taxes or local lease money that would come from an industrial wind project,” Moore said.

The committee heard a different take from the state’s largest private landholder.

Alissa Cale, land asset manager with Weyerhaeuser, said the bill strikes a balance between private property rights and the military’s ability to weigh in on wind projects. The company, which owns some of the land at the Amazon wind farm in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties, is looking at the possibility of additional projects on some of its land.

“Commercial forestry and wind turbines are compatible,” she said.

Dave Belote, a retired pilot and Dare County resident who was the first commanding officer of the Department of Defense’s siting clearinghouse, said he believes the existing process is sound.

“I know firsthand how military bases and wind farms can coexist,” he said. “If the impacts of a proposed project cannot be properly mitigated, the project won’t get built.”

While the base communities’ concerns continued to resonate with the committee, it approved the bill in a 19-9 vote.

Szoka said afterward that he believes the bill is close and called it a good compromise.

“We heard from local communities that they wanted more local control in permitting wind,” he said. The bill, he said is an attempt to do that.

“The bill wasn’t asked for by the wind folks, wasn’t asked for by DoD, wasn’t asked for by any military base that I am aware of,” Szoka said. “It was asked for because there was a groundswell from local communities. They wanted more say.”

Szoka said the concerns about the impact on the training mission is not about the bases themselves.

“In my viewpoint, the issue is not military installations,” he said. “The whole issue here is the Dare County Bombing Range.”

He said it was a unique range that’s important to carrier aircraft in Norfolk, Virginia, and he expects the military to do what is needed to protect the range.

‘Regulatory Reform’ Bill Approved

Legislators finished work Wednesday on the largest piece of environmental legislation so far this session, sending the final version of Senate Bill 131, The Regulatory Reform Act of 2016-2017, to the governor.

The bill includes numerous provisions approved in one or both chambers last year that failed to reach final passage.

Specific coastal provisions include an exemption on sediment criteria in beach re-nourishment for cape shoal sands and a mandate that the Coastal Resources Commission adopt new sandbag rules that loosen restrictions, including those on proximity to structures.

The bill also requires the Division of Coastal Management to study erosion rates in areas directly adjacent to existing and newly built terminal groins. The study, which could be used to adjust long-term erosion rates for the areas, is due to the Environmental Review Commission by March 1, 2018.

Another provision in the bill requires DEQ to request that the Army Corps of Engineers allow the state to double the threshold of loss required to trigger stream mitigation, from 150 feet to 300 feet.

Other provisions in the bill exempt certain areas with landscaping materials, including gravel, mulch and sand, from calculations for stormwater management requirements.

Clearing Crossover

Among the bills clearing the crossover deadline this week are two omnibus bills with environmental provisions, one from the Senate and one from the House.

Senate Bill 434, which includes a repeal on the plastic bag ban in Currituck, Dare and Hyde counties and a requirement that Department of Environmental Quality certify certain coastal developments as compliant with stormwater requirements, despite the department’s findings of non-compliance.

The bill would also lift a requirement that DEQ only issue leases within Shellfish Aquaculture Enterprise Areas to North Carolina residents.

Among its provisions, another measure, House Bill 56, makes changes to the state’s leaking underground storage tank program and remediation rules and tightens reporting requirements on wastewater discharges.

This week, the Senate also passed its version of the Coastal Crescent Trail bill, which would add a trail through Johnston, Sampson, Cumberland, Bladen, Pender, and Onslow counties as the coastal plain’s section of the state’s Mountain-to-Sea Trail, a long-distance hiking trail that runs from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the Outer Banks.

Update: House Bill 434 passed the Senate on Monday, including the provision repealing ban on plastic bags on the Outer Banks, in time for the crossover deadline.

RALEIGH – Facing a key deadline later this week, legislators last week began a full-on push to move several bills affecting the coastal region, including a controversial repeal of the plastic bag ban in place on the Outer Banks since 2009.

On Thursday morning, the Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee reviewed a new environmental omnibus bill and later that afternoon added several amendments, including language that mirrors a bill introduced in the House March 7 by Rep. Beverley Boswell, R-Dare, to repeal the longstanding ban on thin, single-use plastic bags.

Boswell’s bill and yet another aimed at repealing the ban were scheduled to be heard in committee meetings earlier last week, but the bills were taken off the calendars before being heard.

The new provisions to repeal the bag ban were introduced by Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, who said it was time to end the prohibition. Cook, one of the committee co-chairs, said statistics from two beach cleanup projects before and after the ban proved it was ineffective.

“It puts an unnecessary burden on our job creators and it has become very costly to business,” he said.

Attorneys with the Southern Environmental Law Center questioned Cook’s maneuver to insert the repeal into new legislation with no notice, saying it shut out public comment.

The law center’s Brooks Pearson said local officials had planned to travel to Raleigh to challenge the repeal before the hearings were cancelled. She said the ban has strong support on the Outer Banks.

Since this year’s effort to repeal the ban began, several local boards have passed resolutions in support of the keeping the ban, including Kill Devil Hills, Manteo and Dare County. The Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce has also stated its opposition to repealing the ban.

Cook called the ban a feel-good measure.

“Just because something makes you feel good doesn’t mean it really helps anything,” he said in response to Pearson. “I don’t believe this ban does anything for the environment. I think it just makes some folks feel good, but it really doesn’t help anything.”

Elizabeth Robinson, a representative of North Carolina Retail Merchants Association told senators the repeal was a top priority for the organization’s members.

“As we talk about removing red tape and impediments to business, this continues to rise to the top of our members’ radar as something they would like to see removed,” she said. “We have heard from members in the area, small and large, that do not want to comply with this ban.”

Robinson said the ban has too many requirements and said the refund system of 5 cents for customers who shop with reusable bags had been a problem to implement.

Law center Attorney Mary Maclean Asbill said some parts of the law, such as the reusable bag refund, could be fixed without a complete repeal. She said the last-minute move had made finding any compromise difficult.

“With this bad process, there’s been no chance for amendments or discussion between all these businesses of the Outer Banks and citizens of the Outer Banks,” she said.

Ivy Ingram, co-chair of the Surfrider Foundation’s Outer Banks chapter, said she is hearing plenty of response to the repeal proposal.

“There’s a pretty big groundswell of opposition,” Ingram said.

When the foundation started reaching out to the towns and counties for support, Ingram said she found many were already preparing to go on record against it.

“They’re really doing it on their own,” she said. “The uproar has been so huge in opposition to the repeal.”

Ingram said Surfrider was a sponsor of the beach sweep and provided the statistics Cook cited. She said there wasn’t enough information in the report to support the senator’s conclusion. Ingram said the organization has reached out to Boswell and Cook to see if there were ways to address problems with the ban, but so far hadn’t heard back.

Either way, the clock is ticking.

The General Assembly’s crossover deadline is Thursday. Non-appropriations related bills that have not passed at least one chamber in the legislature by then are generally considered dead for the session, although exceptions happen.

Dozens of environmental provisions grouped into a half-dozen bills are expected to move through committees this week and on to floor votes ahead of the deadline.

Along with the bag ban repeal provisions in the Senate’s Environmental Amendments 2 bill, Senate Bill 434 include several changes in riparian buffer rules, including a prohibition on local governments requiring buffers wider than state or federal laws allow.

The bill also allows the state Division of Coastal Management and the Department of Environmental Quality to negotiate an agreement with the federal government to acquire dredged material easement sites and use money from the state’s shallow draft inlet-dredging fund for the sites for maintenance of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway north of Beaufort Inlet to the Virginia border.

Other items in Senate Bill 434 include another delay in the the implementation of the Jordan Lake and Fall Lake watershed rules and an attempt settle a running dispute in New Hanover County over the cost of implementing coastal stormwater requirements in one or more neighborhoods there.

WILMINGTON — The stretch of the Cape Fear River from Navassa to Snow’s Cut, the part fronted by downtown Wilmington and the state port here, is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the term “swamp water.”

Traffic on this section of the river, which has a 50-foot-deep channel, includes both commercial shipping and pleasure craft and the river’s current is legendary as the name of the cape itself.

But a change in environmental rules pending in Raleigh would officially classify this roughly 12 miles of river as “swamp water,” thereby lowering the water quality standards and reducing requirements on local businesses and governments with discharge permits.

For some, including scientists who have studied the river’s depleted oxygen levels, it is a practical solution to advance regulation of the river system.

For environmental groups challenging the change, it’s an end run around important water quality rules, a move to cut discharge permit holders a break while ignoring greater threats to the river upstream, particularly from agricultural operations.

Rep. Billy Richardson, D-Cumberland, who has sponsored a bill to disapprove the new rules, said the state is playing games with water classifications.

“I just think that to hide behind a designation of ‘swamp’ when the water is clearly coastal water and clearly a navigable river is intellectually dishonest,” he said in recent interviews with Coastal Review.

Pointing to a photo on his phone showing a large container ship heading down the Cape Fear, Richardson said the change is baffling for anyone familiar with that part of the river.

“There’s your swamp,” he said.

In Search of a Solution

The decision to change the classification happened recently, but it was more than two decades in the making.

Although the Lower Cape Fear’s water quality issues are not as well-known as those of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river systems, low pH – meaning higher acidity – and low dissolved oxygen levels landed the river on the state’s list of impaired waters in the 1990s. The designation triggered requirements that the state come up with a maximum total daily load — so-called TMDLs — for operations that discharge pollutants contributing to the low pH and dissolved oxygen. Regulators and permit holders struggled for years to come up with a workable plan.

Point-source discharge permit holders along the segment include several municipal treatment plants, Duke Energy’s L.V. Sutton power plant, an International Paper Co. mill and Invista, which makes polymers and fibers, mainly for use in nylon, spandex and polyester.

After a set of recent studies showed that restrictions on point-source discharges in the area would do little to change the overall water quality, regulators and the Lower Cape Fear River Program, or LCFRP, an association of discharge permit holders and local governments, looked for another way to move forward without imposing costly and likely ineffective TMDLs on the local operators.

In early 2014, the state’s Environmental Management Commission began exploring the idea of reclassifying some state waters as a means of getting them off the impaired waters list.

The river program reviewed the reclassification option and filed a formal request that included both the reclassification to swamp water and new rules governing how future point sources would be managed.

The request was accepted by the EMC that summer, starting a formal rules-review process.

In February 2015, the EMC held a public hearing in Wilmington on the proposal and, in September, it approved the reclassification. The proposal was modified last year and went back through the public comment process. It was approved again in May. The state’s Rules Review Commission also signed off on the plan, but it drew enough letters of objections to trigger a legislative review before it could take effect.

The legislature now has the option of directly approving the new rules, disapproving them via Richardson’s bill or similar legislation or doing nothing, in which case the rules would take effect when the current General Assembly session ends.

James Merritt, the river program’s executive director and the former director of the UNC-Wilmington Center for Marine Science, said the reclassification change made sense for a number of reasons.

“We’ve been wrestling with that problem since 1998,” he said. “We worked on modeling it for years trying to find out what the situation was.”

Merritt said studies clearly showed that the low oxygen issue would not be solved by just limiting the input from the point sources.

“The model showed it would not make much of a difference if all the discharges were actually removed from the river. It would change it very little,” he said.

The group began looking for alternatives, Merritt said, so that a reasonable way could be found to regulate that part of the river. He said after talking with DEQ, the option of reclassifying the river seemed to be the best way to get at the problem.

“That section is tidally influenced. When the tide backs up it infiltrates lowland and swampy areas around the river,” Merritt said.

The Black River and the Northeast Cape Fear, which flow into the Cape Fear just above the section contribute also contribute to swampy conditions, Merritt said.

“Our objective was to help resolve the issue such that the oxygen consuming contributions could somehow be manage and hopefully it could lead to management of the waters draining into the river,” he said. “Our hope was that they would reclassify this part of the river, set up their regulation and then work on ways to improve the river as a whole, which means deal with some of the input from upstream.”

Eliminating the reclassification, Merritt said, throws all that work out the window. “Our whole objective was to get something moving on this process,” he said. Right now, he said, regulation of the river is in a kind of limbo.

But environmentalists warn that the move sets a dangerous precedent and the plan only seeks to regulate sources with direct discharges into the river, leaving out the biggest impact on water quality for the Cape Fear.

“The primary issue of concern is that by reclassifying, the state gives itself an out,” Will Hendrick, attorney for the Waterkeeper Alliance, said in a recent interview. The Black River and Northeast Cape Fear, he said, carry runoff from hundreds of hog and poultry operations downstream.

“This is the segment of the Cape Fear that first experiences the influences of upstream tributaries that drain hog country,” he said.

Hendrick said environmental organizations agree that the heavy controls on local dischargers won’t have a big effect on the river, but he’s worried that if the swamp water classification takes effect, it will put off study of the real source of decline in water quality. The flaw, he said, is that although state regulators concede it’s a factor, they don’t take into account runoff from hog and poultry operations in scientific modeling of the river’s ecosystem.

“They operate under the convenient legal fiction that they do not have an impact on water quality,” Hendrick said. “It’s pretty remarkable considering that right upstream you’ve got the highest concentration of swine farms anywhere on the globe and you’ve got a heavy concentration of poultry farms as well.”

Under the swamp water classification, if the state can attribute the conditions to natural causes, the river segment can have a pH standard as low as 4.3 and dissolved oxygen below 5.0, with no set limit on how low it can go.

“Low dissolved oxygen is a huge stressor on aquatic life and this segment of the Cape Fear is an important nursery habitat,” Hendrick said.

Two endangered species, the Atlantic sturgeon and the short-nosed sturgeon are among the fish that spend part of their early life in the river nursery before returning to the ocean.

Hendrick said the organization will review its legal options, should the reclassification take effect. He said the state needs to take a hard look at causes upstream before declaring the poor water quality the result of natural conditions.

“We don’t believe that the existing conditions are naturally caused,” he said.

DEQ spokesperson Marla Sink said the department will likely take another look at the rule changes. For now, she said, DEQ plans to wait for the legislative review process to reach a conclusion before any re-evaluation of the rule changes.

Richardson is not sure how successful he’ll be in stopping the reclassification of the river. He said he understands the impetus behind it, but said it’s better to face issues with the river, including those from upstream agriculture operations, directly rather than pretend the river is something that it’s not. The state should come up with a better way to deal with the overall problem as well as the quandary for local permit holders.

“Call it a harbor or a navigable river and make those changes that help those people,” he said, “but don’t call it a swamp.”

Learn More

• House Bill 292
• Report on Proposed Reclassification
• Memorandum of Agreement

OUTER BANKS — Flimsy plastic bags might seem like a silly thing to ignite a community, considering how ordinary they are for most shoppers.

But judging by overwhelming push-back from Outer Bankers to a proposed state law that would repeal an eight-year-old ban of the lightweight grocery bags, it seems the majority regard them as a needless blight that endanger marine animals and litter beaches and roadsides.

When then-state Sen. Marc Basnight wrote the bill that led to the current law, it was narrowly tailored geographically to barrier islands so it would be more likely to be passed. For that reason, the ban covers only retail stores on Ocracoke Island in Hyde County, Hatteras Island and Bodie Island – Duck to Nags Head – in Dare County, and Corolla and Carova in Currituck County. Roanoke Island and mainland Dare, which have no Atlantic coastline, are not included in the ban. On the barrier islands, merchants are required to offer recyclable brown paper bags instead of plastic. Customers who bring their own reusable bags are credited 5 cents per bag.

In addition to resolutions opposing repeal recently passed by the towns of Kill Devil Hills, Duck, Kitty Hawk, Nags Head and Southern Shores, Dare County commissioners this week agreed to act soon on their own resolution opposing reversal of the ban.

When freshman state Rep. Beverly Boswell, R-Dare, and also representing Beaufort, Hyde and Washington counties, was approached by “local merchants” on the Outer Banks to sponsor a bill that would repeal the ban on plastic grocery, Boswell said she thought it made sense that businesses that preferred them should be able “to have plastic bags again.”

Boswell supports those who see the bag ban as an example of government overreach. Why should businesses have to deal with the expense and hassle of replacing plastic bags with heavier brown paper bags? Consumers should be able to choose. And paper, they argue, is worse for the environment than using plastic bags and recycling them.

“Again, it’s just the opportunity,” Boswell said in a recent telephone interview from her Raleigh office. “That’s the beauty of this bill.”

Shoppers could bring their own bag, Boswell said, or if they use the store’s plastic bag, they should be encouraged to recycle them. The proposed bill states that voluntary educational programs would promote recycling of the bags.

Her colleague, Rep. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, and whose district also includes Corolla in Currituck County, said he does not support repeal of the ban.

Steinburg recently told the Outer Banks Voice he’s received calls and emails that oppose the repeal, 50-1 in favor of keeping the ban. He said Outer Banks had “learned to adjust to it.”

But Boswell’s effort does have support in the Senate. Last Thursday, Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, along with Sens. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, and Andrew Brock, R-Davie, introduced legislation, Senate Bill 539, that also includes a provision that would reverse the bag ban.

“I think that ban hurts stores that sell things that go in bags,” Cook said Monday, chatting after his remarks at the North Carolina Coastal Local Government meeting in Nags Head.  “I’ve seen numbers where it’s costing lots and lots of money.”

Cook said he believes Boswell’s bill is a “good bill.”

“Let me put it this way: I ask you, you think those bags stay in one place? No,” he said. “Banning them in those couple of places doesn’t make a difference. In terms of proliferation of bags, it doesn’t make a difference.”

Since the House bill was introduced on March 7, Boswell said she has been inundated by emails and voicemails, many of them filled with “clear and utter hatred.” Fear of similar abuse has kept merchants who favor the repeal from coming forward, she said.

“I never expected this explosion, and especially the threats,” she said in a telephone interview last week.

In one voicemail cited as an example, a male caller repeatedly called Boswell disparaging names, promised that she would be “kicked out (of office) next time” and talked about putting a bag over her head.

“That’s just one,” Boswell said.

Anger was further fanned by an email Boswell sent out that had attached a list of local merchants compiled by the nonprofit North Carolina Retail Merchants Association that inaccurately appeared to imply member stores’ support for the repeal. The trade group was forced to issue an apology after member businesses expressed anger because their names were included in materials Boswell’s office had disseminated.

“Please know the previously distributed list has been updated to include clearer language explaining that the businesses listed in our research document are not necessarily NCRMA members nor does it imply any position on the bill and that the list simply references business to whom the current law applies,” Andy Ellen, the association’s president and general counsel, stated in the letter.

‘People Litter’

Boswell said she doesn’t understand why the same people who don’t want the thin plastic bags on the Outer Banks seem to accept plastic water bottles and plastic bags for ice and fish.

“Or what about balloons?” she wondered.

The problem, Boswell said, is that people litter – not just plastic, but other garbage like beer cans and cigarettes that can be seen on roadsides and beaches.

“Pollution is not just a plastic bag,” she said. “We need to educate and stop the whole pollution problem.”

Boswell said she is working on another bill to address the broader litter issue, similar to the “Don’t Mess with Texas” initiative, an anti-littering campaign that began in the late 1980s.

Opposition to limits or fees for plastic bag use is consistent with Boswell’s conservative, anti-government regulation stance. Her bill equates with versions drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a conservative nonprofit group. An earlier repeal effort in North Carolina in 2011 never gained traction in the General Assembly.

The American Chemistry Council and the American Progressive Bag Alliance have also worked nationwide to fight plastic bag bans or limits on their use. According to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, about 15 states have some kind of plastic bag regulation, and 23 states in 2015-16 proposed regulations. Last year, California became the first state in the nation to approve a statewide ban of the bags.

Language in Boswell’s bill states that businesses have had to spend “substantial capital” to comply with the bag ban, and that it hinders job creation and impacts large and small businesses throughout the state.

But it seems as if Outer Banks consumers and businesses long ago adjusted to shopping without plastic bags, and over the years have seen the benefit of the decreased numbers of wispy bags blowing around, clogging drainage ditches and littering beaches.

Environmentalists condemn the bags as a danger to marine life and waterways. Sea turtles and sea birds often confuse the bags for food, and small animals can become entangled in them. And since the plastic is not biodegradable, even when bags break down, the plastic remains in the environment.

Not only does The Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce oppose the repeal, numerous local business owners have spoken out against undoing the ban.

In a recent statement by the 1,100-member chamber, it said that retailers have adapted their practices to the ban and repeal would have no impact on hiring. Rather, it said, retailers value “being in tune with their community and environment.”

During last weekend’s “Trash Attack” community sweep in Kill Devil Hills, Mayor Sheila Davies noted that her group had to pick up only five plastic bags.

“Town-wide, the sentiment and comments were that ‘We don’t see these bags here like we used to’,” she said.

Davies remembered being skeptical about public acceptance of the ban after the bill was first enacted, expecting to hear a lot of complaining from merchants and consumers.

“I was pleasantly surprised that that was not the case,” she said. “In fact, many of the small businesses not included in the ban have willingly switched to paper or something (reusable) that’s not required – and that speaks volumes.”

Ivy Ingram, co-chair of the Outer Banks chapter of Surfrider Foundation, a national organization that advocates for clean oceans and waterways, said she wrote to Boswell in late March to encourage further discussion about litter and plastic. She also wanted to assure her that Surfrider promotes respectful dialogue and does not condone attacks against her.

“I do think it’s worth pointing out that the ban was put in place here to protect wildlife in an area that sees high wind, overfilled trash cans, minimal recycling options (at the time) and in close proximity to waterways,” she wrote. “It was not a ban because paper is overall environmentally better.”

Paper bags degrade in about a month, she added, but it takes plastic at least 10 years and as much as a century to break down.

Ingram said that with such a high volume of tourists on the barrier islands in the summer, it is not practical to expect them take plastic bags back to a store – currently the only means available for recycling.

And the thicker, biodegradable plastic shopping bags, she said, cost 50 percent more than paper bags – also not a practical option.

“There are solutions to a lot of the obstacles she is citing,” Ingram said in a telephone interview. “It is certainly something that deserves discussion.”

Potentially, she said, if the bag credit is an economic issue it could be removed. Or perhaps a bag tax rather than a bag ban might be a more effective consumer motivator to bring reusable bags.

House Bill 271 is scheduled to be heard in the House environment committee on April 20 –  two days before Earth Day.

“It’s ironic,” Ingram said.

Learn More

• House Bill 271
• Senate Bill 539
• North Carolina Retail Merchants Association’s Apology
• States with Plastic Bag Legislation
• Don’t Mess With Texas