North Carolina

How Solar Panels On A Church Rooftop Broke The Law In N.C.

May 15, 2018 Dan Gearino, Insideclimatenews.org Resist! Law, North Carolina, Solar Energy

A North Carolina environmental group that tried to challenge the state's utility monopoly by installing solar panels on the roof of a predominantly African-American church and selling the church cheap, clean power has lost its appeal to the state's highest court. Advocates say they are disappointed in the ruling, but they aren't giving up the fight to lift restrictions on clean energy. The case involved an attempt to bust through restrictions that solar advocates face in much of the Southeast. The region has a history of maintaining strong utility monopolies while other states have opened their markets to competition. The result, advocates say, limits rooftop solar in a region with some of the strongest solar power potential.

How Durham, NC Became The First U.S. City To Ban Police Exchanges With Israel

May 14, 2018 Zaina Alsous and Sammy Hanf, Mondoweiss.net Create! Israel, North Carolina, Police

Durham, North Carolina became the first city in the country to ban local police exchanges with Israel on April 16, when the city council unanimously passed a resolution opposing any international “military-style” training for police officers. During a heated discussion at City Hall, opponents of the resolutions expressed confusion over the policy’s relevance to Durham, or said they opposed what they saw as unfair targeting of Israel. “There are real problems facing this city, and the Palestinian situation is not one of them,” Richard Ford of Durham’s “Friends of Durham” political action committee said during the public comment period. Durham Mayor Steve Schewel also expressed dismay at what he said were false rumors that Durham had plans to send its police to Israel for training. But Southern solidarity with Palestine has deep precedent. Three years after the famous student Freedom Summer actions in Mississippi in 1964...

Man Led Away In Handcuffs After Protest Outside Duke Energy CEO’s Home

May 11, 2018 Staff, Wsoctv.com Resist! Duke Energy, North Carolina, Protests

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - One person was arrested after a handful of protesters set up a makeshift fracking tower outside the south Charlotte home of Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good Wednesday morning. About eight protesters with the group Beyond Extreme Energy set up in front of Good’s house around 7 a.m., claiming Duke Energy is putting profits before the safety and well-being of its customers. They are trying to stop the Atlantic Coast pipeline that will go through counties in eastern North Carolina, arguing that the project will wreck the environment. Police were called to the home and spoke with the protesters for a while before issuing an ultimatum to leave or be arrested.

CIA’s Secret Torture Program Sparked Citizen-led Public Reckoning In North Carolina

April 17, 2018 By Alexandra Moore, Activistpost.com Organize! CIA, North Carolina, Torture

President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, is reported to have overseen a U.S. site in Thailand where torture of a suspected terrorist took place. Later she allegedly helped destroy evidence of torture. Her nomination, pending congressional approval, is viewed by many as further evidence of this administration’s support of torture and an undoing of Obama-era efforts to end it. Her work was allegedly part of a program the CIA launched after 9/11 called Rendition, Detention and Interrogation. From 2002 to at least 2006, the CIA orchestrated disappearances, torture and indefinite detention without charge of suspected terrorists. What can a small group of committed citizens who oppose these practices do to push back?

North Carolina Tribes Fear Impact Of Atlantic Coast Pipeline Construction

March 24, 2018 Elizabeth Outz, Energynews.us Resist! Indigenous Peoples, North Carolina, Pipelines

American Indian tribes in the path of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are making an eleventh-hour plea to stop construction until regulators can ensure ancient artifacts and their ancestral lands won’t be damaged. The largest tribe east of the Mississippi, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina has rarely weighed in on environmental permits. But its recent resolution, along with one from the state’s Commission of Indian Affairs, reflects growing concern among tribes that the pipeline could destroy swamps and forests that have long sustained their culture. With nearly all the required permits in hand, the project’s developers have already begun felling trees along a 600-mile corridor from West Virginia to North Carolina’s Robeson County. Pipeline foes have mounted an array of legal challenges, and this week showcase the plight of the Lumbee in a new documentary, Robeson Rises.

DA Drops Charges Against Remaining Confederate Statue Protesters

February 22, 2018 Virginia Bridges and Joe Johnson, Heraldsun.com Educate! Confederacy, Monuments, North Carolina, Protesters

District Attorney Roger Echols announced Tuesday afternoon that he is dropping the charges against the five remaining people accused of destroying a Confederate statue in downtown Durham last summer. The announcement follows a long day in District Court Monday in which a judge acquitted one defendant, Raul Mauro Jimenez, and dismissed the charges against two others, Peter Gilbert and Dante Strobino, after an assistant district attorney presented all her evidence. The judge said the prosecution failed to prove the defendants were guilty of three misdemeanors: injury to real property, defacing a public building or monument and conspiracy to deface a public building or monument. Prosecutors presented all of the admissible evidence available, Echols said. Since his office planned to present the same evidence against the remaining defendants, it no longer made sense to prosecute the case...

NC Governor’s Office Occupied By Atlantic Coast Pipeline Protesters

February 3, 2018 By Anne Meador, Dcmediagroup.us Resist! Atlantic Coast Pipeline, North Carolina, Pipelines, Protests

Opponents of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline filled North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s office Friday and refused to leave until he reverses course on the pipeline. About 25 people began their sit-in at about 8:30am and are still occupying the governor’s office as of mid-afternoon. They say they won’t voluntarily vacate the room until Cooper stops the pipeline by revoking a crucial permit. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would run 600 miles from West Virginia through Virginia and North Carolina, has met with strong resistance all along its proposed route. After several requests for more information from applicant Dominion Transmission, North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality just granted the project a water quality certification. Duke Energy, a major influencer in North Carolina politics, has a minority stake in the pipeline.

N. Carolina Municipal Workers Kick Off Bill Of Rights Campaign

January 20, 2018 Sarah Miles, Portside.org Organize! Class Struggle, North Carolina, Workers

A cold snap the first week of this year took a toll on North Carolina’s cities. In Greensboro alone, 38 water mains broke—and despite near-zero temperatures, municipal workers like Charles French were responsible for fixing them. “We had workers out in frigid weather,” said French, a solid waste equipment operator. “We are the backbone of the city. Without us the city does not run.” Yet North Carolina’s municipal workers say their work and their safety are undervalued by state and local governments. Fifty years after Martin Luther King, Jr., stood with striking Memphis sanitation workers who were fed up with low pay and dangerous conditions, United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 150 is launching a campaign in the same spirit. The campaign kicks off on Martin Luther King Day with press conferences and rallies across the state.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline Hits More Delays In North Carolina

January 13, 2018 Elizabeth Ouzts, Southeastenergynews.com Resist! North Carolina, Pipelines

North Carolina regulators Wednesday announced the latest round of setbacks for the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline — delaying a decision on the project’s clean water certificate until as late as February and postponing several other environmental permits. Virginia-based Dominion Resources had hoped to break ground last year on the $5.5 billion pipeline, slated to transport natural gas from West Virginia into Virginia and the Tar Heel state. Duke Energy, which seeks fuel for its gas-fired power plants, is the venture’s second major investor. The feds approved the project in October, and just a few regulatory hurdles remain in the Virginias. But in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration has moved more slowly — soliciting nearly 24,000 citizen comments on the pipeline and repeatedly asking for more information about its impact on air and water quality.

Farm Workers Sue North Carolina To Protect Their Union Rights

November 16, 2017 Brian Hauss, aclu.org Resist! ACLU, Farmworkers, Lawsuit, North Carolina, Unions

By Brian Hauss for ACLU - Dolores Huerta, the legendary civil rights icon and farmworker activist, had it right: “Organized labor is a necessary part of democracy.” Day in and day out, unions struggle to make sure that farmworkers have a voice in in their workplace and in their communities, but they face enormous obstacles. Farmworkers, most of whom are people of color and many of whom are in this country on temporary visas, have long been excluded from federal and state labor laws. That means they don’t enjoy many of the key protections under the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and numerous state minimum wage, workers’ compensation, and youth employment laws. As a result, they face high risks to their health and safety, substandard living conditions, and abuse and exploitation by their employers. Now North Carolina has mounted a direct assault on the state’s only farmworkers union, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which works tirelessly to protect those workers. A new state law, sponsored and supported by legislators who have a financial interest in suppressing farmworker organizing, would make it all but impossible for the union to operate effectively in the state.

North Carolina Nixes Part Of The Atlantic Coast Pipeline Proposal

October 10, 2017 Lisa Sorg, www.pulse.ncpolicywatch.org Resist! Environment, North Carolina, Pipelines

By Lisa Sorg for The Progressive Pulse - The NC Department of Environmental Quality has rejected the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s erosion and sediment control plan, dealing yet another setback to the $5.5 billion project. In a letter dated Sept. 26, the Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources told the ACP owners it had disapproved the plan, primarily because there was so much missing information. The ACP is co-owned by Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Southeast Energy Company and Piedmont Natural Gas. The utilities have until Oct. 11 to submit a revised plan for consideration. If they want to contest DEQ’s disapproval, they must request an administrative hearing by Nov. 25. ACP’s plan, according to the letter, failed to provide detailed construction sequence and erosion control methods, plus measures required to protect all public and private property from construction damage. DEQ lists the shortcomings of the plan in 17 separate points over three pages. A specific concern for DEQ is the potential damage pipeline construction would have on the Neuse River. The plan, which originally called for open trenching, has been changed to a method known as a cofferdam. A cofferdam is an enclosure placed in a river, for example, that allows the water to be pumped out. However, the Neuse River is a habitat for many threatened or at-risk species, including the Neuse River waterdog, and draining the water could kill them. The utilities have claimed that they would try to collect any key species and relocate them — where, though, they didn’t say.

North Carolina Delays Decision On Atlantic Coast Pipeline

September 16, 2017 Elizabeth Ouzts, www.southeastenergynews.com Resist! Atlantic Coast Pipeline, North Carolina, Pipelines

By Elizabeth Ouzts for Southeast Energy News - Faced with a Monday deadline and a lopsided number of public comments opposing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration has delayed until mid-December its decision on whether to permit the controversial project. Without fanfare or press release late yesterday, the state issued a four-page “request for additional information,” part of its duty under the federal Clean Water Act to ensure the natural gas pipeline won’t harm the over 320 rivers and streams and hundreds of acres of wetlands in its path. Pipeline foes hailed the action, which appeared to vindicate a critique they’ve been leveling for months against the project, slated to hug the state’s I-95 corridor and pass through eight eastern North Carolina counties. “The current application leaves out critical information,” said Geoff Gisler, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “There are literally hundreds of streams and wetlands that the company has asked to dig through with hardly any analysis.” The delay followed a series of rowdy hearings and meetings last month that were packed with pipeline opponents, and the receipt of over 9,000 written public comments – 85 percent urging rejection.

New Model For Conservative Rule And Progressive Renewal

August 31, 2017 Tyler Norris, www.ncpolicywatch.com Strategize! Legislation, North Carolina, Reform

By Tyler Norris for NC Policy Watch - My home state was once a model for progress. For half a century, North Carolina was a beacon of moderation in the South, an outlier dubbed the “Dixie Dynamo” as early as the 1960’s for its farsighted reforms and public investments. The state had its share of problems, especially around the pernicious legacy of Jim Crow, but many of its trend lines were positive and generated an infectious optimism. I remember that optimism. Even in Appalachia, my father could start a successful small business, and the public schools offered a quality education. In high school, I was given the opportunity to attend the North Carolina School of Science and Math, founded as the first public school of its kind in the early 1980’s and used as a model for 18 other schools nationally. Opportunities were expanding, barriers to mobility were dropping, and the state’s future looked bright. Today, North Carolina is different. The numbers speak for themselves: the share of workers living in poverty is up from one-in-four in 2000 to every one-in-three today, according to the NC Justice Center – the second highest share of any state. Middle-wage jobs have hollowed outand median income has plunged since 2007.

A Window Into The Horrors Of Our History

August 28, 2017 Greg Huffman, www.facingsouth.org Educate! History, North Carolina, Racism

By Greg Huffman for Facing South - I am a child of the South. I was born in North Carolina, grew up in Catawba County, and have never lived outside the state as an adult. My sister and I joke that we never had a real vacation. Our parents were amateur historians and genealogists and were particularly interested in the Civil War and our family during it. While other kids were at Disney, we were traveling in the family station wagon to pretty much every Civil War battlefield from Pennsylvania to New Orleans, along with the accompanying historic sites, museums, court houses and cemeteries. By age 10, I could rip off a mean tombstone rubbing with charcoal and wax paper. This historical journey culminated in my teens when my mother and a family friend, Joe Hatley, collected and edited the Civil War letters of a common relative. What followed was a published book entitled the "Letters of William F. Wagner." Wagner was your average Catawba County farmer conscripted into military service by the Confederacy as an enlisted man. He served in the infantry, fought at Gettysburg, was eventually captured, and died in a Northern prison camp in 1864. His letters detail the pain and horrors and loneliness of the war for the men who fought it and the prison where he died.

Protesters Pull Down Confederate Statue In Durham

August 15, 2017 Derrick Lewis and Amy Cutler, www.wncn.com Resist! Confederacy, North Carolina, Protests, Racism, US history

By Derrick Lewis and Amy Cutler for CBS North Carolina - Around 7:10 p.m. a woman using a ladder climbed the statue of a Confederate soldier and attached a rope around the statue. Moments later, the crowd pulled on the rope and the statue fell. One man quickly ran up and spat on the statue and several others began kicking it. Durham police later said they monitored the protests to make sure they were “safe,” but did not interfere with the statue toppling because it happened on county property. “Because this incident occurred on county property, where county law enforcement officials were staffed, no arrests were made by DPD officers,” Durham Police spokesman Wil Glenn wrote in an email statement. Durham County Sheriff’s deputies videotaped the statue being brought down — but didn’t stop it from happening. After toppling the statue, the protesters started marching. They blocked traffic with authorities trying to stay ahead of them. The protesters made their way down E. Main Street to the site of the new Durham Police Department. In 1924, the Confederate statue was dedicated to Durham.

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