1997 ANNUAL REPORT

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League concluded its fourteenth year with a significant record of achievement. The countless hours of community organizing in the mountain, piedmont, and coastal regions have helped us to establish a solid network of people and a reputation for effectiveness in the southeast. The personal contacts made over the years are an enduring legacy which serves the movement for progressive social change in southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, north Georgia, the foothills of South Carolina, and North Carolina. Major BREDL accomplishments of 1997 are:

In 1997 we advanced three long-term community programs with regional significance: the High-level Nuclear Waste Watch, the Family Farms Preservation Project and the Saltville Health Project. We added two new regional projects: the Mountain Air Action Project and the North Carolina Chip Mill Campaign. Also, we continued to respond to citizens’ groups throughout the region.

High-level Nuclear Waste Watch

As a regional watchdog on nuclear issues since 1984, we promote long-term solutions and oppose attempts to dump nuclear waste problems on the poor and powerless. In 1997 we continued to devote a major share of resources to halting the industry's plans for a national nuclear dump. Our project included a mock nuclear waste cask caravan which tracked the removal of 360 tons of nuclear reactor parts from Massachusetts to South Carolina. The 1992 closure of the Yankee Rowe nuclear electric plant in Massachusetts put the investor-owned Yankee Atomic utility at the forefront of nuclear reactor decommissioning. In May 1997 Yankee Atomic moved a highly radioactive containment vessel containing 3,500 Curies of radiation on a railroad flatcar from Rowe, Massachusetts to the so-called low-level radioactive waste dump in Barnwell, South Carolina. BREDL volunteers took photos of the rolling reactor vessel as it entered the Amtrak stations in Roanoke, VA, Greensboro, NC, and Charlotte, NC while BREDL staff recorded the radiation level from the nuclear waste train with a hand-held Geiger counter. We alerted news media to the shipment and our recorded radiation levels were a part of their news stories. What happens here will set precedents for reactor shut down for the next 30 years.

In September, at the request of the Indigenous Women’s Network, we took our 20-foot mock nuclear waste cask on the road again for the Honor The Earth Tour featuring the Indigo Girls. We support the goals of Winona Laduke, the IWN, and the Indigenous Environmental Network: No Nuclear Waste on Native Lands. We provided environmental information, staff and volunteer time, and transport and display of the mock nuclear waste cask at Honor The Earth concerts at Appalachian State University in Boone and at the Cherokee Ceremonial Grounds on the Qualla Boundary.

Family Farms Preservation Project

The onslaught of intensive livestock operations which are devastating coastal North Carolina's environment and quality of life is going west. New hog factories expanded into piedmont counties last year and now seek new locations in the Appalachian foothills of Yadkin and Surry counties. BREDL's threefold strategy is: public education, new local and state legislation, and stopping new processing plants.

In 1997 BREDL members established the Swine Waste Action Team (SWAT) to plan new research projects, direct actions, and campaign events to reduce the power of Big Pork. The 1997 NC General Assembly passed The Clean Water Responsibility and Environmentally Sound Policy Act which includes a fake moratorium on new hog factories, some new odor and water requirements, and limited permitting changes. But the legislation fails to rectify the contamination and public health effects of hog factories. BREDL staff have documented environmental violations by taking aerial photographs and taken this information to scores of community groups opposing pig pollution. SWAT’s response to the new legislation was: the job is not done!

Saltville Health Project

Since 1991 the citizens' group MEET, the Mountain Empire Environmental Team, has waged a community action campaign to clean-up of the Olin/Mathieson Superfund site in Saltville, Virginia. Current status of the project: The ATSDR report indicates mercury contamination as high as 234 ppm is present in the soil and that a public health threat exists. For now ATSDR recommends 1) restricting public entry into these areas, 2) further investigations to determine the extent of the soil contamination, and 3) a determination of whether mercury is leaching into the North Fork of the Holston River. ATSDR has hired a contractor to begin generating cancer statistics.

Mountain Air Action Project

The Mountain Air Action Project raised the regional issue of atmospheric contamination as a threat to public health and is acting to protect communities from local sources of toxic air pollution including Champion International Paper, Carolina Power & Light’s coal- and oil-fueled generators, and asphalt plants which are a major air polluters.

Since January we have spent countless hours investigating one of the worst sources of air pollution known: asphalt plants. We organized Citizens Against Pollution (CAP) in response to a proposed 150 ton/hour asphalt plant near a residential neighborhood in Boone, NC. We researched state, federal, and other scientific information and developed a new citizens' campaign which resulted in the first denial of an air permit for an asphalt plant based on public health in North Carolina history and a de facto moratorium on new asphalt plants. The moratorium has had repercussions in other states and at the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is now conducting new tests to determine total asphalt plant toxic emissions

In addition to our work in Boone with Citizens Against Pollution, we provided technical support to Asphalt Stops Here (a citizens' group in Asheville), organizing and strategy assistance to citizens in Flat Creek who oppose a new asphalt plant planned for their residential community, and we are working with Pineola Concerned Citizens to shut down an operating asphalt plant on the Linville River in Avery County.

NC Chip Mill Campaign

In the Stokes County community of Pine Hall, Chester Godfey is attempting to construct and operate a high-capacity wood chipping mill. Typically these mills reduce standing hardwood trees to tiny wood chips which are used for paper or glued together into 4x8 foot sheets used in manufactured wood products. Forest clearcuts, muddy streams, and negative rural community impacts are well documented effects. In October we assisted the formation of a new citizens organization in Pine Hall, the Hickory Alliance, which is dedicated to protecting Stokes County from high-capacity chip mills.

In December statewide and regional anti-chip mill planning began with representatives of grassroots citizens’ groups including the Dogwood Alliance, Appalachian Voices, Katuah Earth First!, the Western North Carolina Alliance, Concerned Citizens of Rutherford County, BREDL, Hickory Alliance and others. Each year 1.2 million acres of forest are cleared to feed the 140 chip mills in the southeast. The devastation which occurred in the Pacific Northwest could be repeated here if Weyerhaeuser, Willamette, and other corporations are allowed to proceed unchecked.

Other Projects

In September we responded to calls from citizens in Buchanan County, Virginia whose homes and farms were being devastated by coal gas extraction companies. Since then we have researched available information on southern Appalachian coal gas extraction issues. Since 1990 Conoco, DuPont, and government agencies have put in place statutory and regulatory mechanisms which allow extraction of gas under private citizens’ homes. However, fear of reprisals has limited the citizens’ organization’s determination to move ahead. We continue to monitor this situation and are looking for assistance.

BREDL’s Earth Stage continues to be popular attraction in schools, church groups, festivals, and street fairs in North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. Since 1990 the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League has presented Earth Stage programs to thousands of children and adults. The programs feature live performances of The Big Throwaway-A Comedy of Global Impact and The Compost Chef-A Blend of Science and Magic. Earth Stage original songs include Don’t Hog Our Air, Talkin’ Trash Dump Blues, Ballad of the Watts Farm, Talkin’ Tarheel Asphalt Blues, Don’t Wanna Get Nuclear Wasted, and No Place For Hazardous Waste. Earth Day in Anson County elementary schools and the Appalachian-Adirondack Program of St. Lawrence University were a few of the highlights in 1997.

Solid Waste issues in 1997 included local work in Madison County and regional work in Georgia and North Carolina. One of our oldest chapters, the Madison Environmental Alliance, opposed the county government’s move to privatize waste collection and hauling in western NC and raised public concerns about privatization and loss of local control. In November we held a planning meeting in Franklin, NC and launched an ambitious two-state Zero Waste Campaign which will press for an end to solid waste landfilling and incineration by promoting innovative recycling techniques, corporate responsibility, and municipal waste reduction resolutions.

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