On April 7, 2023, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League sent a letter to the SAB requesting that they recommend that the Department of Environmental Quality take immediate action to notify the public about PFAS contamination in their drinking water.
Property values plunged on parcels whose owners sought relief through the Atlantic Coast Pipeline reassessment hearing process, according to a property records search conducted in Highland and Nelson Counties by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.
The construction of the proposed pipeline and resultant losses in property value are devastating for directly affected landowners. Pipelines drive down property values substantially, limiting landowner’s use of their properties and leading to an increased real estate tax rate for every property owner.
Cover: A Victory for the People!BREDL has found that some water systems are not notifying their customers when PFAS is found in drinking water – even when concentrations are above the EPA health advisory limits. The excuse of not having statutory authority to require that water systems notify their customers is not acceptable.
We are requesting that NC DEQ notify the public whenever PFAS contaminants are found in drinking water.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League has released a report which shows that hazardous air quality during the Weaver Fertilizer Plant fire was downplayed.
The report Winston-Salem Weaver Fertilizer Plant Fire – Analysis of Publicly Disseminated Air Quality Information During Facility Fire Incident highlights instances when local officials told the public that the air quality was okay and pollutants were just “irritants” when, in fact, levels of Particulate Matter 2.5 were in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s hazardous and very unhealthy categories.
Concerned community members in partnership with ACT Against Coal Ash, Chapel Hill Organization for Clean Energy (CHOCE), Friends of Bolin Creek, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) and Climate Action NC called a public information meeting to address the coal ash hazards in Chapel Hill on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (Forum video courtesy of Friends of Bolin Creek)
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League urges the Department to consider the enactment of emergency, temporary, or permanent rules that require the following:
The EPA interim recommendations for addressing groundwater contaminated with PFOA and PFOS needs to be expanded to include all PFAS as a class. Any talk of cleanup needs to examine previous industrial sites that probably emitted/discharged PFAS chemicals. All areas of PFAS contamination – soil, surface and ground water, air and food – need to be properly addressed. In addition to the class of PFAS, short-chain replacement chemicals that convey similar health impacts – such as GenX – also need to be included.
The federal government is hell-bent on fast tracking projects that harm the environment. For a change, how about fast tracking a plan that will clean up the entire class of PFAS contaminants and their short-chain replacements?