Important Environmental News!

2024

County landfill owners agree to pollution controls | Sampson Independent | September 6

Agreement reached between EJCAN and GFL: largest landfill in North Carolina to cease pollution and address environmental injustice | Southern Environmental Law Center | September 3

NC power struggle over PFAS policy intensifies after nonprofits petition for federal intervention | Port City Daily | August 30

Groups ask EPA to withdraw state authority over water permits | Southern Environmental Law Center | August 28

Blue Cross of North Carolina Decided Against an Employee Screening of a Documentary That Links the State’s Massive Hog Farms to Public Health Ills | Inside Climate News | June 13

Unprecedented ocean temperatures make this hurricane season especially dangerous | USA Today | June 2

NC will pay $885K in attorneys’ fees after unsuccessfully defending “ag-gag” case | NC Newsline | May 22

High costs, interconnection obstacles killed a swine gas-to-electricity venture in Sampson County | NC Newsline | May 13

First ever federal limits on PFAS in our drinking water | Southern Environmental Law Center | April 11

From outside North Carolina’s largest landfill | Southern Environmental Law Center | February 14

Is NC’s largest landfill causing forever chemical pollution for its neighbors? | Raleigh News & Observer | February 14

A decades-long battle against North Carolina’s largest landfill is ramping up | Grist | January 19

2023

Fighting forever chemicals | Southern Environmental Law Center | December 26

‘You can’t win for losing’: Inside Sampson County, NC’s environmental nightmare | Cardinal & Pine | November 29

Enviva’s financial problems shed light on biomass energy flaws | Southern Environmental Law Center | November 10

North Carolina promises to advance environmental justice | Southern Environmental Law Center | October 26

Sampson County residents wary of landfill’s methane plan | North Carolina Health News | August 21

Earth Month dialogues: Author chronicles neighbors winning against polluting hog farms | Southern Environmental Law Center | April 9

Hog pollution has local communities and environmental justice advocates fighting for clean air and water | Southern Environmental Law Center | January 26

Sampson County residents receive good news to close out the year | North Carolina Health News | January 5

2022

Permit could perpetuate PFAS problems in the Cape Fear River Basin | Southern Environmental Law Center | November 2

North Carolina sets the stage for cutting truck pollution across the South | Southern Environmental Law Center | October 28

After community outcry, EPA won’t send soil from Superfund site to Sampson County landfill | NC Newsline | October 6

A historic win for democracy in North Carolina | Southern Environmental Law Center | August 22

How we worked with an environmental justice group to create brochures on pollution in eastern N.C. | Southerly Mag | August 10

We’re challenging the NC permit for hog waste operations causing pollution and harm to communities | Southern Environmental Law Center | August 4

Challenge says N.C. permit for hog waste methane gas operations entrenches pollution and harms to communities | Southern Environmental Law Center | July 29

Environmental Justice for All Act moves forward | Southern Environmental Law Center | July 29

Sampson County residents fear contaminated soil could be headed their way | North Carolina Health News | July 27

N.C. releases general biogas permit despite environmental justice concerns | Southerly Mag | July 12

Climate Change Threatens our Health and Deepens Health Inequities | Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | May 16

How Black North Carolinians pay the price for the world’s cheap bacon | Vox | April 21

‘This plan is a lie’: Biogas on hog farms could do more harm than good | Southerly Mag | March 24

North Carolina Real Estate Commission to disclose flood history to buyers | Southern Environmental Law Center | February 20

EPA to Probe Whether North Carolina’s Permitting of Biogas From Swine Feeding Operations Violates Civil Rights of Nearby Neighborhoods | Inside Climate News | January 25

Hog farming has a massive poop problem [VIDEO] | Vox | Jan 4

2021

Align RNG Settlement Spotlights Biogas Plant Regulation | The Appalachian Voice | November 1

Unchecked growth of industrial animal farms spurs long fight for environmental justice in Eastern NC | North Carolina Health News | October 20

Rural NC Black communities paying the price of environmental racism | The Charlotte Post | September 30

Civil rights filing alleges discriminatory harm in industrial hog operations permits | Southern Environmental Law Center | September 28

Air pollution from farms leads to 17,900 U.S. deaths per year, study finds | The Washington Post | May 10

N.C. Biogas Industry [VIDEO] | North Carolina Agriculture | April 12

A Fighting Chance | The Alumni Magazine for Vermont Law School | Spring 2021

‘We all feel targeted’: Rural N.C. community pushes back against landfill, hog farms | Southerly Mag | February 3

Smithfield project that converts hog waste to energy angers, worries rural NC residents | The Fayetteville Observer | January 21

2020

Court rejects Smithfield’s arguments, giving low-income neighbors of hog farms hope | NC Newsline | December 5

Exposing Fields of Filth: Factory Farms Disproportionately Threaten Black, Latino and Native American North Carolinians | Environmental Working Group | July 30

Pre-2020

Enviva BioMass, Port of Wilmington Facility [VIDEO] | Vinegar-based Productions | November 15, 2018

Why Is China Treating North Carolina Like the Developing World? | Rolling Stone | March 19, 2018

Additional Resources

A Brief History of Environmental Justice [VIDEO] | ProPublica | August 4, 2017

North Carolina town plagued by 40-year-old contamination | Fortune | October 11, 2015