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Orange-Chatham Group (and Selected Other) Events

Alpaca Meet and Greet

Saturday, August 30, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.

Southwestern Chatham County (meeting location provided upon registration)

Join one of our new outing leaders on August 30 for a tour of an alpaca farm and see an interesting way farming can be sustainable. Spaces are limited. For more information, visit Sierra Club Outdoors.

Walking on Wednesdays

Wednesdays, starting in September

Al Buehler Trail, Durham

A new weekly mid-week fitness walk on the Al Buehler Trail in Durham. For more information, visit Sierra Club Outdoors.

Interested in leading a walk on Wednesdays? We are looking for prime, backup, and assistant leaders to help with this new and exciting series. Contact Jae at SeeingTrees@gmail.com.

Solarize Chapel Hill and Hillsborough kickoffs

• Chapel Hill: Wednesday, September 3, 6:30-8 p.m.
  Chapel Hill Public Library (100 Library Dr., Chapel Hill; map, directions, and transit information)
• Hillsborough: Wednesday, September 10, 7-8:30 p.m.
  Durham Tech Orange County Campus (525 College Park Rd., Hillsborough; directions)

These are non-Sierra Club events that we are happy to share. The organizers say: "Our panel of experts will help you become fluent in home solar options, understand what tax incentives are available, learn about financing options, and answer all of your questions." See the Solarize Outreach Events page.

Screening and discussion of fracking movie Triple Divide

Monday, September 22, 7-9 p.m.

Chapel Hill Public Library (100 Library Dr., Chapel Hill; map, directions, and transit information)

Triple Divide, an acclaimed fracking documentary, will be screened and discussed with local commentators. Discussion topic: "How are state regulations and industry handling the impacts of fracking?"

Event is free. For more information, contact Judith Ferster, Orange-Chatham Group Conservation Chair, at 919-929-6648.

Reach the Peaks

Saturday, September 27

Hanging Rock State Park

Hike 11 challenging miles and summit the 5 major peaks of Hanging Rock State Park on September 27 at the "Reach the Peaks" event. This non-Sierra Club event is an annual fundraiser by the Stokes Arts Council and there is a fee if you want the t-shirt, water bottle, etc. (and would like to support the arts in Stokes County). Would you like to go as a group? Contact Jae at SeeingTrees@gmail.com. For more info, visit www.twitter.com/ChooseNature

Executive Committee Meetings

Fourth Tuesday of each month, 7 p.m.

Carolina Meadows

All members are welcome to join the Executive Committee in the discussion of issues and projects. Contact Judith Ferster (see below) for further information.

Are you Planning on Traveling?

Be sure to bookmark Sierra Club Outdoors, a web-based outing locator to help you find an outing based on zip code—and don't forget to pack your walking shoes!

Chatham County Commissioner Endorsements

The North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club has endorsed these three candidates for Chatham County Board of Commissioners based on their environmental experience, actions, positions, and vision:

• District 1: Karen Howard
• District 3: Diana Hales
• District 4: Jim Crawford

The Orange-Chatham Executive Committee strongly encourages Sierra Club members and any residents of Chatham County who care about the environment to support these three candidates in the November 4 election. These three are the best hope for a Board of County Commissioners that will place a priority on protecting the environment and minimizing negative impacts as Chatham County grows.

NC Chapter Response to Passage of Coal Ash Bill

Released August 20, 2014

The legislature today gave final approval to the Coal Ash Management Act of 2014, a complex measure that for the first time regulates coal ash like other wastes but also undermines a court ruling that would have required immediate cleanup of coal ash.

Following the Dan River coal ash spill, revelations that coal ash pollution has contaminated rivers, lakes, streams and drinking water resulted in an unprecedented public demand for action. Duke Energy produces an estimated 1.2 million tons of coal ash a year in North Carolina. Currently, all coal ash sites have groundwater contamination and nearly all are releasing contaminants into rivers, lakes or reservoirs.

The bill will require Duke Energy to phase out wet ash handling. Duke’s outdated method of disposing of coal ash in ponds next to waterways has led to water contamination across the state. With the passage of this bill, for the first time all coal ash will be covered by North Carolina’s solid waste laws. Further, when coal ash is used as fill to build up land for large construction projects, measures like groundwater monitoring and liners will be required.

Unfortunately, final changes to the conference report intended to protect against ongoing groundwater pollution at ten sites do not go far enough to address a major issue that must be resolved to protect NC residents and communities.

And, while making strides in many respects, the legislation attempts to undermine a current ruling on groundwater law. A recent ruling in the state Superior Court requires immediate clean up action at all sites by requiring the source of groundwater contamination, the coal ash, to be removed.

Finally, while the bill provides much needed financial resources to DENR to implement the provisions, the bill fails to provide sufficient guidance to the newly created Coal Ash Commission, which is charged with making key decisions.

After the bill’s passage, Molly Diggins, state director of the North Carolina Sierra Club, issued the following statement:

Today the General Assembly completed work on the nation’s first attempt by a state legislature to tackle the challenge of developing a statewide comprehensive coal ash management plan.

Without this legislation, coal ash would have remained essentially unregulated, an untenable position for North Carolina residents. Still, today’s action does not go far enough to prevent more contamination of our treasured water resources.

Looking ahead, North Carolina’s coal ash crisis will not be resolved by one piece of legislation. It will take continued attention and leadership by our elected leaders and an engaged citizenry to ensure that coal ash cleanup is successful. The Sierra Club will continue to engage our tens of thousands of members in North Carolina who support strong action to address coal ash pollution.

We call on the EPA to finish what North Carolina started to ensure full protection by adopting strong national standards for coal ash to protect every community in the United States. EPA action is needed more than ever to set a national standard and to stop the piecemeal approach to addressing coal ash waste and contamination across the US.

OCG Joins Effort to Curb Overuse of Antibiotics in Agriculture

Along with over 453 organizations (including some Sierra Club chapters), the Orange-Chatham Group has signed a letter to the U.S. Congress supporting bills that direct the Food and Drug Administration to tighten its regulations against the nontherapeutic use of antibiotic drugs in livestock. As the letter explains, the bills are necessary because "Livestock routinely receive low doses of antibiotics for growth promotion or disease prevention, a practice known as nontherapeutic use, contributing to the development and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In the fall of 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report on the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. According to the report, 2 million people contract antibiotic resistant infections every year, and at least 23,000 people die from them."

The FDA's rules are currently inconsistent, with some nontheraputic uses of some drugs banned, and others restricted on a voluntary basis only. The bills would make the regulations consistent, while allowing use of antibiotics for sick animals. These restrictions would help preserve the efficacy of antibiotics for all creatures.

We were invited to sign the letter by one of the signatories, Food and Water Watch. We happily joined the effort because "antibiotics are simply too important to squander on practices that hasten the development and spread of resistance to them in human pathogens."

Second Screening of Excellent Fracking Documentary Coming Up

by Judith Ferster, Orange-Chatham Group Conservation Chair

On July 21, at the Central Carolina Community College campus in Pittsboro, we showed Triple Divide, a new documentary about fracking in Pennsylvania by investigative journalists Joshua Pribanic and Melissa Troutman. The film is so good that we will show it again in Chapel Hill.

The title "Triple Divide" refers to one of only four Triple Continental Divides in North America, peaks from which water flows in three different directions. The divide in Pennsylvania creates three rivers that reach separate parts of the continent—the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Mexico, and Chesapeake Bay. It therefore provides drinking water to millions of Americans.

Thus, everything, and everyone, is downstream from shale gas extraction.

The film attempts to answer the question "How are state regulations and industry handling impacts from fracking?" It reveals how water contamination is being covered up by the industry and the state, essentially rewriting the history of water quality in Pennsylvania to support fracking. Meanwhile, state regulators are using compliance as a means of regulating without enforcing the law, abandoning the public in the wake of shale gas development.

North Carolina's current position mirrors where Pennsylvania was several years ago. Troutman and Pribanic's investigation of fracking impacts in Pennsylvania and its "world-class" regulations offers many lessons for North Carolina. The journalistic organization Troutman and Pribanic founded, Public Herald, is collecting and digitizing many documents on the rules about fracking, complaints about infractions, and enforcement. So the film is part of their ongoing investigation.

Come see this dynamic film at 7 p.m. on September 22 in the Chapel Hill Public Library.

Orange-Chatham Group Leaders

Executive Committee Members

Note: Each member's term ends in December of the year in parentheses.

• May Becker (2015) Group Co-chair tomatocutter "at" yahoo.com 969-7439
• Olga Grlic (2014) Group Co-chair and Calendar Sales Representative olgagrl "at" duke.edu 968-4318
• Dave Keesee (2014) Treasurer dskeesee "at" bellsouth.net 933-4879
• Melissa McCullough (2015) Secretary melissamccnc "at" gmail.com
• Judith Ferster (2014) Conservation Chair judith_ferster "at" ncsu.edu 929-6648
• Max Felsher (2015) Newsletter/Web/Listserv max.felsher "at" gmail.com 617-599-0669
• Jason Baker (2014) jason "at" jasonbaker.us 442-8278

Other Group Leaders

• Jae Furman Outings Chair and Interim Membership Chair SeeingTrees "at" gmail.com
• Loren Hintz Transportation Chair ldhintz "at" bellsouth.net 933-8987

Note: All phone numbers are in the 919 area code unless specifically indicated.