Environmental Justice Advocates Urge NC DEQ to Examine Dangerous Gas Facility

CHARLOTTE, NC -- Environmental justice advocates and residents of Robeson County traveled to Charlotte yesterday to urge the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and NCDEQ Environmental Justice Advisory & Equity Board to scrutinize Duke Energy’s plans for a dirty, dangerous liquified natural gas (LNG) facility in their community. The group is concerned about the threats the facility poses to human health, water quality, and the climate, especially considering its proposed site is in a predominantly American Indian community and approximately one mile from an historic, American Indian elementary school. The site is also located near Maxton, a majority African American town.

“These dirty fossil fuel projects are a huge threat to our drinkable, swimmable and fishable waters.” said Jeff Currie, the Lumber Riverkeeper. “At a time when clean, renewable energy is abundant and affordable, it makes no sense to put our clean water, and our communities, at risk for a dangerous fossil fuel project.”

Currie, Caroline Hansley with the Sierra Club, and Rev. Mac Legerton, Co-Director of the Southeast NC Climate, Disaster, and Justice Ministry, all spoke during the comment period of the North Carolina Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board. According to its charter, the Board is an advisory board within DEQ tasked with “integration of environmental justice and equity considerations into Departmental programs, policies and activities to mitigate the environmental or public health impacts in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms.” According to its original air permit application, the proposed facility would convert fracked gas into LNG and would emit above recommended amounts at least three toxic compounds known to cause cancer; cadmium, arsenic, and benzene. In 2008, A similar PNG LNG facility in Huntersville, NC was found to have soil contaminated by benzene and trichloroethylene.

The LNG that would be stored in the facility is also a greenhouse gas that makes the climate crisis worse, leading to sea level rise and stronger, wetter hurricanes. In fact, satellite data indicate that portions of the property were flooded during hurricanes Florence and Matthew, raising further concerns about the project. Most of the gas in facilities like this one is extracted via fracking, and building new facilities just drives demand for fracked gas.

An environmental justice screening run with the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJSCREEN shows 92% of the 3,000+ people living in a 3-mile radius are non-white and the nearby Oxendine Elementary School is 96% minority. Both figures represent a much higher percentage than the county- and state-wide populations. According to the EPA report, American Indians are among the most vulnerable people in the US to air-related health risks, including risks from particulates and ozone- and air-pollution-related cancers and nearly every EPA-defined variable of concern.