The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services released a health assessment today of the area surrounding the contaminated former CTS of Asheville site. The study declares that there is no elevated rates of cancer in a 1-mile radius, and little risk of contamination spreading, but also declares that new harmful substances such as lead have been found in the area.
The Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission recently voted to recommend that Asheville City Council approve the state minimum of a 30-foot stream buffer for all developments that disturb more than an acre of land. Click here to download a PDF of the N.C. Buffer Table. Click here to download a graph showing the relationship between […]
The Environmental Protection Agency will test approximately 36 wells as part of its continued monitoring of contamination linked to the former CTS plant on Mills Gap Road in South Asheville.
Despite lying less than a half-mile from a contamination source that’s been under investigation since the 1990s, the Bradley family’s drinking well had never been tested when David Bradley noticed some folks drilling across the street from his South Asheville home on a mid-August day this year. On the move? Historical and more recent data […]
Here’s a round-up of environmental news that affects Western North Carolina, from local issues to national news we’ve been tracking.
In an e-mail to Xpress, the director of the Environmental Quality Institute challenges numbers supplied by UNC-Asheville, and says the university profits from the center.
Attention, science educators: he U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is offering a series of water quality workshops for educators, Aug. 31 through Sept. 3 on Western North Carolina rivers where the endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel makes its home.
On July 2, the North Carolina Division of Water Quality issued a water-quality certification permit for The Cliffs at High Carolina, a golf-community development located between Swannanoa and Fairview.
Girl Scouts demand clean up of Buttermilk and Smith Mill creeks in West Asheville.
The North Carolina Division of Water Quality has requested more information from The Cliffs at High Carolinas about future impacts at the development.
Should warning signs be posted along West Asheville creeks and streams that may be contaminated by tetrachloroethylene, a chemical related to the one found at the CTS site in Skyland? Signs and portents: A West Asheville oil spill resulted in the posting of this sign near the cleanup site earlier this year. Do creeks downstream […]
Imagine that you’re on a coffee farm in Nicaragua. After pulping and rinsing the coffee “cherries,” the precious beans are dried, sold and shipped all around the world for roasting and brewing. It’s good, tasty stuff. Coffee from cherries: Your cup of joe begins as a little red “cherry” with two coffee beans hidden inside. […]
On an ice-cold November night, almost 200 people gathered for a public hearing called by the state Division of Water Quality concerning developer Jim Anthony‘s request for permission to alter 6,149 feet of streams and disturb about a quarter-acre of wetlands at The Cliffs at High Carolina. The 2,780-acre project straddles a mountain ridge between […]
Corn and tomatoes are both water hogs on the farm. But in North Carolina’s continuing drought, the first crop suffered heavy losses for the second consecutive year, while the latter prospered. That’s the nature of farming, perhaps, but at least for some growers hit hard by the drought, help may come not from rain but […]
The North Carolina Division of Water Quality wants your input on the Water Quality Certification requested for The Cliffs at High Carolina project in southern Buncombe County. On Tues., Nov. 18, starting at 6:30 p.m. at A.C. Reynolds High School in Fairview, the division is holding a public hearing.
Funding for a two-mile water line in Jackson County wipes out a full year’s emergency drinking-water allocation for the entire state, but gives relief to families enduring cancer-causing benzene contamination.
RiverLink was recently the recipient of two grants for restoration and improvement of the water quality and habitat in several area streams.
