Press Releases

Secretary Donald R. van der Vaart of the state environmental department has named Michael Scott as the new director of the waste management program.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission will meet May 10-11 at the Dare County Government Complex, 954 Marshall C. Collins Dr., in Manteo, N.C. The meeting will begin at 2 p.m. on May 10 and 9 a.m. on May 11. The meeting is open to the public.Items on the commission’s agenda include:

A project that will create treehouses with overnight accommodations is underway through a $95,000 grant from the McCrory administration to the town of Windsor.  The water-based recreation project, located next to the historic Cashie River, will create the first fully handicap accessible treehouse village.The funding was used for land acquisition, a boardwalk, and construction of the tree houses. Town officials plan to launch an online reservation system for booking overnight stays in the treehouses. The project is expected to be completed in Oct. 2016.

Air quality officials have issued an advisory for air pollution in western North Carolina on Thursday and Friday as smoke from a wildfire near Hot Springs drifts downwind. Residents north of Asheville could experience unhealthy air quality, depending on wind directions.

WHAT: N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council annual meetingWHEN: April 28, 10 a.m. – noonWHERE: Gov. James G. Martin Building, North Carolina State Fairgrounds, 1025 Blue Ridge Road, RaleighThe N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council will discuss the dry conditions parts of North Carolina are experiencing and the possible impacts from those conditions at its annual meeting on April 28.

Air quality officials have scaled back an advisory for air pollution in eastern North Carolina over the weekend as smoke from wildfires subsided on Friday. However, residents close to the fires in Brunswick, Dare and Hyde counties could experience unhealthy air quality, depending on wind directions.

Air quality officials have continued an advisory for air pollution in eastern North Carolina on Friday as smoke from wildfires drifts downwind. Residents in the northern Outer Banks and Wilmington areas could experience unhealthy air quality, depending on wind directions.

Air quality officials have issued an advisory for air pollution in eastern North Carolina on Wednesday and Thursday as smoke from wildfires drifts downwind. Residents from Elizabeth City to Washington, New Bern and Havelock could experience unhealthy air quality, depending on wind directions.

State environmental department Secretary Donald R. van der Vaart today named Braxton Davis, director of the state Division of Coastal Management, to lead the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries effective immediately.For the immediate future, the divisions will remain separate entities housed under the state’s environmental agency, and Davis will lead both divisions as director. The department intends to examine ways in which the two divisions can achieve efficiencies in operations.

During a town hall meeting in Walnut Cove on Thursday, a Southern Environmental Law Center attorney acknowledged that Governor McCrory has done more to address the decades-old problem of coal ash than the previous North Carolina governor.In response to a North Carolina Advisory Committee member’s question on whether the McCrory administration has been more active than previous administrations to address coal ash, SELC Senior Attorney Chandra Taylor stated, “I think that this administration has done more than the previous administration.”