Press Releases

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.”

North Carolina’s chief environmental agency announced today that it will go beyond state and federal requirements to ensure minority communities are not negatively impacted by Duke Energy coal ash landfills. Assistant Secretary Tom Reeder made the announcement at a town hall meeting in Walnut Cove where he discussed the McCrory administration’s leadership in addressing the decades-old issue of coal ash.

The ozone season begins Friday as state and local environmental agencies renew their daily air quality forecasts for ozone in metropolitan areas across North Carolina. Air quality across the state has improved significantly over the past decade due to declining emissions from industry and motor vehicles and more stringent standards. Over the past three years, ozone levels have been the lowest since the state began monitoring the air in the early 1970s. All of North Carolina currently meets the new, more stringent federal ozone standard that was adopted in October 2015.

State officials have signed an agreement that will allow a company to safely transform a former industrial landfill into a large sports complex with greenways and ballfields in Asheville.     Officials with the state environmental agency signed a brownfields agreement with Enka Partners LLC, Thursday for the 41-acre site on Sand Hill Road in Asheville.