Press Releases

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board will hold its fifth meeting in Cherokee on August 21. Topics for the August 21 meeting include updates on the department’s public participation plan, N.C. Community Mapping System and Executive Order 80. The board will also hear presentations from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Public Health and Human Services Secretary and Tribal Employment Rights Office staff.

The N.C. Sedimentation Control Commission will meet Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019, in the Ground Floor Hearing Room of the Archdale Building in downtown Raleigh.

Today, the Administrative Law Judge presiding over the Duke Energy appeal of the Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) coal ash closure decisions issued a significant ruling in favor of DEQ.

State recreational water quality officials today lifted a precautionary swimming advisory along the waterfront in Swansboro.

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources (DEMLR) and the Sedimentation Control Commission will host a public hearing on Thursday, August 1, to receive public comments and review the rules codified in 15A NCAC 04. 

As Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) trustees, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are seeking the public’s input on the draft restoration plan and environmental assessment related to the 2014 Dan River coal ash spill. The draft restoration plan considers projects to restore damaged natural resources or replace resource services lost as a result of the spill. The NRDAR process is separate from closure and cleanup activities.

RALEIGH – The state Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board meeting scheduled for Aug. 5 has been cancelled while the board continues its review of the hexavalent chromium science.

Governor Cooper announced the State Water Infrastructure Authority has approved $112 million in loans that will help North Carolina communities pay for 26 much-needed drinking water and wastewater projects statewide, from Murphy to Manteo.

State recreational water quality officials today issued a precautionary advisory warning the public against swimming along the waterfront in Swansboro between the White Oak River Bridge and the Intracoastal Waterway beacon #49.