Press Releases

The state marine fisheries agency will hold a public hearing on a proposed shellfish/water column lease in New Hanover County at 6 p.m. on Sept. 7 at the Department of Environmental Quality Wilmington Regional Office, 127 Cardinal Street, Wilmington. Keith Walls of Wilmington has applied to lease about 2 acres of bottom and water column in Middle Sound, behind Figure Eight Island, for a shellfish aquaculture operation.

The state’s marine fisheries division will hold two meetings this month to explain new flounder reporting requirements for pound net fishermen. The meetings will be held as follows:

After news reports and editorials inaccurately and unfairly characterized the state’s efforts to protect drinking water, the North Carolina departments of Health and Human Services and Environmental Quality release the following open editorial:

The environmental department today announced that the McCrory Administration has joined 15 other states in challenging the Obama administration’s latest regulation targeting oil and gas production.  The oil and gas rule is the latest in a string of federal regulations aimed at driving up the cost of domestic energy.  

The state’s marine fisheries division today rescinded a regulation requiring seafood dealers to hold a special permit to buy flounder from pound net fishermen and to report those landings daily. Instead, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries will require fishermen who hold pound net permits and are participating in the flounder pound net fishery to report their daily landings of flounder to the division. The daily reporting requirement will begin Sept. 1.

The state environmental department, after consultation with the state health and human services department, the Mecklenburg County Health Department, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Lake Wylie Marine Commission, town officials from Belmont, North Carolina and Rock Hill, South Carolina, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, the Catawba Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club, has authorized a plan for discharging water from the U.S. National Whitewater Center. 

If the air seems clearer in North Carolina these days, it’s not your imagination. Scenic views are better than ever in North Carolina, thanks to statewide improvements in air quality over the past two decades. Cleaner air is benefiting public health as well as the economy, with better visibility increasing views and enhancing experiences for visitors.

The Bald Head Island marina on Bald Head Island, and the Deep Point and Indigo Plantation marinas in Southport are the newest facilities to be certified as North Carolina Clean Marinas, a designation given to marinas that exceed minimum regulatory requirements.

WHERE: Eden Town Hall (Eden Room), 308 East Stadium Drive, Eden, N.C. WHEN: 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 27  WHO: Hosted by N.C. Department of Environmental Quality  State environmental officials will be in Eden Wednesday, July 27 to inform residents of Duke Energy’s plan to build a lined landfill to safely store coal ash at the Dan River Steam Station.

State officials urge people to avoid contact with potentially harmful algal blooms that have developed in the Edenton Bay in Chowan County due to recent hot weather. The Division of Water Resources’ Washington Regional Office staff has been monitoring small blooms in the area since late June. The bloom has now concentrated in Edenton Bay.  Algal blooms are often driven by wave and wind action which concentrates them into coves and along shorelines.