|
What if Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause?
Well, now it can!
|
The Story of Broke couldn’t come at a more relevant time. With sky-high unemployment and our social safety net in tatters, it’s no wonder many of us feel a collective sense of desperation. But as Annie points out, we aren’t broke: “Spending billions on fighter planes we don’t need or wars with no end, and then saying we’re broke, just isn’t honest.”
View the video.
|
BREDL Partners
with TERCTERC is partnering with environmental action groups in twelve states to advance the quantitative literacy skills needed to understand and solve pressing environmental problems.
More about this partnership
|
BREDL Chapters
BREDL welcomes these new chapters:
Cumnock Preservation Association (Lee Co., NC) - March 2012
SAFE Carolinas (Asheville, NC) - March 2012
Jefferson Environmental Defense Initiative (J.E.D.I.) (Jefferson Co., GA) - February 2012
|
|
Nuclear - Plant Vogtle
NY Times blog: A Higher Price Tag for a Nuclear Project
May 11, 2012: The flagship project of a hoped-for but not-yet-realized “nuclear renaissance,” the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors under construction near Augusta, Ga., may cost about $900 million more than had been estimated, the Southern Company said in a filing this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Read full article
|
Nuclear - Plant Vogtle
Plant Vogtle and Environmental Justice
Reverend Charles Utley of Hyde Park in Augusta has pointed out the continued poverty in Burke County after the construction boom that accompanied the first two Vogtle reactors. Considering that Georgia Power has to come up with about $14 billion to build the plant and the NRC charges almost $100 million just to get the license to operate the plant, no wonder monies are not available for additional economic development projects. Yet, with so much money being spent, it would seem that more funds could be directed to economic development in the area. Without it, environmental injustice via disproportionate impacts becomes an issue that should be seriously considered.
Read more from African American Environmentalist Association
|
Uranium Mining
Virginia Preservation Group lists BREDL Nominated Landscape on its 2012 Endangered Historic Sites List
Preservation Virginia Announces 2012 Most Endangered Historic Sites in Virginia
Whitehorn-Banister Rural Historic Landscape, Pittsylvania County - This picturesque rural landscape played an essential role in the mid-18th century founding of Pittsylvania County during which plantation-based agriculture and local water-powered processing were the principal economic activities. The area has standing structures that span almost every era including a Native American fishing weir, two gristmills built in the 1700s, an assembly of mansions from the Revolutionary War era and the home of J.E.B. Stuart’s grandparents— all of which are connected by pristine fields, woods, creek and rivers. The region is threatened by proposed construction and operation of a uranium mine and mill at Coles Hill, within the rural historic landscape. In addition to the loss of its characteristic rural qualities, this development could lead to groundwater contamination, noise pollution and real estate value loss and hinder future heritage tourism initiatives. Local historians and concerned citizens seek to ensure that if the moratorium on uranium mining is lifted, Section 106 reviews are undertaken in the area prior to any licensing of the uranium mine.
View Preservation Virginia's 2012 Most Endangered Historic Sites in Virginia
|
Nuclear - Vogtle
Groups File Motion Requesting the
Suspension of Vogtle's NRC License until Issues Resolved
April 18, 2012: In 2011 a catastrophic accident destroyed the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station. Early this year, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction and operation license to Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle. In doing so, the NRC has attempted to avoid its responsibility to the public by refusing to address the environmental implications of Fukushima or even grant us a hearing. Therefore, we petition the court to suspend the NRC’s license until the court resolves these issues.
View Groups' Legal Motion
|
Nuclear - Vogtle
Groups: NRC Refusal to Require Fukushima Safety Enhancements for Vogtle Reactors Will Force
Filing of Federal Court Action
April 16, 2012: An adverse decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
reached today will force parties concerned about the already troubled Vogtle nuclear reactor project in Georgia to
file a motion this week in federal court, according to representatives of nine organizations that are seeking to slow
down the Vogtle project so that necessary post-Fukushima safety enhancements can be taken into account on the
front end, before billions of ratepayer dollars are spent.
Groups' Press Release
Press Advisory: NRC Rejects Vogtle Motion
A streaming audio replay of a related news event is available here.
|
Clean Water - Fracking
BREDL Comments to NCDENR regarding the Draft
North Carolina Oil and Gas Study on Fracking
April 2, 2012: BREDL has many concerns regarding groundwater and surface water protection, air quality, impacts on land and lives, infrastructure and waste handling and other negatives the natural gas industry will bring into North Carolina. In our comments, we will focus on some specific issues that were either not addressed in the Study, or that should be improved.
Read BREDL's Comments
Hydraulic Fracturing in Central North Carolina - Potential Impacts on Triangle Air Quality: View as Power Point | View as pdf
|
|
Clean Air - Vogtle
BREDL's comments regarding Plant Vogtle Title V Air Permit and request for Public Hearing
March 29, 2012:
On behalf of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and our chapter the Concerned Citizens of Shell Bluff, I write to provide comments on the Environmental Protection Division’s draft permit. Also, we request that a public hearing be held in Burke County before a permitting decision is made to enable residents to provide comments to EPD.
BREDL Comments
|
Nuclear - Vogtle
BREDL's letter to US DOE regarding
Loan Guarantees for Plant Vogtle
March 2012: The US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office must protect the U.S. taxpayer by not approving defective loan guarantee proposals; specifically, rejecting a $8.33 billion loan guarantee for the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant.
BREDL March 19 Letter
Attachment: The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse?, Mark Cooper, Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis, Institute for Energy and Environment, Vermont Law School, June 2009
|
Safe Energy - Biomass
The League's Therese Vick named
"Biomass Buster of the Month"
March 6, 2012: Therese Vick, a BREDL community organizer, has been named "Biomass Buster of the Month" in the
March 2012 edition of the Biomass Monitor. The Biomass Monitor is the monthly newsletter of the
Biomass Accountability Project. Check out Therese on page 2.
|
Safe Energy | Clean Air
BREDL comments on the proposed air permit for
North Star Jefferson Renewable Energy in Jefferson Co., GA
March 23, 2012: It would be a classic case of environmental injustice if the State of Georgia were to permit a facility which emits excessive levels of toxic air pollution in Wadley. Compounding the injustice, burning wood and scrap tires to produce power in the 21st Century is such a bad idea that it beggars description. The prospect of a few jobs need not and must not sacrifice the health of our communities.
Read BREDL March 23 Comments | Read BREDL March 8 Comments
|
Clean Water - Fracking
BREDL comments at Sanford, NC
public hearing on fracking
Read BREDL comments from the March 20, 2012 Public Hearing in Sanford, NC regarding fracking.
View archived webcast of the Public Hearing. Problem viewing webcast? Check here
|
Nuclear - Plutonium
BREDL comments on the
Surplus Plutonium Disposition SEIS
March 12, 2012: BREDL opposes the US Dept. of Energy’s proposed expansion of plutonium reprocessing facilities either at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina or at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the proposed use of plutonium fuel at commercial electric power plants operated by TVA and other utilities.
Read BREDL's Comments
|
Nuclear - WS Lee
The League's comments to NRC regarding the
Duke Energy WS Lee DEIS
March 6, 2012: “Whatever safety measures are in place can never be sufficient because these facilities are, after all, operated by human beings. We have persistently cautioned against the arrogant notion, promoted by those with a disproportionate confidence in technology, that humanity can completely control nuclear power.”-Gensuikin
Read BREDL's Comments
|
|
|
The League Line
BREDL's Spring 2012 newsletter available online
|
The LEAGUE
LINE: Spring 2012
- Cover: Perkins Nuclear Site in North Carolina: Negative Impacts of Possible Nuclear Reactors on the Yadkin River, Davie County and Davidson County by Lou Zeller
- Director's Report: Energy Revolution by Lou Zeller
- Justice is Missing in North Carolina Fracking Study by Therese Vick
- South Atlantic Galvanizing LLC vs. North Carolina Citizens by Therese Vick
- Unequal Protection from Pollution in the Southeast by Charles Utley
- CHEJ Spotlights Janet Marsh
- Powerful Electronic Mapping Tools Target Interested Stakeholders by Ann Rogers
- Victories, Awards, Gifts and More!
- Welcome: New BREDL Chapters and 2012 Duke Stanback Interns!
|
|
|
