NC cuts 13 percent of water protection agency only weeks after massive coal ash spill

[meegbear]

Source: RawStory.com

North Carolina has moved forward with a decision to cut 13 percent of the agency responsible for protecting water resources even as one of the nation’s largest coal ash spills continued to devastate rivers in the state. Last month, the Duke Energy plant in Eden discovered that gray coal ask sludge was leaking out of a storage pond into the Dan River.

Gov. Pat McCrory (R), a former executive at Duke Energy, has been criticized for his close ties to the company, and for receiving more than $1 million in campaign donations from the company and its employees.

The News & Observer reported last week that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had eliminated 13 percent of the staff positions from the Division of Water Resources only weeks after the coal spill was discovered.

According to its website, the Division of Water Resources is tasked with protecting “North Carolina’s surface and ground water resources for the health and welfare of the citizens of North Carolina, and the economic well-being of the state.”

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/10/nc-cuts-13-percent-of-water-protection-agency-only-weeks-after-massive-coal-ash-spill/

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[elleng]

1. North Carolina had better get off its ass,

get its mind/brain back, do SOMETHING!

[Kelvin Mace]

8. We tried

State has been bought and paid for by Art Pope.

If McCrory is indicted, we have a hope. If not, we are the next South Carolina.

[blaze]

2. Gotta get rid of that pesky oversight!!

(if necessary)

[Bill USA]

3. yeah, it costs jobs. Think of all those people hired for clean-ups who

wouldn't have jobs with regulated businesses not having spills and leaks.

[sakabatou]

4. Oh great

[cui bono]

5. Oh ffs.

[n2doc]

6. Pretty f-ing shameless, aren't they?

The repubs must be pretty confident that they will never lose power there. I hope they are wrong.

[benfranklin1776]

7. This is criminal

Deliberately weakening the ability of those charged with protecting the public from the corporados like Duke Energy which owns the pathetic weasel masquerading as governor of that state is, in my view, an act of reckless indifference to the public safety. I thus think the corporado pupoets should be prosecuted as felonious would be murderers when the next environmental crime happens that injures the health and safety of North Carolina residents happens. Such an event, given the wholesale dismantling of this agency, is eminently foreseeable, just as when Paul Ryan's lips are moving it is eminently foreseeable volumes of BS will issue forth with the magnitude and force of Niagara Falls.

[albino65]

9. And the beautiful state of North Carolina will soon resemble the Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY n/t

[valerief]

10. What a horribly governed state. nt

[blkmusclmachine]

11. I think politicos are intentionally trying to destroy the water supply. Terror from within.

All my opinion, of course!