
Brunswick Environmental Action Team

BEAT sincerely wishes everyone a Happy Earth Day 2023! We are grateful to all who continue to share both their ideas and work so that we may continue to exist in peace while making use of the life sustaining energy that our Earth provides for us every day - To optimize our survival.
BEAT received an email from: Melissa Edmonds <medmonds@selcnc.org> of the Southern Environmental Law Center on September 9, 2022 at 12:32:50 PM EDT. The subject of the email was Offshore Drilling Comment Opportunity. BEAT leadership would like to share this message with you here. The text that follows is the body of the message in its entirety.
Hi all,
I hope this note finds you well! You are receiving this email because you have previously been involved in SELC’s campaign to fight offshore drilling, by signing onto our comment letters to oppose drilling in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico. I am writing now to alert you of another important comment opportunity on the issue of offshore drilling in these regions.
SELC is currently preparing comments on the Biden administration’s Proposed Five Year Plan for offshore drilling, which removes all Atlantic Planning Areas from consideration, yet still proposes to hold lease sales in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico. Comments are due Oct. 6. As usual, our comments will be focused on the Gulf and the Southeast; we plan to thank BOEM for listening to the voices of the East Coast by removing the Atlantic, and further urge no new leasing in the Gulf of Mexico because of the continued harm from offshore drilling on Gulf communities and natural resources and on climate change.
SELC supports responsible offshore wind development as a critically important piece in the necessary clean energy transition to address the climate crisis, but we do not support provisions within the Inflation Reduction Act that tie future offshore wind leasing to continued oil and gas leasing. We are planning to make this distinction in our comments, but please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns with this approach.
If you are potentially interested in signing on and have input as we draft, please let me know ASAP, as we are working on drafting the comments now. We will circulate a draft on Sept. 23, accept feedback through Sept. 28, and take final sign-ons through Oct. 5.
Thank you all for being valued partners in this important issue, we look forward to your continued support throughout this fight!
Melissa L. Edmonds (Whaling) (she/her)
Science & Policy Analyst
Southern Environmental Law Center
601 West Rosemary Street, Suite 220
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Office (919) 391-4099
Mobile (919) 623-5003
Dear visitor, below is a message BEAT received from "Emily Donovan via ActionNetwork.org" <info@email.actionnetwork.org>
The subject of her message regards
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED:
Say: "No More Chemours!"
BEAT received this message on: September 10, 2022 at 12:36:12 PM EDT
Her message is shared here in its entiretity.
Friends,
It's time to mobilize like never before. Chemours just announced they want to EXPAND their toxic PFAS production in NC. We don’t feel they’ve earned this right–especially when they’ve failed to deliver on the most basic promises to our community.
We believe the majority of control measures taken, so far, are because Chemours was legally forced to comply via a 2019 consent order established by our friends at Cape Fear River Watch. However, it’s important to remember, consent orders are only as good as they are being enforced. Sadly, strong enforcement of the Chemours consent order has taken constant pressure from dedicated folks like you, who are determined to hold both DEQ and Chemours’ feet to the fire.
Here’s a quick summary of how Chemours has “helped” us:
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They've been dragging their feet on establishing toxicity studies required by the 2019 consent order.
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They have made private well owners wait 6 months with no replacement water.
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They refuse to meet the needs of commissioners in Cumberland County and are now being sued.
Chemours has not earned the right to expand in NC and we are counting on you to help them get the message. Chemours is hosting a public information session at Leland Cultural Arts Center, Wednesday, September 21st from 5:00pm - 7:00pm. Click here to RSVP We’ll send you talking points in the next two weeks to help you feel prepared.
In the meantime, please share our event link on social media and with your fellow neighbors. Media will be present at this meeting, so it’s vital that we show a united front against Chemours. We cannot allow them to add another drop of their poison to our water.
With gratitude,
Emily Donovan, cofounder
Clean Cape Fear
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE BEAT LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR the Brunswick County NAACP’s proposed Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Multi-Use Greenway/Blueway Trail, Brunswick County, North Carolina
FYI: An Informative PDF about PFAS as it Relates to Brunswick County in 2020 - by Eugene Rozenbaoum of LG Chem
Speaking to Surfside Beach, SC Town Council in Support
of Proposal to Ban Plastic Bags on January 23, 2018
Surfside Beach Approves Ban on Plastic Bags
by
Anita Crone
February 1, 1018
Surfside Beach is the first community along the Grand Strand to ban single-use plastic bags. But the town’s ordinance, passed by a 6-1 council vote Jan. 23, may be in jeopardy if a bill in the General Assembly becomes law.
The bill would make the General Assembly the only lawful body with the right to impose restrictions on bags, bottles and other containers. Last year, the bill came within a single vote of advancing to the senate. If the bill becomes law before Surfside Beach’s ordinance goes into effect on June 1, the state law would trump any local ordinance.
Surfside Beach’s ordinance prohibits single-use plastic bags, the sort generally distributed by retail outlets, at any town facility, town-sponsored event or any event held on town property. It also would bar any business establishment within the town limits from providing single-use plastic bags to its customers.
Councilwoman Julie Samples, who first brought up the bag ban at the Jan. 9 meeting, spoke in favor of the ban, noting that 70 percent of the town’s businesses that responded to a survey on the rule were not opposed to it.
“This is important to all of us who live on the coast,” Samples said, “It sends a message to our residents and visitors that we care about our beach and the ocean to not only begin the conversation but to put our words into action.”
Speaking against the ban, Councilman David Pellegrino said that in every instance where a ban was passed, “the default was paper, which causes different problems. Obviously production causes byproducts and pollution that goes into the rivers,” he said. “Obviously there are two sides.”
Councilman Mark Johnson said he had some concerns about a provision in the ordinance that would force businesses to “display in a highly visible manner on the bag exterior, language describing the bag's ability to be reused and recycled."
“So are we dictating that all the bags have to have some wording or lettering on the exterior, saying ‘I’m a reusable bag’” he asked. “This is going to be highly contentious, especially when it comes to enforcement."
Councilman Tim Courtney said he's concerned about stores outside the boundaries of Surfside Beach, where plastic bags aren't banned, and that people would shop there and bring the bags into Surfside Beach.
Samples responded, “We cannot legislate what happens outside of our town. Enforcing a plastic bag ban is going to be no different and no more troublesome than we have in enforcing no smoking and a hundred other things. So if it’s going to be too tough for us to do, then that’s going to apply to a lot of other things.”
A number of individuals spoke in favor of the ordinance during the public comment section of the meeting, among them Neil Gilbert of Sunset Beach, North Carolina, president of the Brunswick Environmental Action Team and an environmental science educator.
“I believe that the Surfside Town Council has the opportunity to do something really great,” he said. “All eyes in North Carolina and South Carolina are watching what you do and how you vote. Surfside Beach can become the standard that all Carolina coastal towns, North and South Carolina, will want to pattern themselves after.”