News

Blounts Creek Court Date Set

Environmental

Posted on March 23rd, 2016

The Pamlico and Neuse Rivers and estuary support NC's billion dollar Fishing industry (photo: Bob Daw)

Blounts Creek Court Hearing Date set

100_6102After a long wait, the court date for the evidentiary hearing will start on May 31, 2016.

In April, 2015 Sound Rivers and the NC Coastal Federation, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center,  appealed a decision by Administrative Law Judge Phil Berger, Jr. that would have allowed the company to move forward on plans to discharge 12 million gallons per day of mine wastewater into upper Blounts Creek, a popular fishing destination and tributary to the Pamlico River.

In September of last year, superior court judge Douglas Parsons, ruled that citizens do have the right to ask the courts to enforce the laws when the state fails to do so. This reverses an earlier decision denying citizens concerned about the health of North Carolina’s Blounts Creek the right to challenge a state permit authorizing its destruction. The NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources granted Martin Marietta a permit to discharge 12 millions of gallons a day of mining wastewater into the popular fishing creek.

The judge ordered the case go back before a lower court to be reconsidered in a full hearing now scheduled for May in Raleigh.

Media Coverage

Wastewater From A Proposed Beaufort County Mine Could Impact Blounts Creek Public Radio East, October 2015

Blounts Creek Ruling Reversed, Coastal Review Online, September 2015

Blounts Cree Supporters Win Appeal, WCTI, September 2015

Protesters continue efforts to save Blounts Creek, WNCT, September 2015

 

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