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WRITE YOUR LETTER TO NCDEQ TODAY USING OUR ACTION ALERT!

A larger-than-expected crowd turned up for a Blounts Creek strategy session on Tuesday night.

Sound Rivers Executive Director Heather Deck and Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman joined residents of Blounts Creek at Cotton Patch Landing to discuss Martin Marietta Materials’ application to renew a NPDES permit (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit) for a 649-acre limestone mine in Vanceboro.

“I was very pleasantly surprised by the amount of people that showed up on such short notice. It was a big turnout and there’s definitely lots of public interest,” Katey said. “Heather, who was there when this whole thing started in 2011, said there were a lot of new faces there. A lot of the new people were curious and wanted more information about the issue, so we went into detail about the past legal case.”

According to Save Blounts Creek co-founder and Blounts Creek resident Bob Daw, there were exactly 70 people gathered at the picnic shelter at Cotton Patch Landing.

“Bob gave a little introduction of why were all there and Heather and I talked about the past lawsuit, and looking at assessments and reports done in the past. We answered questions that ranged from flooding from discharge and how creek levels may impact personal property to which university resources we can draw on and contacting elected officials,” Katey said.

The meeting was arranged last week after North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality announced it would be taking public comments about the permit’s renewal from Aug. 24 to Sept. 23. The NPDES permit would allow up to 12 million gallons per day of groundwater pumped out during the mining process to be discharged into the headwaters of Blounts Creek — a process that puts the entire creek’s ecosystem at risk. In 2013, Sound Rivers filed a lawsuit against the state challenging the initial permit; last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled against Sound Rivers, giving the go-ahead for the mine to proceed.

Sound Rivers launched a letter-writing campaign last week, creating an Action Alert template to send emails to NCDEQ objecting to the permit renewal and requesting a public hearing be held.

“At the meeting, we stressed the fact that we are trying to get a public hearing following the public comment period,” Katey said. “We also recommended that if anyone sends a letter to NCDEQ to copy it and send it to local elected officials. It helps to add your personal perspectives of why the creek is important to you.”

She said the main goal of a public hearing is to ask for assessment resources to be put in place to measure pH, salinity and benthic (aquatic bug) populations — all of which stand to be impacted by mine discharge and are indicators of a healthy brackish creek, one that has been designated by the state as a nursery for saltwater species.

“Hopefully, we’ll also be able to get more assurances for landowners with regard to potential erosion to personal property and impacts such an immense drawdown of groundwater could have to wells,” Katey said.

Katey also passed around a petition requesting a public hearing that she will be sending with her letter to the Director of NCDEQ’s Division of Water Resources. Those who would like their names added to the petition can email Katey directly at katey@soundrivers.org.

WRITE YOUR LETTER TO NCDEQ TODAY USING OUR ACTION ALERT!

You can find out more about Blounts Creek and the mine threatening to destroy it by listening to the Sound Rivers podcast, “The Story of Blounts Creek,” here. (It’s also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. Search by the name of the podcast, “Sound Rivers: Riverkeeping Tales from the Neuse & Tar-Pamlico”)