8/22 – Mountain Brew Fest in Hendersonville

8/22 – Mountain Brew Fest in Downtown Hendersonville

Come out and celebrate community, clean water and great beer at MountainTrue’s first Mountain Brew Fest in Downtown Hendersonville on August 22.

Enjoy live music, food, and craft beer from the region’s best craft brewers while helping MoutainTrue advance its mission to champion resilient forests, clean waters, and healthy communities across Western North Carolina. Mountain Brew Fest provides a great opportunity to connect quality of life with a healthy environment.

Mountain Brew Fest is Hendersonville’s first beer festival, and will be held from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Locust Street and Bearcat Boulevard adjacent to the Southern Appalachian Brewery.

Find more info and purchase tickets at www.mountainbrewfest.com.

Clean Water = Great Beer!

Court Rejects North Carolina’s Attempt to Weaken Air Pollution Protections

On Wednesday, the Southern Environmental Law Center, who represented Clean Air Carolina, North Carolina Coastal Federation, and Mountain True in the case, and Earthjustice, who represented the Sierra Club, issued the following:

CHAPEL HILL, NC— In a win yesterday for the people of North Carolina and everyone across the country who suffers health problems from breathing soot, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected North Carolina’s challenge to federal standards that protect people from increases in dangerous fine particle pollution.

North Carolina waited over three years to seek to weaken the fine particle standards—long after the statutory deadline of 60 days. No other state joined North Carolina in its challenge.

“We applaud the court’s rejection of North Carolina’s baseless lawsuit,” said Myra Blake, attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This case has been a tremendous waste of North Carolina taxpayers’ resources, as the state chose to expend valuable time and energy challenging an important public health protection, even though it knew the deadline for filing its lawsuit had already passed.”

The court rejected the challenge because it was not filed within the statute of limitations.

“We’re glad the Court rejected North Carolina’s attempt to undermine the public health protections the Clean Air Act guarantees every person living here. Soot kills, and EPA established solid protections against it. North Carolina’s efforts to put profits over people’s lungs rightly failed,” Seth Johnson, attorney at Earthjustice, said.

The Southern Environmental Law Center represents Clean Air Carolina, North Carolina Coastal Federation, and Mountain True in this matter, and Earthjustice represents Sierra Club. These conservation groups intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of the federal government to oppose North Carolina’s attempts to relax the fine particle standards.

“Fine particle pollution is linked to over two million premature deaths around the globe each year, and there is no level of exposure that is considered safe,” said Mike Giles, Coastal Advocate for the North Carolina Coastal Federation. “That’s why local citizen groups representing over 15,000 North Carolinians joined forces to oppose the state’s lawsuit.”

Fine particles come from a number of sources, including coal-fired power plants and motor vehicles, and are linked to significant health problems, including asthma, heart attacks, bronchitis, and premature death.

“We are so glad that reason and science prevails to protect public health” said Clean Air Carolina’s Terry Lansdell. “North Carolina’s attack on fine particle protections would have wiped out substantial progress and pollution reductions that have occurred in the past several decades. The people of North Carolina can breathe easier knowing that this setback was averted.”

North Carolina had attempted to block citizen groups’ participation in the fine particle case, but the court rejected North Carolina’s arguments on this front as well in an earlier decision.

“Rather than promoting the interests of the people of North Carolina, the State actively tried to stifle citizen involvement in this matter. That effort fortunately failed, along with North Carolina’s attempt to rollback protections for people from the mountains to the coast” said Julie Mayfield, Co-Director of MountainTrue.

Duke announcement to clean coal ash ponds excludes two of three Cliffside sites

June 25, 2015

On June 25, Duke Energy announced plans to excavate and close 12 additional coal ash ponds across the state.

Duke Energy’s announcement does not impact its Asheville site, where all the ash is already mandated to be moved, but it does include excavation of one of the three coal ash ponds at the Cliffside power plant in Rutherford County. We know that all three ponds are leaching contaminants into the groundwater and the river so, while it is a step forward that Duke is committing to excavate ash in one of those ponds, we believe they can and should do better. They have not yet decided what to do with the coal ash in the other ponds, nor has the state mandated a cleanup strategy there.

With this announcement, Duke has now committed to excavate coal ash at 7 of 14 sites (20 of 32 ash ponds) in NC. Again, while this is a good step, seven communities across the state still don’t know the extent to which they will be protected from ongoing coal ash contamination going forward. We will press on with our litigation in the Cliffside case until we reach a resolution that will protect the people of that region and the Broad River.

7/24: Save the French Broad Concert — Matisyahu at the Orange Peel

Please join us on July 24 as Matisyahu helps us in our ongoing work to save the French Broad River! Matisyahu is an American artist known for blending Orthodox Jewish themes with reggae, rock and hip hop beatboxing sounds. Matisyahu’s 2005 single “King Without a Crown” was a Top 40 hit.

Tickets are $25 in advance/$28 day of show. This is an all-ages show!

We’re also hosting a VIP meet-and-greet with Matisyahu from 6-8 p.m. at Pulp, just before the concert on July 24. VIP tickets include catered food and complimentary Sweetwater beer. Cost is $60 for a VIP ticket with a seat on the reserved seating platform during the show, and $50 without guaranteed seating.

Get your tickets today by clicking HERE.

THANK YOU TO OUR GENEROUS SPONSORS!

BREAKING: Asheville coal plant retirement signals end to coal ash pollution

Continued Reliance on Fossil Fuels Troubling to the Region

May 19, 2015, Asheville, NC – In an announcement today, Duke Energy revealed a proposal to retire the Asheville Plant, a 414 MW nameplate capacity (376 MW operating capacity) coal-fired power plant located near Asheville, North Carolina. The announcement includes plans to replace coal-fired power at the plant with new, larger gas fired generation options. Additionally, Duke has committed to building a solar farm on the site of coal ash ponds near the plant. Today’s announcement marks the 190^th coal plant announced for retirement since the beginning of the Beyond Coal campaign.

In Response to Today’s Announcement MountainTrue, Sierra Club, Southern Environmental Law Center and Waterkeeper Alliance issued the following joint statement:

“For the last three years the Asheville Beyond Coal Campaign and thousands of individuals have called on Duke Energy to transition our region off of coal. This has been a struggle to protect our health, our families and our communities. It has required tireless effort to pursue a brighter vision for Asheville. We can declare victory in securing closure of the plant, for it means an end is in sight for the air, water, and carbon pollution from this plant, but Duke’s announcement to build new gas is inconsistent with the clean energy vision we have called for.

“While we applaud Duke’s decision to retire the Asheville plant, Duke failed to hear what people wanted in its place. Folks want a bright future that supports clean energy, not a giant gas plant polluting Asheville for another 30 years. North Carolina has the opportunity to be a leader in clean energy generation through aggressive investments in solar power and energy efficiency, and Duke Energy must be a partner in that effort – but moves like this deeply undermine the ability to bring online clean, reliable 21^st century energy options that will create good jobs right here at home.

“North Carolinians deserve clean water and home grown electricity options that invest in local communities and create jobs here in our community. North Carolina has some of the best potential in the nation to harvest the sun for our power needs but Duke Energy must be a partner in that investment if the state is ever to see the real benefits of clean energy. While the proposed solar farm is a step in the right direction, it falls far short of the investment needed to move the region to a clean energy future.

“Additionally, this announcement does nothing to address evidence of unsafe air pollution from the Asheville Plant; under Duke’s proposal, the plant could continue to emit sulfur dioxide at levels that threaten public health until the coal-burning units are retired.

“The retirement of the Asheville Plant is a step in the right direction, but it is a half measure, undermined by continuing reliance on an economically unpredictable and polluting source of power. Duke can do better, and our community deserves better. We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to fight for clean energy solutions for Western North Carolina.”

MountainTrue sponsors Rhythm and Brews 2015!

The 2015 Rhythm and Brews season is shaping up to be another stellar series, with fantastic music, good food, fine drink and — best of all — good friends. And MountainTrue is proud to support this great community event!

The series will once again be in the Azalea parking lot, adjacent to King Street, between 3rd and 4th avenues in downtown Hendersonville. The shows are on the third Thursday of each month.

We also need volunteers! If you’re interested in volunteering at the MountainTrue tent or after the show, please click HERE to sign up. Volunteers should be finished less than an hour after the show ends.

The dates for this year’s shows are:
May 21
June 18
July 16
August 20
Sept. 17

Shows start at 5 p.m., with a singer-songwriter showcase, followed by the opening act at 6 p.m. and headliners at 7 p.m. Click here for more information about the shows.