Environmental groups are pushing for changes to North Carolina's industry-permitting process, which they say does not account for the cumulative impacts of environmental pollution.

People exposed to multiple chemical and environmental stressors tend to have higher rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other health problems.

Sherri White-Williamson, environmental justice policy director for the North Carolina Conservation Network, said currently, the state Department of Environmental Protection does not consider cumulative impacts when approving or denying permits for facilities often located in vulnerable communities.

"Within a five-mile range of a particular community in Sampson County, there are two facilities now that have been permitted to convert hog waste into biogas," White-Williamson observed. "There are active concentrated feeding operations, they are within very close proximity to an interstate highway."

Earlier this year North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order to create an Environmental Justice Lead position at each state agency tasked with collecting feedback on pollution from residents living in underserved communities. The order also directed state agencies to use federal and state funding to clean up impacted communities.

Daisha Williams, environmental justice manager for CleanAire NC, said while fostering conversations with impacted residents is important, state officials should be working toward implementing policies to incorporate and measure cumulative impacts when deciding where to site new polluting sources.

"Communities are still suffering, and we need to have tools and solutions," Williams argued. "Not just something that is kind of there to check off a box in the permitting or remediation process."

Accruing stressors from air pollution and climate change can also affect mental health. Research in the New England Journal of Medicine shows natural disasters and climate-related displacement can increase the risk of mental health disorders, anxiety and depression.

Pennsylvania is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse-gas pollution in the U-S, and the Environmental Protection Agency wants input on a plan to do more to reduce methane emissions in oil and gas development.

The EPA proposal would require curbing methane emissions at existing oil and gas wells in addition to new sites.

Barbara Jarmoska, a board member for the Responsible Decarbonization Alliance, said methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and regulating it can be one of the primary ways to slow global warming.

"When you look at what is Pennsylvania's greatest insult, what activities in Pennsylvania produce the greatest concern, it is certainly methane release," she said, "and one of the primary factors in that is these hundreds and hundreds of unplugged, methane-leaking wells."

In her own neighborhood, Jarmoska said there's a massive project involving 80 new wells and a high-pressure gas line under construction.

The public can weigh in on the EPA's proposal in writing through Feb. 13.

Jarmoska and other Pennsylvanians voiced their concerns in a three-day virtual public hearing this month. Some groups have stressed that the new rules should ban "flaring," the process of burning off gas at well sites. Jarmoska said another concern is the prospect of future methane use, since Pennsylvania looks to build out what's being called the hydrogen hub. It's gotten bipartisan support, but she said it's a controversial process.

"Blue hydrogen is just another way to create demand for methane, fossil methane gas, and so we cannot allow this transition to happen," she said. "But it is being driven by the gas industry, acceptance of blue hydrogen as this new and wonderful solution to climate change."

She explained that "blue hydrogen" involves creating energy with the natural gas from fracking and steam, and then capturing the carbon dioxide that is also produced and storing it underground. Some business groups are hoping to win a bid to build a hydrogen hub in Philadelphia.

Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson said he thinks it's important for the EPA to do more to fight climate change as a national security issue. He said he sees it as a threat not only to the United States but as a source of instability abroad as well. Anderson said he believes a transition to renewable energy will boost employment in this fast-growing field.

"There's all kinds of renewable energies that I believe will not only reduce our reliance on oil and on the carbon-based fuels," he said, "but provide opportunities to develop a truly green economy that'll put a lot of the people that are presently working in coal mines and in the oil industry, put them to work installing solar panels and wind turbines."/pages/Article.aspx?post=91.

The new year brings a new legal challenge to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking it to reconsider its decision to dredge year-round on the Georgia coast.

The group One Hundred Miles said year-round hopper dredging impedes the recovery of loggerhead sea turtles as well as other species. The group's vice president for education and communications, Catherine Ridley, said her organization, which is represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, opposes the Corps' decision to eliminate seasonal limitations on dredging projects that have protected sea turtles and other marine life for decades.

"We have invested 30 years of work into getting these turtles back to our coasts to continue nesting and help that species recover," said Ridley, who also is coordinator for the St. Simons Island Sea Turtle Project, "and to have dredges that would be in those very same waters, really injuring and killing those turtles, would set those recovery efforts back decades."

Dredging is done to clear sediment from waterways to keep them safe and navigable. Ridley added that, historically, this has been done in Georgia from mid-December through the end of March, when adult loggerheads and other vulnerable species are not as abundant and less likely to be harmed.

In the warmer seasons, Ridley said, the sea turtles face a higher risk of contact with dredging. She said a robust network of volunteers and researchers goes out every day during nesting season - from late April to early October - to monitor and protect the nests, where the adult sea turtles lay their eggs in the sand.

"And so, when they come and they dredge in the wintertime, there's very few turtles. Impact to the species recovery is very low," she said. "And that's why it's worked so well -- while also again, keeping our harbor safe, but also managing protections for other species. Winter dredging windows have been a really effective tool for pretty much everyone. It's just been a win-win."

She said they recognize the need for proper dredging to keep the harbor safe, but seasonal restrictions have allowed the Georgia Brunswick and Savannah Ports to grow and thrive, while also serving as an effective tool for protecting the loggerhead sea turtles.

The Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement of federal pollution rules has plummeted.

In 2022, the agency referred 88 cases to the Justice Department for civil prosecutions, the second-lowest number in more than two decades, according to an analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project.

The EPA has said it's doing the best it can, amid chronic understaffing and funding cuts. But Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, pointed to the long-term consequences of letting the worst polluters off the hook. He said it's often difficult for states to tackle pollution cases involving a large, local employer or other political sensitivities.

"The Dominion Power Co. or American Electric Power, or Volkswagen, when Volkswagen was caught cheating on the emissions controls that are supposed to be installed under federal requirements," he said. "Those are federal cases. And they're really important."

The report said more than 250 major industrial polluters with high-priority violations have continued operations without any federal pushback, and the EPA's Enforcement and Compliance database says more than 900 facilities have violated water-pollution limits.

Schaeffer added that when serious air and water pollution violations escape penalty, vulnerable communities are left to deal with the public health impacts.

"We've got millions of people living in that situation, typically pretty low-income communities, often heavily African American, or Latino," he said. "And they get hit where it hurts. And if the feds can't turn out and do the job, they get left behind."

It isn't all doom and gloom, however. Schaeffer said the agency has consistently investigated coal-ash waste sitting in ponds and landfills that leach toxins into groundwater.

"That's a place where EPA is doing some good work to investigate that contamination," he said, "and to keep the facilities that are supposed to have cleanup plans on track."

Ohio houses 26 coal-ash ponds at 11 power-plant sites. Six of the ponds have been designated as "high hazards" according to the group EarthJustice.

This story was produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.