The "General Assembly Is God" Court Decision

This morning Justice Chris Dillon of the NC Court of Appeals issued a three-judge panel's decision in the case about the seizure of Asheville's water supply.

It's pretty amazing. Or not amazing at all, if you've been paying attention to what's been happening to the higher levels of "justice" in North Carolina. Here's the "money quote" from Dillon's written opinion:  "Our General Assembly has the power to create a new political subdivision, to withdraw from Asheville authority to own and operate a public water system, and to transfer Asheville’s water system to the new political subdivision without compensation."

Got that?

Asheville built it. Asheville paid for it. The General Assembly can take it and give it to some other group, and they don't have to pay Asheville a thin red dime for it.

You realize what this means for the long-debated and controversial new Boone water intake on the New River. If you don't know what it means, you might be playing with less than a full deck of cards or you might be an incumbent on the Boone Town Council.

The Politics of Water in Watauga County

Hodges

So this morning we find out that a deal has been struck between the town of Boone and Watauga County Commission Chair Jimmy Hodges: the county will grant two small easements for a Boone water line across property it owns in exchange for 500,000 additional gallons a day (gpd) of Boone water to be used for largely unregulated development outside the town, managed by private interests for their profit. (The town had already granted 250,000 gpd -- 100,000 more than the recommendation of Boone's own Water Committee -- for any developer who will take the old high school property off the county's hands.)

The likely boom in development will come first along the water transmission line from Todd, principally in the Deep Gap to Boone corridor.

This deal was engineered by Jimmy Hodges, working the levers on some members of the Boone Town Council who have been desperate to complete a water intake on the New River near Todd. Hodges' two fellow Republicans on the County Commission voted against the deal, immediately raising an expectation that Hodges may face a Republican primary in 2018.

Boone town government has always held the position that it shouldn't give away its water to unregulated development. Boone has land-use planning and development regs that have transformed the town in 30 years from a jumble of sometimes shoddy sprawl to a destination city recently named "Best Small Town in North Carolina."

But that principle of "no piping of town water without land-use planning" is now out the window. To drive home the point (and also underline the complete collapse of Boone's negotiating skills), Hodges is quoted in the Watauga Democrat: “We can get water from the town without the county having to pay for it.”

Duh.

The Unseen Hand of Sen. Dan Soucek in This Deal

Rep. Jonathan Jordan has been trying to stop the new Boone intake on the New River, along with an assortment of Ashe and Watauga citizens who have a variety of motivations.

Soucek

Jordan's "local bill H875" would halt the intake dead, without the approval of the two affected county commissions in Ashe and Watauga. What happened to that bill? Soucek is holding it -- blocking it -- and creating the unmistakable impression that he's now in cahoots with the real estate developers (and Jimmy Hodges), who are lusting after that water.

That should come as no particular surprise, but the political ironies are striking: Soucek has built his legislative reputation as a bitter enemy of everything "liberal Boone" stands for. Now he's in bed with the Town Council for the sake of that water intake.

They say the next great wars will be fought over water. Perhaps the next great cross-species romances will also happen over water.

Jordan Bill Targets Boone's Planned Water Intake

Yesterday, just making "crossover" in the General Assembly:

RALEIGH A bill to restrict local governments' land purchases resurfaced in the state House early Thursday after being voted down in committee Monday, but only after its scope was significantly narrowed.

The bill would originally have required that municipalities and other units of local government get permission from their county commissioners before buying property.

Now it applies only to Ashe and Watauga counties and only to acquisitions in which units of local government are condemning property outside their boundaries.

[Asheville Citizen-Times]

Jonathan Jordan’s House Bill 875, entitled “Restrict Municipal Eminent Domain,” did pass the NC House yesterday and is now before the Senate rules and operations committee. It would become effective upon approval instead of July 1st, as in the original wording. If passed, the bill would require the consent of county commissioners within the affected county before a municipality could acquire property by eminent domain ... clearly targeting Boone's intentions of obtaining easements for a water pipeline from the New River.

This nasty little piece of special targeting will pass the Senate because ... it will. Who in the Republican majority in the General Assembly would miss an opportunity to punish the Town of Boone?

But ... this special targeting of Boone seems based on the Nathan Miller Era of the county commission and may not take the true measure of its new County Commission Chair Jimmy Hodges, who is a Chamber of Commerce sort of Democrat-turned-Republican and who is almost guaranteed to like the idea of a new water system (which, need we add, can be completed by Boone, at the expense of Boone citizens, and then blithely seized by the General Assembly for a "regional water authority," with the help, no doubt, of the same Jonathan Jordan).

This is bad business for Boone, all the way around.

Why You Should Never Let Them Privatize Your Water

Aqua North Carolina, a private corporation and a subsidiary of a bigger Pennsylvania company, managed to buy municipal water systems in 52 of North Carolina's 100 counties, mainly because local governments, led by people who had no foresight or vision of the civic compact, did not want to fund infrastructure and upkeep for the greater good. Now see what's happening.

Privately owned water resources for urban and suburban communities. Water sold to citizens for profit, not for the civic good. What could possibly go wrong?

Aqua North Carolina convinced the North Carolina Utilities Commission, now under control of the Privatization Brigade in Raleigh, to allow them to increase prices they charge for water (often clouded with sediment and smelly, according to customers) without going through the full cost-increase approval process, which would allow for customer push-back. No, the Utilities Commission decided it could allow for "smaller, more frequent rate increases" while cutting out the public's ability to protest.

Thank God for Attorney General Roy Cooper. He is now suing the Utilities Commission for that particular power-grab (really, for being the hand-maidens and enablers of the water bandits). Gawd only knows how the state's Supreme Court will rule.

It's a fine day in North Carolina when a company like Aqua North Carolina becomes the sole source of water for 250,000 of our citizens, and the state's Utilities Commission allows them "small, frequent rate increases" while silencing the public.

The Good Hands People

Dwane Powell, in the Raleigh News&Observer.

Funny because it's true. Also not funny, and that's exactly what they've done, installed giant eggbeaters in Jordan Lake to take care of the pollution that they also decided needed to keep flowing into the lake in order not to discomfit any corporations.

You can read about this particular boondoggle here.

A New Protection Racket

Last night at its July meeting, the Watauga County Board of Commissioners set a public hearing for August 19 on what to do about zoning issues in Boone's former Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ). Until the passage of Senator Dan Soucek's "local bill" to strip Boone of its ETJ, county residents of the ETJ were protected by Boone's development ordinance. Watauga County has no such regs for development, other than very limited restrictions on "high-impact development," which do not as a matter of fact cover college student "quad" housing and other high-density developments.

Following its regular business, the County Commissioners opened the floor for public comment. From coverage in the High Country Press:

Of the four that spoke, only Jeff Templeton, a member of a family of local developers and a resident of the ETJ, spoke in favor of the elimination of the ETJ and told the commissioners he was “overjoyed” with the fact that this became law.

Noting concerns that this change might have on residents of established neighborhoods in the ETJ, Templeton said that the commissioners could approve of “some measure of regulation in order to protect property values” and the quality of life of residents in the ETJ once the new law goes into effect.

“The county should be able to adequately address [these concerns] without burdening everyone with overregulation,” Templeton said.

So ... the one who pulled the strings in Raleigh ... to make the axe drop on Boone ... to deprive ETJ neighborhoods of their zoning protections ... is now saying that maybe "some measure of regulation" might be needed "to protect property values" (just so long as they don't involve steep-slope development or "view shed" regulations).

That was mighty big of Jeff Templeton.

We assume that since he is now saying publicly that some zoning in the former ETJ is fine by him, there will be some zoning in the former ETJ, since the Templeton family is in charge of the known universe.

Less certain is what will happen with Jeff's father Phil Templeton's decree that Watauga County needs its own county-wide water system. The Templetons may discover that the universe they command ends somewhere short of publicly funded water.

Soucek & Jordan's Local Bill, and Newton's Third Law

Soucek

It's all about gravity, isn't it? At this moment in North Carolina history, all the gravitational pull is in Raleigh, and our Republican representatives down there, Sen. Dan Soucek and Rep. Jonathan Jordan, are learning the giddy pleasures of stomping all over smaller entities who have relatively less power.

Decentralized government? Naw, not on their watch. The town of Boone will be crushed by Bigger Government. Resistance is futile.

Watauga County Commission Chair, Republican Nathan Miller, and his 3-2 majority on that governing board had already explored the joys of crippling Boone's ability to survive by depriving the town of $2 million in sales tax revenue, and they did it out of pure spite. That action by Chairman Miller and the subsequent action by Soucek/Jordan were both prompted by the towering desires of one family, the Templetons, who are now running virtually everything, from the local Republican Party to the County Commission to the General Assembly.

Sir Isaac Newton propounded the universal law of gravitation, and he also mucked about with force, mass, and acceleration, but the Newtonian Law that is about to come into effect for Soucek/Jordan and the Templetons is his Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Reaction # 1: Homeowners in the ETJ Cry Out

Without the protections of Boone's Unified Development Ordinance, which governs what can be built, where, and how, the residents of Boone's Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) are now exposed to harm from their neighbors, if their neighbors are of a mind to harm them.

This new reality apparently prompted County Commission Chair Nathan Miller to issue a statement on behalf of the Commission majority (which includes a Templeton son-in-law) that the Commission will hold a public hearing for residents and for property-owners in the ETJ, to see what, "if any, restrictions the citizens and real property owners wish imposed upon them by their elected officials."

That's a direct quote from Mr. Miller's statement, with emphasis added where emphasis was obviously intended. In fact, the entire first paragraph of Mr. Miller's statement is nothing but full-throated crowing over the way the town of Boone has been treated. Mr. Miller is already abundantly on the record as being opposed on ideological grounds to most if not all land-use regulations, and his statement that a public hearing will be called to consider land-use regulations is also a signal that only one sort of testimony is going to be listened to.

We'll see how the homeowners in the ETJ get on with their new masters.

Reaction # 2: Boone Residents Cry Out

The question of the hour: Why should Boone taxpayers now pony up many millions of $$ to acquire, build, and develop new water resources to service the Templeton family's ETJ holdings?

It was always ultimately about the water.

Big developers want it. Big developers intend to get it. Hell, they have a power-hungry General Assembly in place to help them seize it.

But the taxpayers of the town of Boone do not have to build it for them. They would be fools to do so now.

The fact has consigliere Jeff Templeton is now calling for a county-wide watersystem might wake up a few more taxpayers: It was always about the water.

As always, Senator Dan Soucek gets the Out-to-Lunch Award: "Water? There's an issue with water? Why didn't someone tell me?"

Reaction # 3 (and beyond): Who the Hell Knows?

Eggers

The Soucek/Jordan bill to deprive Boone of its ETJ powers is a one-off. No other town in North Carolina history has ever been treated this way. The bill opens a legal can of worms. Let those worms of unintended consequences wiggle! We're sure that County Attorney Four Eggers can handle every one of them!

Nullifying Boone's Town Elections

It would be a major shock if Dan Soucek and Jonathan Jordan's "local" bill to deprive the town of Boone of its ETJ did not pass the full NC House today, since it has already passed a second reading. The bill may already have passed by the time this gets posted.

What Soucek and Jordan have really done is nullify several elections in Boone that ratified steep slope regulations and other development rules, elections that also rejected candidates hand-picked by mega-developers, elections that made the town of Boone a progressive bastion in a sea of red and hence the object of intense conservative spite.

Legislators of the Soucek and Jordan ilk -- in other words, most of the Republican crop in Raleigh -- have been dedicated to crippling North Carolina's cities by any means necessary (the stealing of Asheville's water system is but one example among many). It's a stupid and ultimately counter-productive agenda, since our cities are also our major economic engine. What new or relocating business wants to establish itself in a town with bad schools and a ravaged environment, cluttered with cookie-cutter or ill-planned infrastructure? Maybe coal-ash ponds.

Legislators of the Soucek and Jordan ilk are also much into the idea of "nullification," simply ignoring or rejecting laws they don't like. Such ideological extremists do not like the land-use development rules ("zoning") implemented in cities, because development rules pinch the ambitions of people like the Templetons.

The Templetons have attempted to change the rules in Boone by selecting and campaigning for their own slates for the Boone Town Council, not once (as in 2013) but twice (as in 2007, in the famous "Citizens for Change" town elections). They lost both times. Unable to win at the ballot box, they've turned to their paid puppets in Raleigh, Soucek and Jordan, to accomplish for them what they could not accomplish on their own merits and through the democratic process.

Since the Tea Party take-over of our state in the elections of 2010, we've witnessed month after month such breathtaking acts of ideological extremism that have frankly beggared the imagination. Stripping Boone of its ETJ is now only the newest remarkable example of just how far this bunch is willing to go to drive our state back into a modern dark age. Boone is now the only -- the only -- city in the state to be singled out and treated in this high-handed and tyrannical way, all to suit the wishes of one wealthy family (and their wealthy friends).

The Law of Unintended Consequences
Throwing out steep slope and view shed rules on the mountains surrounding Boone was always just the first step. Getting Boone's water run up into those hills for student quadraplexes, etc. would be the next.

Boone is very short on water resources for new development and has been trying to obtain a new source on the New River in Ashe County for several years. The Templetons and other mega-developers want that water, and now, without development regs in the ETJ, they will use that water to support any new North Carolina Gatlinburg that they can imagine. And -- need we say it? -- they'll use their patsies Soucek and Jordan to enact another "local" bill in the General Assembly to simply seize the water from Boone. Count on it.

The Cottages is a Watauga County
development

Therefore, Boone needs to stop spending its taxpayers' money on the acquisition of a new water resource that will be taken away to enrich the special interests operating in the largely unregulated landmass known as Watauga County.

State Seizure of Asheville's Water Struck Down by Judge

Yesterday Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. struck down the 2013 General Assembly law that would have transferred Asheville's water system to a county authority.

Judge Manning found the law in violation of the state's constitution specifying what "local bills" are allowed to accomplish (Senator Dan Soucek ... your day is coming!). Judge Manning also ruled the bill an "unlawful taking," and -- the best part -- the judge said the law had no "rational basis."

When a court of law rules officially that the ruling party is in fact irrational, we find some reason to hope for the future of North Carolina.

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer said Manning's decision is "a huge victory for cities. When you initiate a lawsuit of this magnitude, you need to do so responsibly because it has broad implications across the state."

As Boone voters know, Republicans in the General Assembly are pretty much willing to do anything to hurt, hobble, and high-jack the ability of North Carolina's towns and cities to determine their own futures.

The Good Hands People

Governor McCrory's former boss and current Sugar Daddy, Duke Energy, deliberately pumped, over several months, 61 million gallons of coal ash water into a tributary of the Cape Fear River, an intentional "spill" which is more than twice the size of the Feb. 2 Dan River accidental spill.

McCrory's Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), which absolutely no one with at least two working brain cells trusts any more, notified Duke yesterday -- several days after DENR became aware of the pumping -- that putting 61 million gallons of coal ash toxins into the Cape Fear River, uh, violates the law (cough).

DENR also thoughtfully notified officials down-river of the pumping, in Sanford, Dunn, and Fayetteville, to be on alert for carcinogens in their drinking water. Gee, thanks!

With Duke Energy and DENR in charge of our future, what possibly could ever go wrong?

Soucek & Jordan Voted for This Travesty

Champions of the public good,
Sen. Dan Soucek and
Rep. Jonathan Jordan

"Regulatory Reform" -- ha!

Duke Energy led the new Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly by their noses to insert 330 little words into a bill regulating water quality (among other things), altering "a provision that had been on the books for decades, requiring Duke to halt the source of contamination if its subterranean plumes of pollution crept more than 500 feet from its ash dumps."

But even before Duke's lobbyists began whispering in legislators' ears, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had not been enforcing the law (under either Democratic or Republican administrations)

A "compliance boundary" is like an early warning system. If groundwater contamination inside the line exceeds state environmental standards, a company is supposed to take corrective action. The goal is to stop the spread of pollution to neighboring properties, as well as rivers and streams.

But that wasn’t happening. Instead of enforcing the limit, state officials were letting Duke continue to pollute groundwater inside its compliance boundaries around old ash pits without taking any action to stop the contamination. At some plants, regulators even let Duke redraw its compliance boundaries when it looked like contamination might cross the line — a stalling tactic to avoid the cost of cleanup.

After environmental groups began attempting to sue DENR and Duke Energy to enforce water pollution laws, Duke's lobbyists and their blank checks went into action in 2013:

Working closely with lawmakers, the lobbyists helped craft a provision to conform to the way state regulators had been interpreting the law. The change would allow Duke to contaminate groundwater until it crossed onto a neighbor’s property.

The fact that the general public is just now learning how corrupted state government has become via the largest and most powerful corporate bully in the state does not lessen the outrage. Don't forget either that Gov. Squishy, a 29-year employee of Duke Energy, signed that abomination into law.

The Systematic Dismantling of Environmental Protections in North Carolina

Come on down, fracking! North Carolina is preparing the way for you.

Since the Party of Corporate Greed took control of our state, they've eliminated 225 jobs at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), including another 51 jobs in the division that protects the state's water resources last week.

If there's one thing DENR learned from the gigantic coal ash spill on the Dan River, it's that we can do with a lot less people monitoring water pollution!

If this is what you wanted, North Carolina, you got it in spades!

And thanks, Governor Squishy, for being such an accommodating doormat.

IT'S TIME FOR PITCHFORKS & TORCHES!
Duke Energy sez that consumers must pay for its incompetence / callous disregard for the public health / criminal malfeasance.

Fuck you, Duke Energy, and the politicians you rode in on!

The Rogues in Charge of Protecting NC's Water

Gov. McCrory has now bragged, with reference to the third largest coal ash spill in U.S. history, that "I know infrastructure [at Duke Energy] and I know management and I know engineering. Somewhere along the way there has been a breakdown in ensuring that site [on the Dan River] was properly maintained."

Does anyone within the sound of McCrory's mis-firing synapses really believe that he knows squat about engineering, or about anything else beyond smiling for the camera?

And now the New York Times has uncovered this eye-witness account from last June, when water pollution regulators at the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, were given new marching orders "on behalf of North Carolina’s new Republican governor and conservative lawmakers" (courtesy of "The Morning Memo" at the N&O):

“The General Assembly doesn’t like you,” an official in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources told supervisors called to a drab meeting room here. “They cut your budget, but you didn’t get the message. And they cut your budget again, and you still didn’t get the message.”

From now on, regulators were told, they must focus on customer service, meaning issuing environmental permits for businesses as quickly as possible. Big changes are coming, the official said, according to three people in the meeting, two of whom took notes. “If you don’t like change, you’ll be gone.”

"Customer service" = kowtowing to corporate polluters.

Yep, North Carolina, your air and water is in good hands! That "expert" in infrastructure, engineering, and management is running everything!

Nothing Focuses the Mind Like a Federal Criminal Investigation

Looks like Governor Pat McCrory, a former Duke Energy executive and current Duke Energy cuddler, is trying to look as though he's getting right with Jesus. Yesterday, he publicly called on his former employer and current major political contributor to move its coal ash ponds away from water sources.

Those were words, of course, not action. Action would have involved McCrory's top guy at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, John Skvarla, actually taking tough steps against Duke Energy to keep our water clean. So far that action has been sorely lacking.

But now the Feds have opened a criminal investigation, and McCrory needs to look like something other than a creature owned lock, stock, and leaking ash pond by Duke Energy.

Skepticism about McCrory now runs deep in North Carolina, since he's rarely risen above sock-puppet status during the past full year. Said Frank Holleman, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center: “I think it’s good the governor is reacting finally and is communicating with the CEO of Duke Energy, but given everything that’s happened, actions speak louder than words. He says they’re not going to stand for it anymore, but if you’re not going to stand for it any more, clean up the mess.” (Emphasis added, natch!)

It's just sad that it took the tightening reach of federal subpoenas for McCrory to begin to sound like a governor thinking of the public interest, let alone acting in the public interest.

Who Is John Skvarla?

We were reminded last night that John Skvarla, McCrory's appointment to head the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), apparently believes the far-right fringe theory that oil and natural gas are actually renewable resources, that the earth is continually making more of it and that the federal government is covering up the truth, and he's the guy who told the employees at DENR that they must be more "customer friendly," which means "be very accommodating to polluting industries," and so how is that working out for you, North Carolina?

Skvarla is also not sure whether global climate change is real, echoing the opinion of his boss The Guv.

That genius of science John Skvarla has said, of the current crisis on the Dan River (and of every other leaking coal ash pit in North Carolina owned by Duke Energy -- there are 13 of them, and they are ALL already leaking toxins into ground water), that it would be scientifically unwise to relocate those ash pits to lined landfills away from water sources.

What he meant to say was that relocating Duke Energy's toxic waste would be injurious to Duke Energy's profit margin, but, hey! what's a little slip of the tongue among renown scientists?

Welcome To Your Future, North Carolina

We have a corporate shill in charge of protecting North Carolina's water from corporate polluters. Can't wait for these same one-string puppets to begin protecting our water from tracking!

What's Going On Here?

Last night at the end of the Watauga County Commission meeting, Commissioner Billy Kennedy turned to county attorney Stacy C. Eggers IV ("Four") and said that a constituent had inquired whether the Town of Beech Mountain was now working in Raleigh to go around, or somehow overrule, the vote of the County Commission denying a new water intake on the Watauga River. Mr. Eggers is attorney for both the Town of Beech Mountain and the County of Watauga, and he was intimately involved in drafting the original resolution that would have granted the Town of Beech Mountain access to the Watauga River.

The reaction on the dais to Mr. Kennedy's question was akin to introducing red hot pokers to several backsides.

For his part, Mr. Eggers retreated behind the client-attorney wall of silence, and Mr. Kennedy pressed his point that this dual role of Mr. Eggers presents a problem in his eyes. Mr. Eggers commented that if the possibility of a conflict of interest arose, he would certainly inform his bosses on the County Commission and recuse himself.

Does that answer fly? Given Mr. Eggers' blatant conflict of interest in running the Watauga County Board of Elections from behind the scenes, through the instrumentality of his younger brother Luke, while also serving as legal counsel to the BOE, suggests that Mr. Eggers would not necessarily recognize a conflict of interest if he were standing knee-deep in one.

Commission Chair Nathan Miller scolded Kennedy for even asking his question, and Commissioner Perry Yates piled on, along with David Blust, all of them shocked -- shocked! -- that Kennedy would even suggest, imply, insinuate, or allude to a conflict of interest on Mr. Eggers' part.

The Republicans on the Commission looked mighty defensive.

What Did McCrory Know, and When Did He Know It?

The criminal investigation into Duke Energy's pollution of the Dan River will or will not uncover cronyism between the administration of Gov. Pat McCrory and the huge corporation that paid him a substantial salary for almost 30 years and then contributed heavily to his political campaigns. The following builds on data compiled by "Facing South":

1. All the way back in 1994, while working for Duke Energy and serving as a Charlotte city council member and mayor pro tem, McCrory chaired a council meeting and voted on a matter that benefited his employer's bottom line, sparking a case that went to the state Supreme Court. The state's supremes allowed the council's decision to stand though a dissenting opinion from a Republican justice raised concerns about McCrory's conflict of interest.

2. In 1997, McCrory, by then serving as Charlotte's mayor while still working for Duke Energy, went to Washington, D.C., to testify as mayor against federal clean air regulations for the city that would have cost his employer an estimated $600 million to clean up its pollution.

3. Last year, Pat McCrory reported owning Duke Energy stock with a minimum value of $10,000, though he refused to say exactly how much stock he owned and how much it is worth.

4. Employees, former employees, spouses, and political action committees of Duke Energy and its Progress Energy subsidiary gave McCrory's two gubernatorial campaigns over $300,000 in direct contributions in 2008 and 2012.

5. On January 4, 2013, just minutes into actually holding office as governor, McCrory received a letter from several environmental and consumer groups asking him to recuse himself from appointing new members to the NC Utilities Commission because of his ties to Duke Energy. McCrory ignored the request.

6. After McCrory took office in January 2013 and his appointees took over management of the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), environmental groups tried to use the federal Clean Water Act's citizen lawsuit provision to force Duke Energy to clean up its coal ash pits because DENR was doing nothing to enforce Clean Water ... only to have their efforts blocked by DENR, which essentially declared that it was in charge of enforcing the Clean Water Act.

7. DENR, under increasing pressure from environmental groups, recommended a fine of $99,112 in a settlement with Duke Energy over its coal ash pits, while requiring no cleanup of the pits. Given Duke Energy's 2012 operating revenues of $19.6 billion, that fine's dollar equivalent for a person earning a $60,000 salary = 30 cents. (Duke Energy owns some 14 coal ash pits all around North Carolina. All of them are un-lined and are said to be leaking.)

8. February 2, 2014, the Sunday that coal ash was discovered leaking into the Dan River from one of Duke Energy's coal ash pits at Eden. More than 24 hours later, Duke Energy admitted that tens of millions of gallons of toxic coal ash waste were continuing to spill into the river. At about the same time on that Monday, DENR dispatched regulators to the site. The public at large did not become aware of the toxic spill until Tuesday, February 4.

9. Both Duke Energy and DENR's head John Skvarla declare that drinking Dan River water that's treated by a municipal water treatment plant is perfectly safe. The ash pond is still spewing pollution into the river Tuesday afternoon, February 4.

10. On Thursday, February 6, Governor McCrory, with DENR head John Skvarla in tow, made a show of visiting the spill site and said publicly that this needed to be cleaned up. He made a point of bragging about the $99,000 fine his administration had recommended against Duke Energy for its leaking ash ponds. At the same time that Gov. McCrory was visiting the site, both DENR and Duke Energy were issuing data purporting to prove that the water in the river was not toxic to humans or fish. Plus the spill was not yet fully contained, though it had been slowed to what constituted "a dribble," compared to Sunday's deluge.

11. Monday, February 10, DENR asked a judge to put the settlement with Duke Energy (referenced by # 7 above) on hold, including the $99,000 fine … possibly because DENR had been informed by federal authorities that a criminal investigation was being opened and subpoenas of DENR officials would be forthcoming.

12. Wednesday, February 12, DENR warns citizens not to drink, or even touch, water in the Dan River.

13. Thursday, February 13, news broke that the U.S. Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into the Dan River spill and that subpoenas had been issued to both Duke Energy and DENR, summoning them to produce records before a federal grand jury scheduled to meet in Raleigh March 18-20.

14. On Friday, February 14, McCrory held a press conference on the state's response to the big snow storm, and he became visibly shaken when reporters asked about his relationship with Duke Energy, and then irritated when reporters pressed him on the issue. He looked guilty.

North Carolina: "First in Cronyism"

That awkward moment when Phil Berger's fingerprints are found all over a no-bid provision written into the state budget, whereby only one company in the land could meet the specific provisions put into the law.

The Medora Corp. in North Dakota got the $1.4 million no-bid contract to "stir" the pollution in Lake Jordan, and there's an email history to show that NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger engineered that little piece of special dealing.

Two Local Governments, One Local Attorney

When Watauga County wants to negotiate with the Town of Beech Mountain (over, say, drawing water out of the Watauga River), does the attorney for the County of Watauga call up the attorney for Beech Mountain, and would that conversation go something like this?

4 Eggers: Hello, is this Four Eggers?
4 Eggers: Yes, this is Four. How may I help you?

Because, O my brethren, Stacy C. Eggers IV represents both governments, which presents something of a conundrum, as Beech Mountain moves forward on taking water from the Watauga River.

On November 19, when the resolution written by ... we would guess Four Eggers ... on behalf of Beech Mountain, asking the Watauga County Commission to rubberstamp a new open-ended water acquisition scheme, Watauga Commission Chair Nathan Miller was ready to vote immediately. County Attorney Four Eggers was sitting several chairs to Mr. Miller's left, and he didn't seem to think there was any reason not to.

But Commissioner Kennedy insisted on a public hearing, and that's about to happen Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. in the Commissioners Boardroom.

In the meantime, a curious fact has come to light: the Town of Beech Mountain has suddenly, and radically, changed their "Demand v/s Supply" figures filed with the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). As of Nov. 27, 2013, those papers showed the Beech Mountain water supply at 2.0 million gallons per day from 2012 through 2060. Those same papers showed that Beech Mountain was using an estimated 18% of its 2.0 million supply in 2012 and, projected out for the next 47 years, estimated it would be using 42% of that supply by 2060.

Those figures from DENR became more widely public on December 4, after public comment at the last Commissioner's meeting highlighted them, but then, lo and behold, the "Demand v/s Supply" figures on the DENR website suddenly changed for Beech Mountain. According to the new figures, Beech Mountain has suddenly and unaccountably lost 1.1 million gallons of water supply. And now, "for the first time in the history of any recorded Beech Mountain water supply plan," the demand as percent of supply increased more than 300 percent.

What does Four Eggers know about these suddenly changed water supply vs water demand numbers, and when did he know it?