Don't Look to DENR To Save You from Asphalt Fumes

Under the Pat McCrory administration, the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is an emasculated shadow of its former self, so if anyone thinks its permitting process for a new asphalt plant on the Doc & Merle Watson Scenic Byway will save you and the air you breathe, you should perhaps think again.

As revealed in an intercepted email from a DENR air quality official, either DENR is quite unaware of Maymead's intentions, or else it is willfully trying to mislead the public:

From: "Hartsfield, Taylor" <taylor.hartsfield@ncdenr.gov>
Date: Monday, April 27, 2015 9:33 AM

Subject: RE: Watauga County: Public Records Request.

 Attached is Application 9500134.15A that was received by our office on April 13, 2015. This is an application for an ownership change only. The facility conducts crushing and recycling of construction debris, including concrete and asphalt. No changes to that process were requested. The review process is still ongoing. If you have any other questions, please contact me. Thank you,Taylor

Wiley Roark, the president of Maymead Inc., cheerfully admitted his intentions to Anna Oakes with the Watauga Democrat. He said he considers the plant location a "low-density area outside of town limits" and is therefore, by a curious logic, an "enhancement" for Boone. As if the residents of Boone are the only people who might be affected.

"Low-density area"? We'll see, as the neighbors start to wake up to what's about to happen in their near vicinity.

Maymead still has to apply separately for a permit to operate an asphalt production facility. Roark said he expected that process would take 90 days. We suspect he knows what he's talking about. Without local land-use regs in place, DENR rarely turns down an asphalt plant application. That's going to be especially true under the current regime, which has made DENR a permit-delivery system rather than anything approaching an environmental protection agency.

The Maymead Application to DENR

Maymead's application 9500134.15A requesting "ownership and name change" for the J.W. Hampton "421 Recycling Yard" was received by the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on April 13. It purports to be a simple request to transfer Johnny Hampton's permit to crush and recycle construction debris, including concrete and asphalt, to Maymead Inc.

But on page 17 of the application, the "Zoning Consistency Determination" form, Maymead specifically states that the property will be used for asphalt production and that the access to the property will be from state-designated scenic Highway 421 (the Doc & Merle Watson Scenic Highway).

DEVELOPING STORY: Maymead Wants To Put an Asphalt Plant on the Doc & Merle Watson Scenic Hwy

Maymead Inc. has started the application process with the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to build an asphalt plant on land currently owned by Johnny Hampton (adjacent to his current rock-crushing operation) on the new Hwy 421 between Boone and Deep Gap.

Wade in the Water?

Photo H. Scott Hoffmann, News&Record

Senator Trudy Wade (R-Guildford County) intends to reconfigure the Greensboro City Council so that Republicans can win and take control of the city. Her Senate bill 36 has passed the Senate and is right now sitting in the House's Committee on Elections.

Her power-grab has animated a wide range of otherwise fair-minded people. One Democrat has already declared that he will run for her seat, and several Republicans are talking about challenging her in the primary.

The Virginia-Foxx-level arrogance of the woman needs a comeuppance.

Foxx: Listening to the "Locals" a Giant Waste of Her Time

Apparently, even conservatives are beginning to understand that Congresswoman Virginia Foxx is the reigning Duchess of Disdain.

Brant Clifton on "The Daily Haymaker" spills the beans about a secret recording of Madam Foxx at a Civitas meeting in which she delivers several opinions about the little people who annoy her, and among the most annoying, apparently, are people who might ask her a question at a public town hall. "A waste of time," those town halls, she says.

Madam Foxx has certainly wasted no time herself with town halls, especially after the single one she ever held in Boone went in directions she didn't like.

Clifton's final word on Foxx: "It’s pretty clear this woman has become a creature of Washington. The folks back home are an annoyance. She’s forgotten where she came from."

Well, she's got the mansion on the mountain now, well separated from "the folks back home" who irritate her.

Would-Be Book Banner Named to State Board of Education

Todd Chasteen, one of Franklin Graham's employees at Samaritan's Purse, was very involved in the attempt to ban "The House of the Spirits" from Sophomore English Honors classes at Watauga High School last year. His wife runs a private, religious school, though Chasteen himself is a lawyer and has no experience in the education field, except his experience trying to ban a book from the classroom.

So naturally Gov. Squishy would appoint him to the State Board of Education. Of course.

Legislating Women's Choices, One Waiting Period at a Time

NC House member Jacqueline Schaffer (R-Mecklenburg) is against abortion in all cases, no exceptions, but in pushing an extension of the waiting period for North Carolina women seeking an abortion, from 24 hours to three days, Schaffer claimed she was only doing her fellow female citizens a huge favor.

"We see waiting periods all throughout areas of our society in the medical context as well as in the real estate context, in the, you know, issues relating to marriage," Schaffer said during the House debate.

Got it? Women's bodies are like real estate.

Until North Carolina women stand up and push back against this assault on their rights, the assaults will continue.

Stokes County: Here Comes Fracking

What do we say about a General Assembly that wants fracking in North Carolina so badly that it set aside taxpayer money to help the gas companies find the effing gas?

Bastards?

The NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is about to dig a test well in Walnut Cove, Stokes County, "in a predominately black neighborhood of brick ranch homes," to determine if there's enough shale gas there to warrant the complete destruction of that neighborhood, the pollution of the water table, and the despoliation of that section of Stokes County.

Looming over [that neighborhood] is the possibility that they may one day have as a neighbor an oil-and-gas company, its drilling crew, the trucks that roll with them and the potential for waste management headaches.

They feel powerless.

“Because the state government is so intent on bringing shale-gas development to the state, we do not feel we have any protections or recourse,” said Mary Kerley, who is part of the grassroots NoFrackingInStokes.org group. “Our backs are against the wall. The reality is our lives, safety and property rights have been sold to the highest bidder – the shale gas companies."

Sold to the highest bidder.

There is no hell hot enough for the prostitutes occupying the cushioned seats in the General Assembly.