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Federal Agency Takes A Closer Look at North Carolina Coal Ash Sites Near Communities Of Color

Some residents in the Piedmont will get a chance to voice their concerns about coal ash during a public meeting Thursday.

The North Carolina Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is looking at the potential health impacts on communities of color.  

The meeting in Stokes County will include panel discussions with various stakeholders, including residents, environmental groups and Duke Energy. The area is home to the company's Belews Creek Power Plant.

The community is rural, home to a large minority population. David Hairston lives near the site. He says he thinks companies like Duke Energy capitalize on smaller, less wealthy communities.

“They put them strategically in these spots because they think those are where they will get the least resistance,” says Hairston. “Those are the people that can't afford to hire lawyers to fight back.”

Marty Castro, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, says

the testimony collected will be included in a national report that will make recommendations for coal ash disposal and landfill placement.

“When you look at what's happening in one state versus another, you see remarkably similarities in how these toxic substances are stored,” says Castro. “The makeup of those communities around those substances and those storage facilities, they tend to be people of predominately color and people of predominately limited means.”

Castro says the briefing will also address the first coal ash rule published in spring of 2015, the EPA and other agencies' collaborative work on environmental justice, including that enforced under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

He says the Commission's report will be delivered to Congress and President Obama in September.

*You can follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.Keri comes to the Triad from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she served as the Chief Bureau Reporter for the Northern Panhandle. She produced stories for the state's Public Television and Radio programs and was honored by the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her feature and enterprise reporting.She also served as an adjunct instructor at Wheeling Jesuit University and Bethany College in West Virginia. She worked with the Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, WV, and other NASA centers across the country to develop several stories about the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts in the classroom.Keri's journalism career began at WTRF-TV 7 in Wheeling. She worked in several roles at the station, including the head assignment editor. She also was a field producer and assignment manager at WPGH-TV Fox 53 in Pittsburgh.Keri is a graduate of Ohio University. When she's not in the studio or working on a story, she enjoys watching college football with her family, cooking, and traveling.Keri is always looking for another great story idea, so please share them with her. You can follow her on Twitter @kerib_news.

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