Interactive water-quality maps posted

The N.C. Division of Water Resources has created nine interactive maps that locate facilities or activities with water-quality permits.

The maps give the locations and descriptions of sites such as hog farms, municipal and industrial wastewater treatment systems, and stormwater facilities.

The maps can be searched by location, permit type, facility name, permit number and status, county or administrative region and river basin.

The maps complement the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Permit Application Tracker, which lets viewers follow pending environmental permit applications.

Summer interns power Carolinas energy sector

Energy firms in the Carolinas put about 600 interns to work this summer, creating a pathway for new entries into an aging workforce, says the two-state trade association E4 Carolinas.

Internships and cooperative education assignments give students a peek into prospective careers and let employers evaluate potential hires. There's some urgency to internship programs that span Charlotte area's largest energy companies, including Duke Energy, Westinghouse and ABB.

E4 quotes the Center for Energy Workforce Development as reporting that 46 percent of the industry's workforce -- 200,000 workers nationally -- might have to be replaced by 2015 as baby-boomers retire.

Many companies say they have a hard time finding qualified people for skilled positions. U.S. children, meanwhile, are lagging in science and math.

Carolinas companies say internships help close that gap by giving them a pipeline to talent.

Siemens Energy in Charlotte is known for its innovative partnership with Central Piedmont Community College and the Centralina Workforce Development Board to train new workers. SCANA's nuclear program hires 40 percent of its interns.

"Internship programs serve as outstanding human resources marketing tools," E4 quotes Joan Espinosa, who heads HR in North America for Charlotte-based SGL Group. "A positive experience with the company gives us a unique insight into what is coming out of the universities."

McCrory signs 'job-promoting' enviro bill

Gov. Pat McCrory signed a bill Friday to cut "burdensome regulation" that dissolves the state's water-quality division, relaxes groundwater standards and places a moratorium on local environmental rules.

McCrory had hinted he might veto the Regulatory Reform Act. Instead he signed it nearly a month after the bill landed on his desk and two days before a veto deadline.

Environmental pieces of the bill:

-- Require state agencies to review rules every 10 years to judge whether they're still in the public interest. Rules that are not reviewed will expire.

-- Let billboard operators take down trees outside defined cut zones on freeway ramps in order to make their signs more visible.

-- Ban until October 2014 new, local environmental ordinances on issues that state or federal laws also address -- unless the ordinances are adopted unanimously.

-- Extend the "compliance boundary" for groundwater contamination violations, previously 500 feet from the source, to the owner's property line. Existing compliance boundaries won't change. Duke Energy, which has been sued by the state over coal-ash pollution, and its critics disagree on whether the change will benefit the company.

-- Combines the N.C. Division of Water Quality, which policed water pollution, with the N.C. Division of Water Resources. Their combined staffs are expected to be about 15 percent smaller as the streamlined division adopts a customer-friendly approach to regulation.

DENR to see jump in "exempt" jobs

North Carolina's environment secretary, John Skvarla, scrambled late Friday to explain to his staff a big jump in the number whose jobs will be defined as "exempt," meaning they can be fired without cause or appeal.

House Bill 834, now on Gov. Pat McCrory's desk, increases from 1,000 to 1,500 the number of exempt positions in state government. "Exempt" includes managers deemed to be vital to the enterprise, but the term also embraces policy-makers who are supposed to carry out the governor's agenda.

Raleigh's WRAL reported that exempt positions at the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources would rise from 24 under former Gov. Bev Perdue's term to 167 under McCrory -- the biggest jump among the eight departments affected by the bill.

Environmental advocates say the move will force top DENR officials to toe the Republican-dominated legislature's view of regulations as job-killers. The legislature has cut budgeting and moved whole divisions out of DENR.

Skvarla, in an after-hours email Friday to DENR staff members whose jobs will become exempt, called it a "badge of distinction of which you should be proud."

"It was always silly to pretend that only 30 or so people in a department of nearly 4,000 were making managerial decisions," he wrote. "DENR has more than 600 managers, and the majority of those carry the responsibility necessary to operate our agency."

Skvarla says management changes will be based on "competency, efficiency, performance and changing requirements, not based on politics."

The exempt-jobs news came after legislators last month dissolved the Division of Water Quality, which polices water pollution, and rolled it into the Division of Water Resources. The change is expected to trim the combined staff by about 15 percent as top managers adopt a "customer-friendly" regulatory approach.

UNC to Duke Energy: Include us in renewables rate

The 17-campus University of North Carolina system wants in on the renewable-energy rate Duke Energy has proposed for large energy users such as data farms.

In a letter to new Duke CEO Lynn Good this week, UNC president Tom Ross notes that system's goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050. But 3 percent annual growth in the system's footprint makes that target a challenge, Ross writes.

Duke said in April it would seek a new rate structure for large customers to boost development of renewable energy. The news came as Google announced a $600 million expansion of its Lenoir data center.

Ross' letter, provided by Greenpeace, said UNC likes the idea and could become "a potentially significant customer" of the new rate class. He asks that the university system be allowed input into the rate design before it's submitted to the N.C. Utilities Commission.

Duke spokesman Randy Wheeless said the tariff will be filed with the commission in the next few weeks. UNC "would definitely fit the profile" of potential customers, he said.

Greensboro takes Duke Energy tree complaint to regulators

Continuing a dust-up that began months ago, the city of Greensboro this week filed a formal complaint about Duke's tree-trimming practices with the North Carolina Utilities Commission.

Residents of some of the city's oldest, leafiest neighborhoods began complaining last December that Duke was over-pruning trees that could hit power lines. So many complaints poured in that Duke, under threat of legal action by the city, agreed to a temporary halt to work out their differences.

"Vegetation management," as utilities call it, is a hot-wire because it can disfigure trees. Utilities say it's necessary to reduce power outages.

In June, after months of meetings, Greensboro's city council adopted a new ordinance regulating tree-trimming by utilities. But the measure didn't resolve all issues, and Duke and the city agreed to take their differences to the Utilities Commission.

The city wants Duke to remove large wood trimmings when property owners ask; agree to a local appeals process; apply pruning standards citywide; and shorten the period between trimmings to four to five years, making them less severe.

Duke hasn't yet replied to the city's complaint.

NC budget fires Environmental Management Commission

North Carolina's base appropriations budget, ratified Thursday, fires all current members of the state's environmental rule-making board effective next Wednesday.

The move gives Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led legislature, which has targeted environmental regulation as a drag on business, a clean slate to remake the powerful Environmental Management Commission. The commission is charged with adopting rules protecting air and water resources.

The budget pares the commission's 19 members to 15, nine appointed by the governor and six by legislators. It retains most of the specialty positions on the board, such as experts in air and water pollution, biology, agriculture and manufacturing.

McCrory named Charlotte attorney Benne Hutson, whose term was scheduled to end in mid-2014, as EMC chairman effective July 8. Ten members' terms expired June 30.

The budget also fires all but four members of the 15-member Coastal Resources Commission, which adopts rules and policies on coastal development.

Expertise to be represented on the board would continue to include coastal development, engineering, agriculture, fishing and forestry. The board will no longer have designated seats for marine ecology and conservation.

The legislation also pares the state Clean Water Management Trust Fund board from 21 to nine members, but adds language charging the board with land preservation in addition to protecting water resources. The fund had been the state's largest conservation grant source until recent years, when appropriations to it were slashed.