This story by Patrick Adrian was first published by the Valley News on July 5.

WEST LEBANON, New Hampshire — With berry season underway, Upper Valley farmers said their pick-your-own patches could use more sunshine to offset June’s rainy days and cool temperatures. A mid-May freeze also killed or damaged many fruit blossoms.

While the impact may not be as noticeable to customers, the problems have been especially acute for strawberry growers. But a lack of sunlight and warmth also is causing delays to the start of raspberry and blueberry picking at many farms, as well as some anxiety about the weather to come.

“This has been a spring and early summer to forget,” said Becky Nelson of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, New Hampshire. “We, like everyone else, are waterlogged. … We are hoping for some sunshine soon to sweeten the berries, as too much rain and not enough sunshine affect the taste.”

Newport saw nearly 5 inches of rainfall in June, the most for that month since 2015, which recorded 5.7 inches.

This amount of rainfall is not unprecedented, several farmers said. Since 2010, there have been five years where the Upper Valley accumulated at least 4 inches in June.

However, this past June the rain mostly occurred during the final two weeks — the heart of the strawberry-picking season.

On Tuesday, Wellwood Orchards in Springfield, Vermont, announced a sale on its PYO — or pick-your-own — strawberries of $1.99 per pint, a discount of 60%.

Linda Friedman, co-owner of Wellwood, said the end-of-season strawberry sale is intended to “clean up” the harvestable berries that remain in the patches.

“There are a lot of soft or rotting berries because of the rain, but there are a lot of good ones, too,” Friedman said. “And if people are making jam, they don’t care if some berries are soft.”

In previous summers, the strawberry picking might have continued an additional week, though the wetness and the lack of sun are limiting the season to three weeks, which is just within the low end of the average season duration, according to Friedman.

What has most impacted Upper Valley fruit growers this year was the brutal cold snap in May, which not only impacted early varieties of raspberries and blueberries but fruit trees including apples, peaches and cherries.

Wellwood, whose PYO apple orchard is a popular tourist destination during the fall, lost nearly all its apple blossoms — as well as its peach, plum and cherry blossoms — when the low temperature on May 18 plummeted to 23 degrees.

As a result, Friedman said that strawberries, raspberries and blueberries are Wellwood’s only pick-your-own fruits this year.

“That’s the really serious storyline,” Friedman said. “We’ll be lucky to have enough apples to put on our store shelves. We will have to try to be creative with our events in the fall.”

Friedman partly attributed the freeze’s impact to bad timing, in that it struck right when many fruit trees and bushes were blossoming.

“If it had happened a few days earlier or a few days later,” the freeze might not have such an issue, Friedman noted.

Keith and Kristy Brodeur, owners of Bascom Road Blueberry Farm in Newport, New Hampshire, said the freeze killed the blossoms on their early-variety blueberry bushes.

“Farmers in the last 50 years haven’t seen it get that cold that late into the season,” said Keith Brodeur, who researched historical records to determine the rarity of the freeze.

Brodeur said on Monday his opening date for pick-your-own blueberries will be about “a week to 10 days” later than past years.

“We were tentatively hoping to open this (coming) weekend, but we will need multiple days of sun (to fully ripen the fruit),” Brodeur said.

Pete Bartlett, of Bartlett’s Blueberry Farm in Newport, New Hampshire, also said his opening this year will be later than his “average” start date in recent years, which has usually been around the second week of July.

Bartlett noted that blueberry production in recent years has been ramping up slightly earlier than 30 years ago due to warmer temperatures in the growing area.

Nelson, of Beaver Pond Farm, who hopes to open her pick-your-own raspberries later this week, said the cold snap did some damage to her early-variety raspberries.

“The blueberries look good, and the raspberries seem to be starting out OK,” Nelson said. “We are beginning to see some frost damage, or ‘winter kill,’ in the raspberries where they seem to be forming a full crop, but then the vascular structure can’t keep up with the vascular damage. They look great at first, but then they wither and die before the berries are pickable.”

Pooh Sprague, owner of Edgewater Farm in Plainfield, New Hampshire, noted that the impacts of this season’s weather — including the cold snap — will differ from one farm to the next, based on their crops and operation.

While Edgewater provides pick-your-own strawberries, the majority of Sprague’s strawberries are harvested for wholesale — which relieves some of the stress about leaving berries exposed in the field to heavy amounts of moisture or about rain driving away customers to pick the berries.

“Pick-your-own is nice, but it’s not a dependable way to get rid of your crop,” Sprague said.

The rainfall has its benefits, Sprague noted. It helps the blueberries “size up,” for example. And despite the rain, the strawberries this year have been surprisingly flavorful.

But the rain needs to be balanced with sunshine, growers said.

“The biggest problem with the excess wet in any fields that have swales or dips is the potential for a waterborne fungal disease called phytopthora root rot,” Nelson said. “We lost an entire planting to it in the past, so we are hoping it doesn’t make a resurgence, as it can destroy entire raspberry plantings and affect other crops planted in that space down the road.”

“There is no amount of cultivating practice or chemical spray as a remedy when you’re dealing with this much wet and mugginess,” Sprague said.

The current weather forecast looks more promising than previously anticipated, with several fully or partly sunny days projected between today and July 14.

“I think it’s going to be an average year for us,” Brodeur said.

“But it’s hard to say until the season’s over.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Slim pickings: Little sun, too much rain slowing Upper Valley berry season.

Over the last year, customers of the Sonoita Valley Water Company have been dealing with water shortages, low water pressure and leaking lines. Now they’re facing a doubling of their rates, too.

The post Sonoita Water Customers Face Rate Shock, Water Shortages appeared first on Patagonia Regional Times.

As campers continue to flood into national forests — often towing large trailers, side-by-sides or outdoor gear — districts across Wyoming are taking steps to increase capacity, regulate use, protect resources and generate revenue for upkeep.  

Visitation and participation data indicates outdoor recreation’s popularity is here to stay, prompting overburdened staff to rethink camping management with both human behavior and the health of the landscape in mind. 

Here’s a look at three initiatives taking place across Wyoming’s vast acreage of national forest. 

New rules in the Bighorns 

On the 1.1-million-acre Bighorn National Forest, Supervisor Andrew Johnson recently signed an updated order with new rules aimed to address long-standing dispersed camping problems in the popular northern Wyoming forest.

“We were hearing loud and clear from members of the public, forest users, county commissioners, members of our communities that addressing the dispersed camping challenges was important to folks,” Johnson said at a June steering committee meeting. The long-simmering problems mostly revolve around users “saving” spots by parking empty vehicles there or overstaying their limit. 

The district has extended the forest’s 14-day stay limit to year-round. In addition, when visitors hit the stay limit, forest regulations will require them to move any personal property five road miles before establishing a new campsite. Wildlife attractant storage is also required, prompted by increasing bear conflicts, Johnson said.

The problems stretch back decades, Johnson said, and stem from issues like diminishing availability of sites in light of growing crowds, an inadequate ability to enforce camping limits and resource damage caused by overuse and rogue trails. 

One of the biggest “complaints our front desks and our employees get,” Johnson said, “is all of the unattended property.”

Compounding the issue, Johnson said, has been under-staffing, which hampered the agency’s ability to enforce the stay limit. The district recently secured funding to hire a number of patrol positions, which he said should help to educate users and enforce the rules. Staff will also make a concerted effort to remove abandoned property from the forest, he said. 

The new rules are the result of a process initiated around 2016 that led to the creation of a dispersed camping task force, which issued recommendations to the forest in 2020. Those recommendations also included: creating a sticker program to authorize dispersed camping, identifying designated dispersed camping sites and expanding a trailhead to allow overnight camping. Those could still be considered down the line, Johnson said, noting the forest will reevaluate the rules at the end of the year. 

A new court-ordered fee schedule calls for higher penalties for violations of the rules, Johnson added. Violators will now be charged $100 after the 14th day, with a $30 processing fee plus an additional $20 per day over the limit. “And that adds up,” he said. “So there’s a much better deterrent I think for folks overstaying the 14-day limit.”

Improving a hard-hit area in the Bridger-Teton 

Bridger-Teton National Forest is midway through plans to improve a campground that’s been hit particularly hard by visitation. Curtis Canyon Campground sits less than 10 miles from Jackson Hole and butts up to Grand Teton National Park and crucial winter wildlife range. 

“That proximity makes it a really valuable area,” said Linda Merigliano, U.S. Forest Service recreation wilderness program manager. “And then also, the views are spectacular.”

Hordes of campers have flocked to Curtis Canyon in recent years. A heavy concentration of dispersed camping and off-highway vehicle use combined with a lack of road maintenance have resulted in serious road deterioration as well as vegetation loss, human waste issues, poor visitor experience and public safety concerns, according to the Forest Service. 

So when the Bridger-Teton secured access to $500,000 in federal Infrastructure Act funds, Curtis Canyon was an obvious candidate for improvements, Merigliano said. The agency in January released a scoping document proposing several upgrades to the area.  

They include: repairing the access road; expanding the first-come-first-served campground with 22 new campsites and a pit toilet; restoring damaged areas such as unauthorized road spurs; and relocating the popular Goodwin Lake trailhead.

The forest had already implemented a designated site program, added signs and recruited a camping ambassador to educate and assist visitors at Curtis Canyon. 

“These actions have helped reduce impacts but have not kept pace with increased use,” the scoping document reads. “The time for repeated band-aids has passed.” 

The forest accepted comments through March 3.

Merigliano was part of a site visit last week, and said the road to Curtis Canyon has only worsened under recent rainy conditions. Gullies and deep ruts thread through the road, and pond-sized puddles necessitate high-clearance vehicles, she said. 

More field survey work needs to occur to inform projects like campground expansion and trailhead work, she said, but the agency is likely to issue a decision soon on the road repair in order to get started on drainage improvements ASAP. 

“It’s pretty bad right now,” she said of the road condition.

Of the 32 comments submitted for the scoping document, many supported the general concept of improvements. One commenter wondered, however, where the cycle of crowd-fueled damage ends. 

“What has happened there in the past decade-plus is disheartening to say the least,” Franz Camenzind wrote. “What is being proposed is a good start to better manage in the area and slow its degradation. Ironically, what is being proposed will only bring more visitors to the are (sic) and bring more impacts and challenges.”

The Bridger-Teton is also planning improvements to trailheads and trails in the busy Granite Creek corridor. 

New fee proposal in the Med-Bow 

The Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland are proposing fee increases at 93 day-use and campground sites in the 2.9-million-acre system spanning eastern Wyoming and northern Colorado.  

The increases will allow the agency to keep up with demand, address deferred maintenance and “be able to put a good product out for the American public,” said Aaron Voors, a public affairs officer for Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland. 

The move is overdue, he said. “We have not done a good job with that for a variety of reasons over the last 20-plus years since we increased the fees back in 2002,” he said. “We’re trying to just catch up.”

Wildfires, the bark beetle epidemic and other issues have dominated the agency’s work in recent years, he said. In the meantime, maintenance work has accumulated, and sites need upgrades to accommodate evolving needs like the ubiquity of camper trailers. The fee proposal also folds into a larger strategy of accommodating growing use. 

The Med-Bow proposal would hike fees at 67 existing sites and institute them at 26 others — 60 are in Wyoming. At Vedauwoo Campground, for example, fees would increase to $20 per site from $10, while use of the gazebo would increase to $75 a day from $50. Funds will be used for everything from road improvements to toilet services. 

National forest visits are increasing, Voors said, and Med-Bow district managers want to point people to developed recreation sites, partially because “it helps take some of the impacts of dispersed recreation off of the forest.” 

Comments will be accepted through Nov. 1. The district will hold public open houses, including several in July. 

The post As campers flood forests, officials aim to manage evolving needs appeared first on WyoFile.

Hundreds of workers escaped serious injury, though six required hospital treatment, when a tornado ripped through the North Antelope Rochelle coal mine in northeast Wyoming during a shift change Friday evening. The mine — the largest in the nation — was not as fortunate, suffering serious damage that temporarily halted production operations.

As crews continue to clean up and repair facilities, mine operator Peabody Energy says it will likely resume loading trains by Tuesday. But it’s unclear how long it may take to return to full production capacity.

“Initially, focus will be on restoring the train loading dock and the NARM North facility, where some power has been restored,” Peabody said in a statement Sunday. “Other parts of the mine will require power line restoration before they can return to operation. Rail cars that were blown over and derailed in the storm will need to be recovered.”

Any persistent supply disruption from the Powder River Basin coal district could threaten scores of coal-fired power plants across the nation. NARM, located in the southern portion of the basin, accounts for approximately 25% of Wyoming Powder River Basin coal production. The mine shipped 63 million tons of coal in 2021, about 13% of U.S. coal consumed for electrical generation that same year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Texas is the largest consumer of Powder River Basin coal, according to the EIA, relying on the Wyoming product for approximately 16% of its electrical generation capacity in 2022. The Lone Star State is currently experiencing an intense heat wave, driving near-record demand for electrical power, according to reports.

Some experts say a temporary slow-down in NARM deliveries won’t likely seriously impact customers in Texas, however.

Coal-fired power plants typically maintain a stockpile of coal onsite to buffer against potential supply disruptions. Power plants burning sub-bituminous coal — the type mined in the Powder River Basin — kept an average stockpile of “126 days of burn” in March, according to the EIA.

Coal plants also typically increase their stockpiles ahead of the high-electrical-demand summer and winter seasons, University of Wyoming energy economist Rob Godby said. “Normally, this would not pose a huge issue unless [a supply disruption is] sustained for quite a while.”

The disruption, so far, should not have an impact for coal customers in Texas, according to Steve Piper, Director of Energy Research at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “This isn’t a sufficient disruption to cause a concern about coal supplies at Texas power plants,” Piper said.

Peabody hasn’t commented on the full extent of the damage or the scale of coal-delivery disruptions for its customers, which span several states.

‘Massive job to clean up’

The tornado measured as a 2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, given estimated wind speeds of 120 to 130 miles per hour, according to Rapid City National Weather Service meteorologist Susan Sanders who was onsite to assess the storm event Saturday.

A tornado warning was sent to cell phone users in the area about 10 minutes before the tornado struck the mine, Sanders estimated.

The tornado — along with damaging hail and torrents of rain — apparently struck the main operations center of the mine at about 6 p.m. Friday, according to Campbell County Emergency Services Agency Coordinator David King. Though the mine’s operations span many square miles — larger than most Wyoming towns — there’s a cluster of buildings and operational facilities at its main entrance. This area took the brunt of damage, King said over the phone while assessing the damage on location.

“I’m sitting here looking at aluminum and tin off of buildings wrapped around poles and things,” King said. “It’s just a massive destruction.”

Eight people were injured and six of them were transported from the remote location to nearby hospitals for non-life threatening injuries, according to King. The drive north to Gillette takes more than one hour, and it takes nearly an hour to drive south to Douglas. All six of the injured had been released from the hospital by Sunday morning, Peabody stated.

A roof was ripped off the mine’s “change house” — a locker room-type of facility where crews prepare before each shift and meet to discuss operational plans. Bay doors were torn from the mine’s fire and emergency station building, which may be “totalled,” King said. Tin siding was peeled away from atop a set of cement silos that are used to load coal into trains. More than a dozen coal cars were blown over on a railroad line in the vicinity. One “coach” bus that transports miners was flipped onto its side while several other vehicles were scattered into one another, according to reports.

“It’s going to be a massive job to clean up,” King said. “It looks like a typical tornado, especially when it hits a whole lot of steel buildings.”

The timing of the tornado strike couldn’t have been more precarious, King said. Between 150-200 workers are typically on location to ensure 24/7 operations, he estimated. But that number was nearly double when the tornado struck due to a shift-change that occurs between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Given the number of people in the vicinity and the severity of initial reports, emergency responders from multiple agencies in Campbell and Carbon counties prepared for the worst.

“Everybody responded as if it was a mass casualty incident,” King said.

The post Tornado strike causes severe damage at nation’s largest coal mine appeared first on WyoFile.

By Will Atwater

In early May, it’s possible to find fields of wheat and lavender-colored straw flowers bordering two-lane roads that wind through Gaston County. This part of Cherryville Township lies roughly 35 miles northwest of Charlotte and about 82 miles southwest of Black Mountain. 

The picturesque rural scene embodies the tagline attached to the logo on nearby Lincolnton’s website: “Near the City. Near the mountains. Near Perfect.”

Continue driving, and one quickly discovers white signs lining county roads revealing what many locals see as a threat to the pastoral lifestyle that drew them here. The message in bold, black letters reads: “Gaston County Pit Mine,” enclosed in a red circle with a line drawn through the middle.

Hugh and Libby Carpenter, both in their 80s, live on 5 acres between South Fork and Beaver Dam creeks in Cherryville Township near Lincolnton. It’s been nearly 51 years since the couple moved to the land, where they raised two daughters. 

Hugh Carpenter said the property, which has been in his family since the early 1900s, was once part of a 50-acre farm that produced wheat, oats, corn and other vegetables.

The Carpenters’ property is about 2,000 feet from one of the sites of a proposed mine to extract lithium, a vital element necessary to create everything from batteries that power cell phones to those that power motor vehicles.  

They’re determined not to let the lithium mining conversation upset their lives. 

“God’s going to take care of us. If we move, we move. We don’t want it to happen, but we don’t always get our way,” said Libby Carpenter.

Many questions remain, including whether the N.C. Mining Commission will approve Piedmont Lithium’s application.

David Miller, the state’s mining specialist, sent Piedmont Lithium a 4-page letter on May 30 outlining things that need addressing in the company’s permit application. The company has 180 days to address the issues. If Piedmont Lithium receives a mining permit from the state, the final hurdle will be securing a permit from Gaston County. 

Modern-day gold rush?

The Tin-Spodumene belt is a lithium-rich mineral deposit in western North Carolina that runs southwest to northeast, into Gaston County through farm country. The deposit could play a significant role in the Biden administration’s energy plan, which races to curb CO2 emissions. That includes establishing domestic sources of lithium to support the nation’s expanding electric car fleet. 

Specifically, the Biden administration has set a goal to have 50 percent of car sales to be electric by 2030. To accomplish that goal, the U.S. needs the lithium batteries that power electric cars.

In 2022, the administration pledged $675 million to beef up the nation’s domestic Critical Materials Research Program, according to a release by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

“We can follow through on President Biden’s clean energy commitments and make our nation more secure by increasing our ability to source, process, and manufacture critical materials right here at home,” U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a partial statement.

After a glance around the streets and parking lots of Cherryville Township, one may get the impression that the EV car craze has yet to catch on in the area. NC Health News saw a single Tesla parked nearby when the council voted to grant Piedmont Lithium’s relinquishment request.

Yet, nations and large multinational corporations are scouring the globe for minerals needed to fuel the emerging green economy. One unanswered question is whether rural communities such as Gaston County will help shoulder the nation’s green energy goals without damaging its natural environment or quality of life.  

All in the name of progress.

Emerging partnership

In April, North Carolina Health News reported on Piedmont Lithium’s efforts to establish a mining operation in Gaston County. At that time, Cherryville’s council members elected to postpone a vote on the mining company’s extraterritorial jurisdictional relinquishment request. 

A month later, on May 8, the council voted unanimously to grant the request. Now, the 15 parcels at the center of the request are under the county’s jurisdiction, and Cherryville no longer has any right to regulate what happens on the land. And any taxes from the land will flow to the county, not Cherryville.

Nonetheless, Cherryville will provide water infrastructure, such as water lines and municipal water service, to the mining operation for 20 years. In exchange, Piedmont Lithium proposed to contribute $1 million toward establishing a parks and recreation office and to support “specifically identified parks and recreation projects,” according to the agreement.

In the latest chapter of Piedmont Lithium’s quest to establish a mining operation in Gaston County, Cherryville’s City Council accepted this Community Development Agreement presented by Piedmont Lithium at the May 30 council work session.

After securing the first load of lithium hydroxide from the mining operation, Piedmont Lithium agrees to contribute $500,000 annually to the city of Cherryville for 20 years for a total of $10 million.

Agreement fuels distrust

Despite vocal opposition to establishing an open-pit lithium mine in Gaston County, the Cherryville council has twice cleared hurdles, which helped advance Piedmont Lithium closer to its goal and has increased distrust among locals who opposed the mine.

And in the way of small towns, where everyone knows everyone, people talk. 

Once he reviewed the agreement, Gaston County resident and business owner Brian Harper, in response to the financial details, echoed what many in the area have been saying about the relationship between Piedmont Lithium and the Cherryville City Council.

“You can tell it’s a tit-for-tat thing,” Harper said. “Now we know why they were all in favor [of the ETJ request], threw their hands up, and it passed.”

His suspicions were fueled by the fact that the May 30 meeting where the council accepted Piedmont Lithium’s community agreement was open to the public, but didn’t allow for public comment. 

Harper owns Stine Gear and Machine Co. near Bessemer City, a few miles from the Carpenter’s home. In May, Harper invited NC Health News to his shop to see how the operation works. 

Because his business relies on precise, computer-guided movements by machines to produce made-to-order gears and other products, Harper doesn’t believe it could successfully coexist with a nearby mining operation that uses controlled explosions as part of the open-pit mining process.

“These pretty shiny parts you see here, the tolerance on this bore is to the tenth of a thousandth. That’s one inch divided into 10,000 parts,” he said. “That’s how close those bores have to be. So if you’ve got a machine that’s turning this part, and it jumps, there’s no way to hold those bores. The machines are not meant to run in unstable environments,” Harper said.

Harper has spoken with Piedmont Lithium about his concerns. He said communication stopped once the two parties reached an impasse regarding selecting an independent party to conduct an impact study. 

Another primary concern is a potential drop in the water table in a county where most residents rely on wells for their drinking water. Increased traffic and poor air quality also rank high on the list.

Safety and quality-of-life concerns

During Cherryville’s May 8 City Council meeting,more than 70 people packed the town’s community building to witness the council’s unanimous vote to grant Piedmont Lithium’s Extra Territorial Jurisdiction – or ETJ – request. 

Tension filled the room as stakeholders stepped to the podium and urged the council to vote against the request during the public comment period. 

All eyes were on Dennis Bean, pastor of Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church, which is across the road from the five parcels owned by Piedmont Lithium listed in the relinquishment request. Bean made several points, including reminding the council of the role of zoning.

“We came up with the idea of zoning to protect our property from something being built next to us that would destroy either our quality of living or would destroy the value of our property,” Bean said. 

Bean has been a vocal critic of Piedmont Lithium’s efforts and is concerned that the mining company’s production process will jeopardize the safety of children who attend the church’s on-site childcare program. Before he sat down, Bean urged the council to support the church and deny the relinquishment request.

“I plead with you on behalf of 1,500 members at Anthony Grove Baptist Church that you protect our property, our school that has children in it,” Bean said.

“We have a preschool and a daycare with over 100 children. Would you release the ETJ for them to build a chemical plant across from Cherryville Elementary School? If you wouldn’t, why would you do it at our school?”

The relinquishment gives sole governing authority of the five land parcels (156 acres) to Gaston County instead of splitting it between the county and Cherryville. After the vote, Bean and others gathered in the parking lot and voiced displeasure about the council’s decision.

“From a public hearing standpoint, nobody was in favor of [the ETJ relinquishment],” said Bean. “Nobody.”

Looking for a new way to mine 

In an emailed response to the criticism, Erin Sanders, Piedmont Lithium’s senior vice president of? corporate communications and investor relations, said the community development agreement was in response to a request by the city of Cherryville and its residents to demonstrate how the project would “directly benefit the Cherryville community.” 

“These agreements are becoming more common in industrial projects,” Sanders said. “We will be required to create a development agreement with Gaston County as part of the greater rezoning process; we felt it was only fair to create a separate development agreement that would directly benefit Cherryville.” 

Miller, the state’s mining specialist, said that while community mining agreements don’t always happen, he agrees that they are not uncommon.

In a 2022 report by the Nature Conservancy and the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers looked at the different types of mining extraction procedures and explored the potential environmental impacts of each. One of the takeaways is that communities and organizations should employ a mining method that is the least impactful to the environment, and that the location is a key determinant.

Open-pit mining in Gaston County will require disturbing the environment to build a conveyor system to haul lithium deposits from the extraction site, among other infrastructure needs.

But some industry insiders, including representatives from Piedmont Lithium, argue that procedures and technology have improved to the point that, when done correctly, modern mining is less intrusive than the process used to be.

Well water equals liberty

 Gaston County residents are more suspicious. Mining companies’ track records for environmental stewardship have not been positive in the past, so for many locals, the company’s promises ring hollow.

Piedmont Lithium says the company will use the most up-to-date technology in the mining process, demonstrating its commitment to being good stewards of the land and good neighbors. They also say no significant vibrations from explosive charges will occur during mineral extraction. 

Miller, the state mining specialist, said that no matter the improvements in mining technology and closer public scrutiny, there’s no convincing some who live near proposed mining sites. 

“[NCHN] is at the point in the process where you’re going to watch people throw anything and everything, and hope something sticks.”

But people feel like they have good reason to be incredulous. Will Baldwin, Hugh and Libby Carpenter’s grandson, remembers hearing stories growing up about a local mining operation that was in production when his mother and his aunt were children. His grandparents also commented on how at certain times, on a given day, they could feel the vibrations from an explosive charge used in the mining process. 

A large percentage of Gaston County residents rely on well water for drinking. And although Piedmont says it is prepared to assist homeowners in connecting to the county water supply if needed, the possibility that the water table may diminish due to the mining process is a non-starter for many who opposed the mine, including Baldwin and his grandparents.

The Carpenters have two wells on their property. One is a shallow well, which they use for drinking and cooking, the other is a deeper well that has a high concentration of iron that will stain the laundry and other surfaces, so they only use it for non-cooking purposes, unless required.

Beyond supplying people with needed drinking water, wells also seem to represent a sense of independence, a major theme in the lives of rural folks. Several have said they don’t want to trade their well water for a municipal water line and monthly water bill.

Baldwin said the area cattle, dairy and apple producers, specifically, prefer untreated well water for their production needs. 

“[These farmers] require a particular type of water pressure and water quality,” he said.  “[Because] of the water requirement, it’s not feasible that people are going to be OK  [switching to municipal water] in the long run.” 

The article is the second of two about Piedmont Lithium’s proposed mining operation in Gaston County, NC, that received funding from Kozik Environmental Justice Reporting Grants, funded by the National Press Foundation and the National Press Club Journalism Institute.

The post Lithium mining debate: Can Gaston County embrace green energy without sacrificing rural life? appeared first on North Carolina Health News.