The Riverkeeper details the damage:

Every hour of every day, the coal ash pits on the bank of the Neuse River are illegally leaking dangerous contamination into the surrounding ground and surface water. In fact, one of the criminal charges against Duke Energy was for “negligently” constructing one of these creek-like discharges that continues to flow into the Neuse from the ash pits at this dump. The Lee site has the highest levels of arsenic contamination of all Duke’s ash dumps in North Carolina.

But yet another continuous source of pollution looms on the banks and tributaries of the Neuse: industrial hog operations, most of which are controlled by foreign corporate interests. Over 500 of the 2,000 industrial hog factories in North Carolina call the Neuse River Basin home. The 10 million hogs that live in our state produce roughly as much waste as 100 million people.

Much like coal ash, hog waste contamination has been a huge problem for decades. We haven't done nearly enough to abate the problem, but it looks like the new "business-friendly" administration of Skvarla and McCrory has dropped the ball entirely:

Conversation #1 from Facebook regarding the 'tax reform' given to us by our NCGA.
More to come!!

~sarcasm warning~ I can't thank our state legislature enough for the wonderful tax cuts that they've been bragging about for the past year (face palm)...Our gross income was $4k less this year....last year our state refund was $541, this year we owe the state $18.....I'm still trying to find that tax cut that they raved about....oh wait!!! I found it.....Art Pope got my tax cut.

Response from Friends:
-We owe $34 to NC. They're not getting it till April 10.

Partisan politics and pseudo-scientific bullshit:

I certainly believe that both the Obama campaign and administration have sought to construct a political narrative that dispenses with inconvenient facts. The campaign narrative was that the U.S. economy was crumbling, broken by Republicans, and in need of being “rebuilt.”

That narrative supported “investments” — progressive-speak for massive federal spending — government takeovers where desired (health care) or needed by unions (autos), and massive deficits.

You're right, I put this diary together backwards, just so you browsers would get a taste of the "expert" that Senator Richard Burr hopes will give his horribly bad legislation a whiff of legitimacy:

Charlotte LGBT ordinance fails 6-5 in contentious meeting (Charlotte Observer) -- After a contentious meeting on Monday, Charlotte City Council voted down the most controversial ordinance it has considered in years, a nondiscrimination proposal that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to protected categories. Some 120 people signed up to speak at the 6 p.m. meeting. By 9:45 p.m., nearly 100 had addressed the council, one at a time, at two minutes each. Prior to the meeting, supporters and opponents sent nearly 40,000 emails to City Council members about the proposal.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article11908907.html