Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into North Carolina's environmental agency following a massive coal ash spill on the Dan River.
The U.S. Attorney's Office issued a grand jury subpoena requesting records from the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. They include emails, memos and reports from 2010 through the Feb. 2 spill.
...The order commands the state environmental agency's chief lawyer to appear next month before the grand jury in Raleigh. Agency spokesman Drew Elliot says the state will cooperate with the federal investigators.
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The plot sickens
Once they start looking into this, the trail of collusion and corruption will run straight to Pat McCrory's desk. John Skvarla is only a bit player in the grand scheme.
James Protzman
Aw, C'Mon Man!
We was only doin' a current study. McCrony was out there in waders, spreading the ash himself!
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"Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance; it's what makes America great!" - Frank Zappa (6/29/1988)
Pat refused to clean up his mess
so the feds will have to do it for him.
It's readily apparent that there's incompetence and cronyism at both DHHS and DENR, yet Pat continues to insist from Alternate Realityville that everything's great and his appointees are top-notch.
Now the feds are coming down on (drum roll please!) DHHS and DENR.
How's that denial workin' for ya now, Pat?
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"I will have a priority on building relationships with the minority caucus. I want to put substance behind those campaign speeches." -- Thom Tillis, Nov. 5, 2014
Suggestion for Blue NC sidebar
Now may be the time to create a couple of special sections on the sidebar of BlueNC's pages. "Scandal Watch" to list investigations currently under way by the Feds or other authorities of NC officials and "Court Watch", featuring a list of all the cases winding through the courts against TeaBagger legislation. Each could be linked to one of the Blue NC posts about the item.
These things keep popping up - it might be a good idea to keep them "up front" in people's minds as we head towards the mid-term elections.
Yeah, James has put several
linked symbols over there in the past, so he can probably cook something up. I, on the other hand, am less than useless when it comes to IT stuff. Basically, I'm the "eye candy" of the site. :)
Ask and ye shall receive
Need to be adding "Litigation" into tags for posts that are focused on ... ummm ... litigation.
James Protzman
Awesome!
You do have some mad skills, mon frer.
Actual lists
I was thinking more of actual lists, similar to the "Second front" or "NC blogs" boxes. Seeing the cases or investigations in a simple list would be handy, since some will have been in progress for quite a while and easy to forget.
Can you build the list?
And the links associated with the list?
I'm guilty of wanting to let the Google work for me, but it's not a great fit for this application.
What you're asking for would require be an itemized listing of litigation, with a link to something that explained the nature of the litigation. A simple list without links wouldn't likely be very effective ... or would it?
We can certainly make it a sidebar element if we have the content to fill it out.
(Things in blogging are almost always harder to do than we would like.)
James Protzman
Start of a list
We might have to make this a collective effort. The court cases I can think of off of the top of my head are:
-NC doctors - NC Medicaid billing system
-NCAE and NC Justice Center - NC school voucher program
-NC ACLU - NC voter suppression law
-NC NAACP - NC voter suppresion law
-Guilford School Board - NC elimination of teacher tenure
-US DOJ - NC voter suppression law
-NC ACLU - Amendment One
-US Attorney's Office investigation - NC DENR and Duke Energy coal ash spill
Others might suggest better wording, format or links.
Oh, that's just great
With the number of scandals and court cases, James is going to fill up the Internet! :-)
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"I will have a priority on building relationships with the minority caucus. I want to put substance behind those campaign speeches." -- Thom Tillis, Nov. 5, 2014
Good suggestion
I, for one, believe Teddy has a good suggestion. James seems to be more than capable and now it seems also willing to do this. I can see it offering we local people things we can show as to how our opposition thinks and is involved in even if our actual candidate-of-interest has nothing to do with it.
I see it as a positive here.
The scandal gets worse
WRAL is reporting on their front page this evening in a breaking news alert:
List theft of Municipal Assets!
don't forget to add the legislated theft of Charlotte's Airport and Asheville's Water System, both in court, to that list
Featured on Maddow
The fed investigation was reported -- quite well -- by Rachel Maddow on Thursday. Her guest, who is knowledgeable about such matters, made it pretty clear that this is unusually rapid, severe and serious as compared to most federal environmental investigations.
Of course Deputy Assistant Guvnor Pat said his administration would fully cooperate with the investigation, but when asked a follow-up question about whether that meant that administration officials would happily testify, he mumbled something ("Mr. Pope won't like this"?) and looked at the ground and shuffled away.
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"I will have a priority on building relationships with the minority caucus. I want to put substance behind those campaign speeches." -- Thom Tillis, Nov. 5, 2014
Link to Maddow segment
Raw Story has the Maddow segment at their site.
According to WRAL, both the McCrory administration and Duke Energy got subpoenas from the Feds. WRAL obtained the subpoena for the DENR because it is a public record. Duke Energy confirmed they received a subpoena but would not release it.
You have to wonder why this investigation dropped so rapidly - this hints at a whistleblower or some other evidence that might have gotten the ball rolling on this thing.
Environmental groups offer reward for info on coal ash spill
The Asheville Citizen-Times yesterday reported that the Waterkeeper Alliance and Yadkin Riverkeeper have offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to criminal or civil charges related to the Duke Energy coal ash spill.