To everyone in North Carolina concerned about our future!

Sign-on Letter

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission is about to carve a loophole in North Carolina environmental law. Approval of a pending rule would create an exception for special interests now and a precedent for more exemptions in the future.

Is there a dry-cleaning business in your community? The dry-cleaning industry and their supporters have drafted a new rule which would leave excessive amounts of toxic solvents in the soil and groundwater, not only at hundreds of commercial dry-cleaning sites but on neighboring property, too. Why? They want to reduce their clean-up costs. We think polluters should abide by existing laws which require groundwater to be safe enough to drink, the highest standard for public health protection.

We can stop the erosion of public health protection and the chipping away of environmental laws. Please add your name and organizational affiliation to our letter to be delivered to the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission, the state's rule-making body. Help us stop a proposed rule change which would allow contaminated dry-cleaning sites to remain polluted.

We want to have as many people as possible sign on before the upcoming meeting of the NC Environmental Management Commission on July 12. So feel free to pass the word. People should sign on by sending their name and address to BREDL@skybest.com. With enough people from enough areas of the state, we can convince the Commission to heed our request. We will hand deliver it to the EMC at 9:00 AM Thursday, July 12, 2007. Sign-on Letter

According to the Dry-cleaning Solvent Cleanup Act Program’s 2006 Annual Report to the General Assembly, the state has identified 225 operating or abandoned dry-cleaning facilities in 46 counties with environmental contamination caused by dry-cleaning solvent. A total of 29 new dry-cleaning solvent releases were reported to in 2005. There are approximately 700 operating retail dry-cleaning establishments in North Carolina today. As many as 1,500 contaminated dry-cleaning sites may exist in North Carolina.

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