68 Organizations call on Secretary Michael S. Regan to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
WASHINGTON – 68 environment, faith, justice, community, and Indigenous groups today called on North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Secretary Michael S. Regan to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), which the groups call a poster child for environmental racism. In a letter sent the day before Regan’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board is expected to provide recommended actions on the ACP, the groups urged Regan to expeditiously exercise his authority to revoke the ACP’s 401 Water Quality Certification under the Clean Water Act, noting the onus falls squarely on DEQ to stop the pipeline.
Donna Chavis, senior fossil fuel campaigner of Friends of the Earth and an elder of the Lumbee Nation, issued the following statement in response:
Secretary Regan can and must revoke the 401-water permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and finally pull the plug on this racist, polluting project. The people of this country will not tolerate another toxic pipeline that poisons the bodies, the land, the air, and the water of Black and Brown communities. Secretary Regan must not allow Native American and African American communities in North Carolina to be sacrificed for fossil fuel industry profits.
Link to the letter here
Communications contact: Aisha Dukule, [email protected], 202-893-3502
Expert contact: Donna Chavis, [email protected]