UNC Asheville seems poised to develop a 45-acre forested tract in North Asheville into university amenities and housing. A grassroots movement has emerged to fight the proposal, such as Save the Woods, which has 3,000 members on Facebook.  Save the Woods via social media

The university indicates development of 45-acre wooded property is pending as community rallies 

Noah Poulos is a farmer, writer, educator and UNC Asheville graduate who lives in Western North Carolina.

ASHEVILLE — Many have come to know a small forest in North Asheville as an extension of their home.

In these humble woods of the Experimental Forest, near a botanical park and U.S. Forest Service research station, pileated woodpeckers peck vigorously in the canopy. Towering pines dapple the light on the forest floor as day turns to dusk.

It is a place that has become a mainstay of this community and people are deeply connected to it — through stories, memories, relationships and a deep appreciation for what a small woodland can offer.

This forest, while open to the public, is owned by UNC Asheville, which recently shared plans to develop it for additional campus amenities. 

Opposition has arisen to the university’s development plans, especially since a statement from the institution that strongly implies development will proceed as part of an overall expansion and revenue plan. 

Trichloroethylene is among the chemicals deemed a serious public health risk by way of the Environmental Protection Agency’s IRIS database. Legislation in Congress could bar the use of IRIS and its associated scientific methods from being used to calculate the environmental and human health risks of chemicals such as TCE, a proven carcinogen.  ChemLibrarian/Wikipedia Commons

Two bills in Congress would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using hundreds of chemical assessments completed by its IRIS program in environmental regulations or enforcement.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For decades, Republican lawmakers and industry lobbyists have tried to chip away at the small program in the Environmental Protection Agency that measures the threat of toxic chemicals.

Most people don’t know IRIS, as the program is called, but it is the scientific engine of the agency that protects human health and the environment. Its scientists assess the toxicity of chemicals, estimating the amount of each that triggers cancer and other health effects. And these values serve as the independent, nonpartisan basis for the rules, regulations and permits that limit our exposure to toxic chemicals.

Now IRIS faces the gravest threat to its existence since it was created under President Ronald Reagan four decades ago.

Legislation introduced in Congress would prohibit the EPA from using any of IRIS’ hundreds of chemical assessments in environmental rules, regulations, enforcement actions and permits that limit the amount of pollution allowed into air and water. The EPA would also be forbidden from using them to map the health risks from toxic chemicals. The bills, filed in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives earlier this year, are championed by companies that make and use chemicals, along with industry groups that have long opposed environmental rules. If it becomes law, the “No IRIS Act,” as it’s called, would essentially bar the agency from carrying out its mission, experts told ProPublica.

“They’re trying to undermine the foundations for doing any kind of regulation,” said William Boyd, a professor at UCLA School of Law who specializes in environmental law. Boyd noted that IRIS reports on chemicals’ toxicity are the first step in the long process of creating legal protections from toxic pollutants in air and water.

“If you get rid of step one, you’re totally in the dark,” he said.

If the act passes, companies could even use the law to fight the enforcement of environmental rules that have long been on the books or permits that limit their toxic emissions, environmental lawyers said.

Campers are seen enjoying a morning at Elkmont Campground in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  National Park Service

Warnings mount that Great Smoky Mountains National Park cuts will negatively affect visitors; reports of cuts at Big South Fork

GATLINBURG — If federal cuts were a color, in this case they’d be Smoky gray.

Fans and supporters of Great Smoky Mountains National Park have struggled to assess the effects of firings on the most-visited national park in the nation since the Trump administration terminated thousands of federal workers in mid-February.

(Three workers were also terminated from Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, according to a shared spreadsheet seen March 5. Hellbender Press has not verified its authenticity, but it tracks with other sources).

Executive Director of the Association of National Park Rangers Bill Wade estimated 12 employees were fired in the Smokies.

(The spreadsheet referenced above also lists 12 terminations at the Smokies).

An anonymous source with knowledge of the firings estimated 15. Exact numbers were not available from the National Park Service, and it’s unclear what types of positions were eliminated.

“The numbers we’ve received are from employees in the parks or others who have contacts with employees in the parks, and they are not verified by the National Park Service,” said Wade. “NPS won’t respond to inquiries for specific information, so we report on the information we have, qualifying it as unverified, but we are generally comfortable with the numbers as being representative of what we know and how we got it.”

U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.; U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright; Rep. Chuck Fleischmann; R-Chattanooga; and Open AI CEO Greg Brockman spoke with the press during a tour of Oak Ridge-area nuclear facilities.  Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press

Visit by energy secretary doesn’t address program cuts as former fracking CEO downplays climate change threat; visit comes following diversity program cuts; full extent of Oak Ridge impacts still unknown

Hellbender Press typically avoids the use of anonymous sources. The sources in this story spoke on condition they not be identified so they could speak on a sensitive matter.

This story will be updated. The original stories continue below.

OAK RIDGE — U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright denied that climate change was a “crisis” and downplayed its threat during a visit to an international hub of scientific expertise rattled by early actions of the second Trump Administration. His visit did little to allay fears of cuts to staff and programs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where the most concrete signs of change have been the dismantling of diversity efforts.

Wright visited ORNL on Feb. 28, and at a press conference defended the Trump administration’s actions on climate change, energy sources and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a group headed by Elon Musk that has recommended cutting programs and staff in various government departments.

He did not announce any layoffs at the lab itself, however, and implied research related to climate there will continue. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is home to many kinds of related research, including at the Climate Change Science Institute. CCSI does modeling and gathers data on the climate, as well as working on solutions to the problem.

Wright promoted research on artificial intelligence, which he called “Manhattan Project II,” and nuclear energy, and he appeared alongside Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Rep. Chuck Fleischmann R-Chattanooga and Open AI CEO Greg Brockman, who also spoke and answered questions. 

“I don’t think you’ll see any reduction in the science that we do regarding climate change or any of these other really big questions,” said Wright in response to a reporter’s questions about how cuts at the lab might affect climate change-related research at ORNL, which his department funds through a partnership with contractor Battelle and the University of Tennessee. He said, however, he still “100 percent” believed there was no climate “crisis” and said scientific reports backed up his view. 

“We haven’t seen an increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, floods, droughts, storms. Wildfires are on an uptick because we stopped managing our forests,” he said. “Deaths from extreme weather, which is what you hear the press and politicians’ fearmongering about, it declined over 90 percent in my lifetime as the population’s grown. So climate change is a real phenomenon. It’s just not even remotely close to the world’s biggest problem.” He also said an intergovernmental climate change report also showed economists saying climate change was not as important as issues like education, free trade and “empowerment.”

These claims are a mixed bag of truth. While the frequency of hurricanes hitting the United States, for example, hasn’t increased, a recent Columbia University study showed the tropical cyclones’ intensity for the East and Gulf Coasts has. Also unmentioned by Wright was any impact the climate has on disease or health conditions apart from extreme weather, a subject on which experts at Tennessee’s own Vanderbilt University have sounded the alarm.

Wright was CEO of a hydraulic fracking company, Liberty Energy, before his appointment.

“It’s a real thing, but nothing in the science of climate change or in the economics of climate change shows it to be the world’s biggest problem,” Wright said. “When you call something a crisis, it means we don’t have time to stop and think. We’ve just got to take action. That’s exactly the opposite of what climate science is.”

During the meeting, he also defended Musk, DOGE and Trump’s actions generally while not announcing any such cuts for the civilian research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory or the weapons maintenance at Y-12, which is managed by a different contractor. A reporter at the event mentioned an earlier instance in which workers at Y-12 National Security Complex received termination letters that were then rescinded. While the reporter asked him to offer reassurance on job security, he sidestepped that question.

A student farm leader takes care  of pigs at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa. Most of the college’s pigs were recovered following fatal flooding from the Swannanoa River on Sept. 28, 2024.  Warren Wilson College

Collective action helps alleviate climate anxiety in wake of Hurricane Helene

This story was originally published by The Revelator.  

Mallory McDuff teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College.

SWANNANOA, N.C. — “We need 10 people on flush crew, five to clean out the fridges in the science building, and 15 to clear trees on the roads! We’re gonna do this together!”

This wasn’t a pep rally or a community service event. It was the morning meeting called at 9:30 a.m. each day by campus leaders in front of the cafeteria at the small college where I lived without power or water, after the climate disaster of Hurricane Helene devastated our community in Western North Carolina.

“We know the Swannanoa Valley has been hit especially hard,” the college president told the group of students and employees. “And we are here for this college and for the greater community. This is our work together.”

That day I joined my neighbor Tom Lam chain-sawing his way across campus with a crew of students clearing brush along the way.

“Now gather ‘round so you can see how to sharpen this chainsaw,” Tom said in his booming Jersey voice, pulling on his suspenders after we’d cleared trees that crushed a neighbor’s car.

I’ve spent 25 years teaching environmental education, raising two daughters, and living at this 1,000-acre campus where all students work in jobs in places like the farm, garden, forests, and even fiber arts. And I think this might be one model of how to live in community in a climate emergency.