SELC and conservation groups voice concern as N.C. House muddies clean water and moves to undo native brook trout protection in western North Carolina. More details are in the press release.
Learn more about this case »In a loss for N.C. trout, water quality and sportsmen, the N.C. Supreme Court today ruled six to one that a country club golf course’s razing of forested buffer areas along sensitive trout streams and permanent enclosure of a N.C. mountain stream within a pipe was allowed despite a state law requiring “undisturbed” buffers to protect trout streams and water quality, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. More details are in the press release
On March 24, 2010, SELC is defending its victory for trout streams in the North Carolina Supreme Court. The case stems from an appeals court ruling we won last fall, which upheld a state requirement that trout waters be protected by buffers of natural vegetation to prevent sedimentation and to maintain the clean conditions these fish need to thrive.
North Carolina regulators had allowed the Mountain Air resort community in Yancey County to ignore this requirement in piping trout streams and stripping away their forested buffers to make way for a new golf course. Our suit challenged the state’s decision, which set a damaging precedent that put thousands of miles of designated trout streams at risk.
Rather than enforcing the safeguards we restored, the state is challenging our victory in the high court, where we will continue to stand up for some of North Carolina’s most valuable aquatic resources.