Special Reports

  • Navassa: From Guano to Creosote

    A black industrial town in an agricultural and tourist county, Navassa is the “poster child” for environmental justice issues, says an advocate.

  • Navassa: A Century of Contamination

    CRO spends the next three days in Navassa, a predominantly black town in Brunswick County that has been the site of a century of industrial pollution. Today, we relive some of that history and outline the plan for the cleanup.

  • Will Beach Towns Seize Property?

    Town officials hoping to build terminal groins say they don’t plan on taking private property for the needed easements. Eminent domain is politically unpopular and rarely used in North Carolina.

  • Terminal Groins: Easements Needed

    Communities proposing terminal groins may have to get the permission of property owners to build these controversial structures. What happens if they say no? We explore possible answers in this Special Report.

  • Seismic Testing Q&A: Whales and Fishermen

    The second part of our series on using air guns to survey for undersea oil and natural gas focuses on the possible effects on marine mammals, fish and commercial and recreation fishermen.

  • Seismic Testing Q&A: The Pros and Cons

    We spend the next two days exploring the proposed benefits and possible problems with using air guns to explore for oil and natural gas off the N.C. coast. Today, the pros.

  • Critics: Shoreline Permits Need Reform

    In most cases, permits for bulkheads are pretty easy to come by in North Carolina. Federal and state regulators approve most with little review. Permits for living shorelines projects, however, can take months. That may be changing.

  • Living Shorelines: Better Than Bulkheads

    In this the first of three parts, we explore the building evidence that more natural methods of controlling erosion called living shorelines are better for the environment and perhaps lighter on property owners’ pocketbooks than bulkheads.

  • Groundwater: Gauging the Titan Effect

    In the last of our three-part series, we look at the proposed Titan America cement plant near Wilmington and its potential threat to the area’s groundwater supply.

  • Researchers Focus on Groundwater

    A number of recent and ongoing studies are helping to provide better understanding of the region’s groundwater resources, including a federal effort to create a national water census.